Tampa Bay Lightning lose important veteran scorer for start of 2026-27 season

Tampa Bay is heading into training camp with a hole in its bottom six, and it is not a small one.

General manager Julien BriseBois confirmed before camp that Yanni Gourde will be sidelined until December following offseason hip surgery, which puts him on track to miss at least the first 26 regular season games.

For a Lightning team that leans heavily on depth scoring and penalty killing from its lower lines, that is a real dent to work around right out of the gate.

Gourde has been one of the more dependable pieces of this roster over the last several years, even if the flashy point totals from earlier in his career are long gone.

Last season he put up nine goals and 28 points across 82 games, chipped in 115 hits, and finished tenth in Selke Trophy voting for his defensive work down the middle.

Losing that kind of two way reliability for two months is not something you simply plug and play around.

Adding to the frustration, forward Dominic James broke his hand during offseason training and will also miss a few weeks once the season starts.

James looked promising as a rookie, winning more than half his faceoffs while starting nearly 60 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone, so his absence stings too, even if it is shorter term.

Tampa Bay has plenty of recent experience navigating a banged up lineup.

Last season the blue line took a beating with injuries all year, yet the Lightning still finished second in the Atlantic Division and third in the entire Eastern Conference.

Depth and coaching have carried this group through worse, and BriseBois will be counting on that same formula again while Gourde works his way back toward game shape sometime around the holidays.

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