Tampa Bay Lightning Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Tampa Bay Lightning trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Tampa Bay Lightning trivia quiz starts with the Esposito brothers outbidding a St. Petersburg group by paying the full $50 million up front, Manon Rhéaume's preseason start, Chris Kontos's four goals at Expo Hall, the ThunderDome crowd of 28,183 and the shadowy Kokusai Green era. It moves through Art Williams and Bill Davidson, the four straight 50-loss seasons, John Tortorella, Khabibulin, Richards and St. Louis and the 2004 Cup, the Saw producer who bought the team, 'Seen Stamkos?', Steve Yzerman, Jon Cooper's arrival, the 62-win Presidents' Trophy team that got swept, the bubble Cup of 2020, the repeat in 2021, Kucherov's 128 points and Stamkos leaving for Nashville. The arena, colours and mascot get their own round: the Ice Palace's many names, the 'Bolts' nickname, the Tesla coils, ThunderBug and the Lightning Capital of North America. Easy questions suit any Bolts fan; the hard ones are for people who remember Takashi Okubo. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Lightning were founded as an expansion team in 1990 by a group fronted by which brothers?
Phil and Tony Esposito
Phil and Tony Esposito. Phil later admitted he did not have the $50 million expansion fee when he made his pitch; overseas investors he had only just met put up most of it.
Q 02Which Lightning goaltender won the 2019 Vezina Trophy?
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Andrei Vasilevskiy. He led the league with 39 wins even though a broken foot cost him a month of the season, and two years later he was voted playoff MVP as the Lightning won a second straight Cup.
Q 03Who became the first woman in a major pro sports league by tending goal for Tampa Bay in a 1992 preseason game?
Manon Rhéaume
Manon Rhéaume. The 20-year-old from Quebec played one period and stopped seven of nine shots; the general manager had invited her to camp partly to get Floridians talking about hockey.
Q 04The Lightning's first regular-season game, in October 1992, was played at which venue?
Expo Hall at the state fairgrounds
Expo Hall at the state fairgrounds. With no arena ready, the club leased what one executive called a livestock pavilion, fitted it with about 10,000 seats and stayed a single season.
Q 05Which player scored four goals in the Lightning's first-ever game?
Chris Kontos
Chris Kontos. The journeyman scored four times in the 7-3 opening win and finished with 27 goals, yet that season was his last in the NHL; a year later he was winning Olympic silver for Canada.
Q 06From 1993 to 1996 the Lightning played in a St. Petersburg baseball dome renamed what?
ThunderDome
ThunderDome. The Florida Suncoast Dome had been built for a baseball team that had not yet arrived, and it took its present name, Tropicana Field, only after the Lightning left.
Q 07A 1996 Lightning-Flyers game in St. Petersburg drew 28,183 fans, a record crowd for what?
An NHL playoff game
An NHL playoff game. The rink was partitioned off inside a dome built for a baseball team that had not yet arrived, which is how 28,183 could get in for Game 4 of the first-round series.
Q 08The Lightning's first majority owner was a golf-resort company based in which country?
Japan
Japan. The firm was Kokusai Green of Tokyo, whose chairman, Takashi Okubo, went seven years as owner without once watching the team play; early in 1998 he had still never been to Florida.
Q 09Which insurance tycoon bought the Lightning in 1998, then sold at a loss a year later?
Art Williams
Art Williams. The Primerica founder paid about $117 million in 1998, lost some $20 million in his only season, and sold the club within a year for less than he had paid.
Q 10The Lightning drafted which centre first overall in 1998?
Vincent Lecavalier
Vincent Lecavalier. The club's new owner, who admitted he did not know hockey, announced that the 18-year-old would be 'the Michael Jordan of hockey'; he led the league with 52 goals in 2006-07.
Q 11The Lightning hosted the 1999 NHL All-Star Game, the last for which legend, who retired that spring?
Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky. He announced his retirement that April, less than three months after the game in Tampa, and the NHL then retired his number 99 for every club in the league.
Q 12Which goaltender did the Lightning get from Phoenix in 2001, backstopping them to the 2004 Cup?
Nikolai Khabibulin
Nikolai Khabibulin. 'The Bulin Wall' had sat out a whole NHL season in a contract dispute with Phoenix before the March 2001 trade; three years later he posted five shutouts in the Cup run.
Q 13The Lightning beat which team in seven games to win the 2004 Stanley Cup?
Calgary Flames
Q 21Which Red Wings legend became the Lightning's general manager in May 2010?
Steve Yzerman
Steve Yzerman: the longtime Red Wings captain was hired in May 2010, brought in coach Guy Boucher, and saw the club reach the 2011 Eastern Conference Final in his first season.
