Both the WHA and the NHL have had their fair share of problems establishing teams in Florida. The WHA tried it with the Miami Screaming Eagles, but the team only signed a single player, goalie Bernie Parent, and never played a single game.

The NHL announced in 1989 that it wanted to expand to 28 teams by the year 2000. The following year, NHL Hall of Famer, Phil Esposito decided that the Tampa Bay-St Petersberg area would be a perfect area for an NHL franchise. To test his theory, Esposito and partnered with Gabe Paul and Mel Lowell and promoted an exhibition game between the Los Angeles Kings and Pittsburgh Penguins at the Florida Suncoast Dome. The game drew a record 25, 581 fans to see Pittsburgh defeat the Kings 5-3, and immediately Tampa Coliseum Inc agreed to finance the construction of a new arena next to Tampa Stadium.

The NHL wanted to make sure about the area accepting an NHL franchise so they sent NHL Vice President Gil Stein to confirm the mood of the fans. He reported back that the area was definitely ready for NHL hockey and 5 weeks later both Tampa Bay and Ottawa were granted franchises for the 1992-93 season. So Esposito began to look for investment money for the team. His primary backer, the Pritzger family, owners of the Hyatt Corporation decided to withdraw their backing of the team, citing that they had no desire to be in the hockey business. Esposito was forced to look for alternative financing. He found it overseas, in the Orient, something no other NHL executive had done before. Phil found support from Japanese firms such as Kokusai Green, Nippon Green and Tokyo Tower.

There were those who felt the negotiations were not going as smoothly as they could. Those feelings proved to be true when the team missed a $22.5 million franchise installment payment. Kokusai Green felt it had to act and decided to take a majority stake in the franchise. In later years, the problems with distance management would prove to be trouble for the Lightning. In September of 1991 the Kokusai group had replaced the Esposito group as majority owners and the NHL gave approval for the partnership restructuring. Finally in December 1991, the NHL gave final approval for the Lightning and the Ottawa Senators franchises.

Phil remained with the club as general manager and his brother Tony Esposito, former NHL goalie, headed the scouting division. The Tampa Bay Lightning first took to the ice on September 12, 1992 in Lakeland Florida. Esposito began the franchise by doing the unexpected and he continued that strategy by giving female goalie Manon Rheaume a tryout. On September 23, 1992 Manon made history by becoming the first women to play one of the 4 major professional sports when she started the game against the St Louis Blues, and was later awarded a contract with Atlanta, Tampa's International Hockey League affiliate.

Tampa Bay's first game was on October 7, 1992 against the Chicago Blackhawks with a sell out crowd of 10,425 at the Expo Hall looking on. The Lightning defeated the Blackhawks 7-3, with Chris Kontos scoring 4 goals, which today, still remains a club record for the most games in a game. Not long after that on November 7, Doug Crossman set a record that still exists for the most points in a single game with 6 points, on 3 goals and 3 assists. The Lightning set several other individual records in their first season which still exist today. Joe Reekie and Marc Bureau set the record for most assists in a game with 4, Rob Zamuner set the record for the most points by a rookie with 43, Cris Kontos set the record for the most points in a season by a left winger and Brian Bradley set the record for the most points in a season with 86. Despite all of these future records the Lightning still ended up in 6th place in the Norris Division with a 23-54-7 record for 53 points and out of the playoffs.

In their second season the Lightning moved into the Florida Suncoast Dome. The "Dome" was originally designed as a baseball stadium but was redesigned to be a hockey arena, with 28,000 seats. It would later be renamed the Thunderdome. It seemed that financial problems started early in the Lightning's history and it was still haunting them for the start of the 1993 season. In the summer of 1993 Esposito signed free agent Gerard Gallant, and picked Chris Gratton as his first pick in the Entry Draft and as well, managed to acquire Petr Klima from Edmonton. Goalie Darren Puppa was obtained from the Florida Panthers in phase 2 of the Expansion Draft. Despite the teams financial troubles, the Lightning and Florida Panthers played to 27,227 fans, setting an NHL record for the highest attendance at an NHL game at the home opener on October 9, 1993.

Financial troubles followed the team for the next couple of years. Even though attendance was extremely high, many of the seats were sold at low prices or given away. The IRS was looking for back taxes and other debts were continuing to accrue. In 1995, Kokusai Green wanted each limited partner to ante up $885,000 for every $1 million partnership or they would lose their partnership if they didn't. Mel Lowell, one of the partners instigated legal proceedings and the NHL stepped in and convinced Lowell to drop the legal suit if Kokusai paid out any of the partners who wanted out. The Lightning had now finished out of the playoffs for their first 3 years.

In October of 1995 the Lightning named Paul Ysebaert as the first captain. At the same time defenseman Roman Hamrlik had come into his own, and Darren Puppa was continuing on with his superb goaltending. This looked like it might be the Lightning's season. March 5, 1996 saw the club win its 100th game, and on March 13th the club set a record, that still exists, for the longest unbeaten streak, 7 games. The Lightning managed to make the playoffs and faced the Philadelphia Flyers in round 1. Tampa managed to win a couple of games, but Philadelphia was too much for Tampa and Philadelphia won the series 4-2. One other bright spot in the series came during game four when Tampa set a new NHL record for the highest attendance at a playoff game with 28,183 in attendance.

The next season saw the Tampa Bay Lightning open up at their new arena, the Ice Palace. Brian Bradley scored the first goal at 11:46 of the first period and despite this positive start, the season would prove to be one of turmoil and transition. Darren Puppa's back was giving him trouble and he would miss most of the season. There were now problems with the ownership, and the Japanese group began to look for a buyer. They were $50 million in debt, and projections showed a debt of over $100 million by 1998. The Maloof family of Las Vegas spent 8 months trying to negotiate a deal, but they were unsuccessful. With all this turmoil the team was unable to make the playoffs, finishing 6th in the Atlantic Division.

The 1997-98 season was even worse. John Cullen was diagnosed with cancer and when radiation and chemotherapy failed, he had to undergo a bone marrow transplant. Tony Mallette had a narrowing of the spinal chord and missed most of the season. Dino Cicarelli had problems with his elbow and had surgery, taking him out of the lineup and Brian Bradley suffered a severe concussion. A promising forward by the name of Vladimir Vujtek suffered from pericaditis, a rare heart disease and Jim Pickard the equipment manager was diagnosed with pancreatitis and was gone for most of the season.

The final blow came when Chris Gratton went to the Philadelphia Flyers after signing a $16.5 million free agent deal. Esposito couldn't match the deal saying that he couldn't read the fax copy of the offer. Philadelphia agreed to trade Mikael Renberg and Karl Dykhuis for the four first round draft picks the Flyers would have lost to Tampa in the first offer. Terry Crisp was fired and Rick Paterson took over the coaching duties and he was then replaced by Jacques Demers, and Puppa had to bow out of the rest of the season with back spasms. The Lightning finished off the season with their worst season since they began, with a 17-55-10 record.

In May of 1998 there was a front office shake up and Art Williams a retired insurance executive purchased the club. At the 1998 Entry Draft the Lightning selected Vincent Lecavalier of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. For the 1998-99 and the 1999-2000 season the Lightning improved slightly finishing off both seasons with the exact same record 17-54-9, giving the a 4th place finish each year, but out of the playoffs.

With the new ownership at the helm, the future is beginning to turn around for the better.