After taking a giant leap forward last season, the Tampa Bay Lightning can probably afford a little step back.

That's not what the Lightning has planned, but it could simply be the reality of building a competitive team. Tampa Bay bolted to 93 points last season, winning the Southeast Division and surprising Washington in the first round of the playoffs.

2002-03 BY THE NUMBERS

Record: 36-25-16-5, 93 pts. (12th overall, 5th East, 1st Southeast); Home: 22-9-7-3; Road: 14-16-9-2 Goals for/Avg.: 219/2.67 (13th overall) Goals against/Avg.: 210/2.56 (12th overall) Differential: Plus-9 (12th overall) Power play: 17.9 percent (70-391, 10th overall) Penalty kill: 82.6 percent (261-316, T19th overall) 20-goal scorers: Vincent Lecavalier (34), Martin St. Louis (33), Vaclav Prospal (22), Dave Andreychuk (20) 50-point scorers: Prospal (79), Lecavalier (78), Brad Richards (74), St. Louis (70), Dan Boyle (53)

But during the summer, the Lightning lost leading scorer Vaclav Prospal to free agency and now will almost assuredly trade goalie Nikolai Khabibulin before he becomes an unrestricted free agent next summer.

While getting more playing time for youngsters like Alexander Svitov or Brad Richards could help in the long run, it probably won't make the Lightning a better team next season. In addition, the future squarely sits on the shoulders of goalie John Grahame, but that doesn't mean Grahame is ready to succeed in 60 to 70 games next season.

Thus, the thought is a step back might very well be necessary.

But don't let that fool you. The advancements made by the Lightning last season are very real. Under the guidance of GM Jay Feaster, the team has patched up most of the holes in the locker room. Coach John Torterella is demanding and that can cause some friction. It certainly had before with superstar Vincent Lecavalier.

But debris can more easily be swept under the rug quickly if the coach and the GM are on the same page. Feaster and Tortorella appear to be headed in that direction. That's why there's room for optimism.

Looking at next season
Losing Prospal will be a shock. Losing Khabibulin could be a blessing.

First, to Prospal. The once-struggling forward found new life with the Lightning and tallied 79 points. That was 24 better than his best previous season, and a good deal more than anyone projected was possible.

When he signed a five-year, $17.5 million deal with Anaheim, it was a sad day for the Lightning. While the decision to stay out of that kind of high-end bidding was probably smart, it's difficult to convince anyone that the departure of Prospal will have anything but a negative affect.

What the Lightning hope is that maybe Prospal needed Tampa Bay as much as it needed him, if not more. Not unlike Prospal, Martin St. Louis found the same kind of success in Tortorella's system, in which skill players are given a little bit of rope along with some teammates who can help them make the best use of it. Lecavalier is developing into an excellent goal scorer and Brad Richards is a gritty leader with a soft passing touch. If Ruslan Fedotenko can get even more comfortable and Fredrik Modin can continue to develop, the Lightning might have all the firepower it needs.

At the very least, the heart of a power play that produced 70 goals returns. Dave Andreychuk takes one last swim and Dan Boyle will again be a constant threat from the point. While Prospal's nine power-play goals will be missed, it's not difficult to imagine one of the younger players stepping up to fill the void.

The defense should improve slightly with the acquisition of veteran blueliner Pascal Trepanier, but night in and night out, the mission still will be accomplished by committee. Outside of Boyle, everybody is seen as a No. 2 defenseman-in-waiting. The Lightning last season had seven defensemen average 17 or more minutes. With Tampa, it appears that you're either a difference-maker or you're a healthy scratch -- and that kind of competition might be exactly what Tortorella is seeking.

However, that kind of competition in net might be a little too much for at least one of the principles invovled. Khabibulin proved a little delicate last season and might have taken it personally when he was pulled in favor of Grahame in the playoffs. Tortorella and Feaster have made it a summer project to patch up any bad feelings and to make sure that Khabibulin reports to camp hungry to help the team.

But the writing seems to be on the wall that Grahame is the future in net, and making him fight it out with Khabibulin seems like a bad idea. If Grahame falters, it appears Khabibulin only will win the starting nod by default. If Grahame soars, you have a hurt Khabibulin on the bench.

The man has trade value and it might be best to study that value before Curtis Joseph fills the void. While some teams have been able to juggle two goaltenders, it takes a special dynamic (like that of the two equals in Minnesota). The Lightning doesn't have that dynamic, and the sooner they resolve their issue in net, the sooner they will be able to move forward.

It might be one step back before taking two steps up, but the Lightning understands that process.

Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.