One of the Esposito group's key backers, the Pritzker family, backed out a few months before the bid, to be replaced by a consortium of Japanese businesses headed by Kokusai Green, a golf course and resort operator.

In 1991, Angus Montagu, 12th Duke of Manchester announced that a company of which he was a director would raise millions of dollars in investments in the Lightning, but his plans were unsuccessful and he was later convicted of wire fraud.

The team rose to the top of the Campbell Conference's Norris Division within a month, behind Kontos' initial torrid scoring pace and a breakout season by forward Brian Bradley.

The following season saw the Lightning shift to the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division, as well as move into the Florida Suncoast Dome (a building originally designed for baseball) in St. Petersburg, which was reconfigured for hockey and renamed the "ThunderDome.

Though Demers had presided over the resurgence of the Detroit Red Wings in the 1980s and helmed a Stanley Cup run with the Montreal Canadiens in 1993, he was unable to change the team's fortunes and the Lightning ended up losing 55 games.

Even though the Ice Palace was built for hockey and the Lightning were the only major tenant, Forbes called the team's deal with the arena a lemon since it would not result in much revenue for 30 years.

Wilson, Dudley and Ludzik had helped make the Vipers one of the premier minor league hockey franchises, having won a Turner Cup in only their third season in Detroit (the team had originally been based in Salt Lake City).

Even with a wholesale transfer of talent from Detroit to Tampa (a move that eventually doomed the Vipers, which folded along with the IHL in 2001), the Lightning lost 54 games in 1999–2000 and 52 in 2000–01, becoming the first team in NHL history to post four straight 50-loss seasons.

The March 5 trade deadline offered another glimmer of hope when the team acquired hold-out goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin from the Phoenix Coyotes for three players and a draft pick.

With a young core of players led by Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Martin St. Louis and Fredrik Modin, the Lightning were thought to be very close to respectability.

The Lightning were busy during the final weeks before the NHL's trade deadline, acquiring wingers Kyle Wanvig, Stephen Baby and defenseman Shane O'Brien.

Following their playoff exit, on August 7, 2007, Absolute Hockey Enterprises, a group led by Doug MacLean, announced it had signed a purchase agreement for the team and the leasehold on the St. Pete Times Forum.

On February 13, 2008, it was announced that Palace Sports & Entertainment had agreed to sell the Lightning to OK Hockey LLC, a group headed by Oren Koules, a producer of the Saw horror movies, and Len Barrie, a former NHL player and real estate developer.

They would use their first overall pick to select Steven Stamkos of the Ontario Hockey League's Sarnia Sting who, like Lecavalier before, was expected to become a franchise cornerstone player for years to come.

In the fallout from the trade, Boyle would call Lightning ownership "liars"[32] for misrepresenting the aforementioned events to the public, while former coach Tortorella later labeled them as "cowboys" and said he had zero respect for them.

[33] Frustrated at interference in the team's hockey operations by Barrie and Koules, seven days later, Jay Feaster resigned as general manager, despite having three years remaining on his contract.

On March 4, veterans Mark Recchi and Olaf Kolzig were traded by the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs, respectively.

Following the late-season collapse, Vinik cleaned house, firing both head coach Rick Tocchet and general manager Brian Lawton on April 12, 2010, one day after the season ended.

With the sixth pick of the 2010 NHL entry draft, the Lightning selected forward Brett Connolly despite a history of injuries while playing for the Western Hockey League (WHL)'s Prince George Cougars.

On July 19, in another move with the Flyers organization, the Lightning traded defenseman Matt Walker and Tampa Bay's fourth-round pick in 2011 for high-scoring winger Simon Gagne.

Tampa Bay won the sixth game of the series to eliminate the Canadiens and advance to the conference finals for the first time since 2011, facing the Presidents' Trophy-winning New York Rangers.

The season was filled with controversy for the team, starting off with the contractual questions regarding captain Steven Stamkos and with the former third overall pick Jonathan Drouin publicly requesting a trade and being suspended from the organization.

In game 1 at Consol Energy Center, star goaltender Ben Bishop would be added to the list of devastating injuries for the team as he left on a stretcher and did not return for the remainder of the series.

[56] Towards the end of the season, they traded goaltender Ben Bishop to the Los Angeles Kings, center Brian Boyle to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and forward Valtteri Filppula to the Philadelphia Flyers.

However, there were positive signs as winger Nikita Kucherov emerged with 40 goals for the first time in his career and the Lightning also showcased their young talent with rookie Brayden Point and promising AHL call-ups Yanni Gourde and Jake Dotchin.

In the 2017 off-season, the Lightning made a deal with the Montreal Canadiens to send Jonathan Drouin to their franchise in exchange for defensive prospect Mikhail Sergachev and a second-round pick in the 2018 NHL entry draft.

[64] Defenseman Daniel Girardi went unsigned over the summer and eventually announced his retirement from playing hockey effective immediately after his two-year contract he signed in 2017 expired.

By virtue of having one of the top four highest point percentages at the time the season was suspended, the Lightning not only qualified for the playoffs, but would first compete in a single round-robin opening round group with the Boston Bruins, Washington Capitals, and Philadelphia Flyers to determine seeding.

[77][78][79] Due to COVID-19, the league moved the Lightning to the Central Division, where they would compete with the Blackhawks, Blue Jackets, Hurricanes, Panthers, Predators, Red Wings, and Stars for the 2020–21 season.

[88] In the 2023–24 season, the Lightning finished in fourth place in the Atlantic Division and the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference, and qualified for the 2024 playoffs as the first wild card, but were eliminated by their in–state rivals and eventual Stanley Cup champions, the Florida Panthers, in five games in the first round.