TAMPA, Fla. — The pucks drops tonight on another Tampa Bay Lightning hockey season.

After coming up just short of a third straight Stanley Cup title last summer, the slightly revamped Lightning begin another title quest tonight at the New York Rangers.

It's a rematch of last year's Eastern Conference final.

The Bolts open this year on the road, facing Columbus and Pittsburgh Friday and Saturday before returning to Tampa for their home opener Oct. 18 against Philadelphia.

As for this year’s lineup, the Lightning are returning their core minus a few familiar names.

Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov are all back, along with defensemen Mikhail Sergachev and Victor Hedman.

And goalkeeper Andrei Vasilevskiy is widely considered the best in the world.

Also, Ondrej Palat has departed but former Lightning Vlad Namestnikov is back.

After winning NHL championships in 2020 and ’21 and reaching the final last season before losing to Colorado, the Lightning made a difficult choice to part with a key part of the core, veteran defenseman Ryan McDonagh, to maintain flexibility, re-sign younger players and remain one of the NHL’s best teams

“I think that extends our window of being a Stanley Cup contender,” GM Julien BriseBois said. “It allows us to make sure we can make sure we extend it beyond one season.”

Lightning suspend Cole

The Tampa Bay Lightning suspended defenseman Ian Cole pending an investigation into allegations made on social media that he sexually abused a woman when she was a minor.

The Lightning said Sunday night they were fully cooperating with the NHL on an investigation and were making the decision to suspend Cole until they gather more details. It’s the latest off-ice scandal to rock hockey and bring the sport’s culture into question.

“Our organization takes these allegations very seriously,” the team said in a statement. “No members of the organization, including players, will comment further at this time.”

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.