All-out offence is the way to go if the Lightning want to stay alive against the Bruins.
Will the real Tampa Bay Lightning please stand up.
While the state of Florida's favourite hockey team has already exceeded expectations in the eyes of many, going from being a non-playoff team the past three seasons with sorry ownership to making it to the conference final, the mission is not yet complete.
The question is: do the Lightning get back into the series it currently trails 3-2 to the Boston Bruins by reverting to the passive 1-3-1 defensive system it often uses to stifle the opposition or do they come out guns a-blazing and try to run the Bruins out of the St. Pete Times Forum?
The temptation might be to go defence-first, especially in light of the fact starting goalie Dwayne Roloson has not played well in two of his past three starts. Roloson is back between the pipes after being given a night off. If the Lightning are to advance to Game 7, it is imperative that Roloson finds his game so it will be tempting to do everything possible to lend him a helping hand.
On the other hand, the Lightning have one of the most explosive offences in the National Hockey League and it would be a shame to keep it bottled up.
I say go for it.
When the puck is dropped, go full-throttle offence, much the way Tampa Bay did in Game 5. In that game, the Lightning came out banging and took a 1-0 lead 1:09 into the game. Then, for some reason -- perhaps because the team started backup goalie Mike Smith -- the Lightning retreated into more of a defensive posture and it backfired. Rather than try to deliver a knockout punch, the Lightning tried to hold on to a 1-0 lead. Despite out-shooting Boston 34-20, Tampa Bay didn't produce a lot of quality scoring chances until Tim Thomas made arguably the best save of the playoffs late in the game on Steve Downie.
Watching the Lightning play this style is painful. This is a team, after all, that boasts some of the best offensive talent in the league. And yet after 40 minutes, when Tampa Bay trailed 2-1, Vinny Lecavalier, Ryan Malone, Simon Gagne and Steven Stamkos had just one shot on goal each while Martin St. Louis had a mere two. The Lightning tried to open it up a bit in the third, but Thomas was unbeatable. Too little, too late.
Tampa Bay has 10 victories in this year's playoffs and in those games it has averaged 4.4 per game. In fact, only twice in this year's post-season have the Lightning won a game in which it scored fewer than four goals; Game 7 in the opening round when Tampa Bay beat Pittsburgh 1-0 and Game 2 against Washington when it won 3-2. In games the Lightning have lost, it only scored more than two goals once; in Game 2 against Boston when the Bruins won 6-5.
Anybody see a pattern here? Goal-scoring, not goal-prevention, is the way to go for the Lightning. Think back to Game 4 of this series against Boston. The Lightning opened with one of its worst periods of the season and fell behind 3-0, but opened the game up and stomped the Bruins into the ground. Teddy Purcell, who is having the playoffs of a lifetime, got things rolling with back-to-back goals and was followed by Sean Bergenheim, Gagne and St. Louis. The Bruins seemed mesmerized as the Lightning steamrolled them.
Tampa Bay bucked the defensive trend in 2004 when it won its first Stanley Cup and for the Lightning to win this season, it must follow the same route. The Bruins are a solid defensive team, to be sure, but if a game turns into a shootout, the Lightning have more natural scorers to lean on. Three of the top nine scorers in this year's playoffs suit up for Tampa Bay. St. Louis is third with eight goals and 17 points; Lecavalier fourth with six goals and 17 points and Purcell ninth with four goals and 15 points.
The strange thing is the Lightning have just one more goal than Boston in the playoffs. But when the Lightning try to match Boston's solid defensive play, the wheels come off. Tampa Bay has been much more successful when it goes on the attack. It's time to roll the dice on offence.