Q 22With the second overall pick in 2009 the Lightning selected which Swedish defenceman?
Victor Hedman
Victor Hedman. Taken one pick after John Tavares, he became the backbone of two Cup teams: his double-overtime goal knocked out Boston in 2020, and he was voted that year's playoff MVP.
Q 23Jon Cooper was hired as Lightning coach in March 2013 from which AHL club?
Syracuse Crunch
Calgary Flames: Ruslan Fedotenko scored both goals in the 2-1 Game 7 win on June 7, 2004, giving Tampa Bay its first Stanley Cup.
Q 14Which Lightning player won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2004 with 26 playoff points?
Brad Richards
Brad Richards. Seven of his 12 playoff goals were game-winners, a record; Tampa Bay traded him away in 2008, and in 2015 he won a second Cup by beating the Lightning in the Final.
Q 15Which undrafted Lightning winger won the Hart Trophy and Art Ross with 94 points in 2003-04?
Martin St. Louis
Martin St. Louis. His first NHL club had let him go in 2000 after two part seasons; Tampa Bay signed him, and four years later he was the league's leading scorer and its most valuable player.
Q 16Which coach won the 2004 Jack Adams Award with Tampa Bay and later called its owners 'cowboys'?
John Tortorella
John Tortorella. He had coached Tampa Bay for seven years and to its first Cup, but he was let go in 2008 after a 30th-place finish and said of the incoming owners that he had zero respect for them.
Q 17The Lightning were bought in 2008 by a group headed by a producer of which horror film franchise?
Saw
Saw. Oren Koules, whose company made the films, bought the club with former player Len Barrie in June 2008; less than two years later they sold it for about $30 million less than they had paid.
Q 18The Lightning's 2008 promotional campaign around their first overall pick used what slogan?
Seen Stamkos?
Seen Stamkos? The multiplatform campaign introduced the 18-year-old centre to the region around the 2008 draft, and he repaid the hype in his second season with 51 goals, a share of the league lead.
Q 19Who last had a 60-goal season before the Lightning's Steven Stamkos in 2011-12?
Alexander Ovechkin
Alexander Ovechkin, with 65 in 2007-08. Stamkos got his 60th on the last day of the season, and it won him a second Rocket Richard Trophy as the league's top goal-scorer.
Q 20Which Boston investor bought the Lightning during the 2009-10 season?
Jeff Vinik
Jeff Vinik. The Boston hedge-fund manager, formerly of Fidelity's Magellan fund, agreed to buy the team in February 2010 and fired coach Rick Tocchet and GM Brian Lawton the day after the season ended.
Syracuse Crunch: Cooper had led the Norfolk Admirals to the 2012 Calder Cup before the affiliation moved to Syracuse; he was promoted to Tampa Bay in March 2013.
Q 24Before he turned to coaching, Lightning head coach Jon Cooper worked in which profession?
Lawyer
Lawyer. He was a public defender in Michigan when a judge whose son kept goal for a struggling high-school team had him asked to coach it; he says talking to players is like convincing a jury.
Q 25The Lightning lost the 2015 Stanley Cup Final in six games to which team?
Chicago Blackhawks
Chicago Blackhawks. Tampa Bay led the series two games to one, then lost three straight, two of them by a single goal and the last 2-0 in Chicago.
Q 26The Lightning's record-tying 62 wins in 2018-19 earned which trophy?
Presidents' Trophy
Presidents' Trophy. The prize for the best regular-season record brought Tampa Bay no reward: within two weeks it was the first winner ever swept out of the first round of the playoffs.
Q 27Which eighth seed swept the Lightning in the first round of the 2019 playoffs?
Columbus Blue Jackets
Columbus Blue Jackets: the wild-card Jackets won all four games in April 2019, outscoring Tampa Bay 19-8; the teams met again in the 2020 bubble, where Tampa Bay won in five games.
Q 28Which Lightning winger won the Hart and Art Ross in 2018-19 with 128 points, then a club record?
Nikita Kucherov
Nikita Kucherov. He set up 87 goals and scored 41, then saw his team swept out of the playoffs within days; five years later he beat his own record with 144 points.
Q 29The Lightning won the 2020 Stanley Cup in the Edmonton bubble by beating which team in six games?
Dallas Stars
Dallas Stars. With street parades ruled out by the pandemic, the team celebrated with a boat parade on the Hillsborough River, a custom Tampa's champions have kept ever since.
Q 30The Lightning repeated as champions in 2021 by beating which team in five games?
Montreal Canadiens
Montreal Canadiens. Ross Colton's goal won Game 5 1-0 in Tampa on July 7, 2021; the team's leading scorer in those playoffs had missed the whole regular season after hip surgery.