Six months ago, the Tampa Bay Lightning were lifting Lord Stanley’s Cup. Now, they have lost two consecutive games in regulation for the second time this season. While those two things are separated by an entire offseason and this looks like a small blip in a condensed 56-game schedule, there are areas of concern this team must address. What are those issues and how can they be corrected?
Defensive Lapses
A lot of this comes from the absence of two key defensemen. Both Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak have been sidelined the past two games with lower body injuries. McDonagh has been out since the first period of the game against the Florida Panthers on March 22, leaving a void on the blueline. The team won the first two games without him, largely thanks to Cernak’s all-out style of play. He’s also a member of the Lightning’s top four on defense, meaning he’s trusted to play more minutes in high-leverage situations.
But once Cernak went down on March 24 against Dallas, the Lightning found themselves stuck in a bind. Luke Schenn, who played sparingly in the playoffs last season, was called upon, as was Andreas Borgman and rookie Cal Foote. None of those three are top four material, though Foote has impressed recently. In fact, head coach Jon Cooper trusted the young man enough to play him a career-high 24 minutes in the team’s 4-3 loss to the Dallas Stars last Thursday night. Foote ended up with an assist and a plus-1 rating during that game. For the season, he’s a plus-6 in 27 games.
Borgman and Schenn are quite the opposite, unfortunately. Schenn has been placed on waivers twice this season and sees limited game action when he’s in the lineup. His physicality is invaluable against bigger, tougher teams, but playing him against speedy teams like the Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers is a risk. His minus-3 rating in 20 games isn’t good, but the bigger issue seems to be his lack of speed. In today’s NHL, you need to be able to skate and fast. Schenn’s not a quick skater, allowing opponents easy access to the offensive zone and sometimes breakaways or odd-man rushes.
Borgman hasn’t been in the big leagues since 2017-18′, when he spent much of the season with the Toronto Maple Leafs. This year, he hasn’t impressed in five games played, with a minus-2 rating. His ill-timed penalty late against the Hurricanes on Saturday night also contributed directly to Martin Necas’ game-winning power play goal.
Solution
The answer to this problem isn’t easy or clear-cut. Both injuries came about from playing hard and sacrificing for the good of the team. Both McDonagh and Cernak have won a lot of games for the Lightning over the years. It’s unfortunate they’re on the shelf currently, but championship teams find ways to win no matter what. Having veteran options helps, as does a team-wide commitment to limiting the number of shots against and playing tight defensively.
Winning faceoffs is big too, something the Bolts seem to be good at. It doesn’t stop there though. Doggedly pursuing the puck is the key to forcing opponents to play on their heels. As a result, there may be turnovers and grade-A scoring chances. The likelihood of scoring goes up exponentially when those are prevalent.
Penalties
During the 2020 playoffs, the Lightning led the league with 319 penalty minutes. This season, they again top the league standings in the number of penalties taken with 353. The difference seems to be the major penalties they take. Their run to the Cup saw seven fighting majors, while so far in the 2021 season they’ve committed 15. That last number leads the league through 35 games. It’s okay to drop the mitts if the opponent is willing to. However, the Bolts have had a few occasions this season where they dropped the gloves without a willing opponent.
There’s also the stupid minor penalties that can prove costly down the stretch. Most of those are a result of frustration, something every team experiences. In saying that, they need to be avoided, especially late in tight games. The Lightning have a penalty kill that currently ranks ninth in the league at 81.8 percent, but they can’t rely on them and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to consistently shut the door. That’s especially true when you’re missing two key penalty killers and the Central Division is home to the top two power plays and four of the league’s top 10.
Solution
While it’s important for the Lightning to remain a tough team to play against, the number of penalties taken per game needs to decrease. This can be achieved by playing hard and not taking unnecessary penalties as a result of laziness, frustration or simply not skating. The benefits of taking less penalties is that it doesn’t wear out the penalty killers and there’s less of a chance of giving the opponent any momentum.
Conclusion
While the Lightning are still a great team, improvement in these areas could make them unstoppable. They have the talent and skills to win another championship. All they need now is the attention to detail and smarts.
Can they make the adjustments necessary to again go deep into the postseason? That’s a question only the team can answer. The way they go about answering will tell us a lot about the 2021 Bolts team.
As of 3/28– The Lightning are first in the Central Division (24-8-2, 50 points).