When Tampa was awarded an NHL franchise in 1991, the team's management brought in star power before they had any players. They hired 1970s Boston Bruins star Phil Esposito as president and general manager, his brother Tony, a legendary goaltender, as chief scout and Terry Crisp, who played for the Philadelphia Flyers when they won two Stanley Cups in the mid-1970s, and coached the Calgary Flames to a Stanley Cup in 1989, to stand behind the bench.

A St. Petersburg group was reportedly better-financed and only lost out because Esposito was the "face" of the Tampa-based group that originally won the team. In an ominous sign of things to come, Esposito's American partners backed out, and he had to recruit a consortium of Japanese businesses headed by golf course owner Kokusai Green in order to keep the team.

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Esposito initially attempted to recreate the mystique from the powerhouse Bruins of the 70s; he hired former linemate Wayne Cashman as an assistant coach, former Bruin trainer John "Frosty" Forristal as the team's trainer, and the inaugural team photo has him flanked by Cashman and player Ken Hodge, Jr., son of his other Bruins' linemate. The team turned heads in the preseason when Manon Rheaume became the first woman to play in an NHL game of any kind. However, she would never take the ice for a regular season game.

The Lightning first took the ice on October 7, 1992, playing in Tampa's tiny 11,000-seat Expo Hall. They shocked the visiting Chicago Blackhawks 7-3 with four goals by little-known Chris Kontos --a scoring mark as yet unmatched by any Lightning player. The Lightning shot to the top of the Norris Division within a month, behind Kontos' initial torrid scoring pace and a breakout season by forward Brian Bradley, before faltering to finish in last place. Their 53 points in 1992-93, however, was one of the best showings ever by an NHL expansion team, and Bradley's 42 goals gave Tampa Bay fans optimism for the next season.

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In their fourth season, 1995-96, with Bradley still leading the team in scoring, second-year Alexander Selivanov scoring 31 goals, and Roman Hamrlik (the team's first-ever draft choice in 1992) having an all-star year on defense, they made the playoffs for the first time, nosing out the defending champion New Jersey Devils for the 8th spot in the East. Although they lost their first round series in six games to the Philadelphia Flyers, it still remains a magical season for Lightning fans (and the attendance of 28,183 on April 23 was the most for any NHL game until the Heritage Classic — a game played outdoors in Edmonton in 2003).

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The Lightning picked up sniper Dino Ciccarelli from the Detroit Red Wings that off-season, and he would not disappoint, scoring 35 goals (in addition to 30 from Chris Gratton). The team would open 1996-97 in a glittering new arena, the Ice Palace (now the St. Pete Times Forum) and appeared destined for another playoff spot. Then the injury bug bit the Lightning. Puppa developed back trouble that would limit him to total of 50 games from 1996 until retiring midway in the 1999-2000 season. Bradley lost significant time as well due to injury, and played only 49 games in the next three seasons before retiring. Center John Cullen came down with cancer. Cullen survived, but the Lightning would barely miss the playoffs. It would be six years before the Lightning came close to contending again.

Most of the Lightning's stars from those first few seasons would be gone by 1998 due to free agency and questionable trades by Esposito, and most of the young guns they picked up would fail to materialize. The Lightning quickly became the laughingstock of the NHL. Crisp was fired eleven games into the 1997-98 season and eventually replaced by Jacques Demers. The Lightning went on to lose 55 (of 82) games in 1997-98, 54 in 1998-99, 58 in 1999-2000 and 53 in 2000-01, becoming the first NHL team to post four straight 50-loss seasons. At the same time, the Senators squeezed into the playoffs in 1997 for the first time and have remained a contender ever since.

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Finally, in 1998, after losing more than $100 million in six years, Kokusai Green finally found a buyer in insurance tycoon and motivational speaker Art Williams. Like the Japanese, he knew very little about hockey. However, he was very visible and outspoken, and pumped an additional $6 million into the team's payroll to turn it around. He wasted little time clearing away the considerable debt he'd inherited from Kokusai Green. He publicly assured the Espositos that they were safe, but fired them two games into the 1998-99 season. Demers became general manager as well as coach. Williams was widely seen as being in over his head and was an easy target for his NHL colleagues, who called him "Jed Clampett" because of his thick Southern accent and fundamentalist Christian views (he neither smoked nor drank and frequently used terms like "goldangit" and "dadgummit"). Early in the season, the Lightning lost 10 games in a row that effectively ended their season. Some blame Williams for the slide. He named rookie Vincent Lecavalier as team captain--the first known instance in years that a rookie has had this important task. Also, before the first game in the losing streak, against the New York Rangers, he decided to give a pep talk to the team loaded with college football slang and bizarre catchphrases. The Lightning were shelled 10-2.

 

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By the spring of 1999, Williams had seen enough. He hadn't attended a game in some time because "this team broke my heart." He lost $20 million in the 1998-99 season--as much money in one year as he'd estimated he could have reasonably lost in five years.

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Williams sold the team for $115 million--$2 million less than he'd paid for the team a year earlier--to Detroit Pistons owner Bill Davidson, who also owned the Detroit Vipers of the International Hockey League. Davidson had been one of the bidders for the team in 1998, losing to Williams. Davidson appointed Tom Wilson as team president to handle day-to-day management of the team. Wilson fired Demers, who despite his best efforts was unable to overcome the damage from the Kokusai Green ownership. Wilson persuaded Ottawa Senators general manager Rick Dudley to take over hockey operations in Tampa. Dudley brought Vipers coach Steve Ludzik in as the Lightning's new coach.

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Dudley and Ludzik had helped make the Vipers one of the premier minor league hockey franchises, and they'd won a Turner Cup in only their third season in Detroit (the team had originally been in Salt Lake City). However, as had been the case with Demers, the damage from the last few seasons under Kokusai Green was too much for Ludzik to overcome, even with a wholesale transfer of talent from Detroit to Tampa (a move that eventually doomed the Vipers, who folded along with the IHL in 2001). He was replaced in early 2001 by career NHL assistant John Tortorella. The 2001-02 season, Tortorella's first full year, saw some improvement. While finishing far out of playoff contention, the Lightning at least showed some signs of life, earning more than 60 points for the first time since 1997.

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