TAMPA, Fla. – Catastrophe is always just around the corner in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. You don’t so much win this tournament as much as you survive it, and that’s why the sun is shining so brightly on the Tampa Bay Lightning as we near the halfway point.
They’ve barely been touched. They’re the favourites now.
After a 113-point regular season, the Lightning kicked it into another gear. They sent the mighty Boston Bruins home in five games, not surrendering a 5-on-5 goal over the last three. They needed just 10 games in all to reach the Eastern Conference final.
"It’s not like after 89 games we forgot how to score or not play the right way," Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said following Sunday’s 3-1 loss in the clincher.
Sometimes you just need to tip your hat to the other guys.
Of the Lightning, he said: "They’ve got three forward lines that can score and they’ve got a fourth line that really dictates the physicality of the game. So they’re in sync. They’ve got defencemen that can move the puck. Where I see a difference in them is how hard they’ve defended in this series vs. maybe what we saw during the season. It’s playoffs, right?"
With the stakes raised, Tampa simply kept "Takin’ Care of Business" – blasting that Bachman-Turner Overdrive track in the dressing room to punctuate each victory.
It meant finding an answer for the Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak line. At least after the NHL’s best trio exploded for 11 points in Game 1 and tagged sophomore centre Brayden Point for a minus-5.
Jon Cooper stuck with Point, Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat in the Bergeron matchup and was rewarded for his trust. They scored seven even-strength goals while Tampa reeled off four straight victories. Point – a 22-year-old who somehow fell to 79th overall in the 2014 draft – had seven points, including a couple gorgeous goals, by himself.
"That kid goes minus-5 in Game 1. He eats a bad minus on the first goal in Game 2, so now he’s minus-6," said Cooper. "And there wasn’t an ounce of doubt in my mind or any of his teammates’ [minds] that he wasn’t going to come through this. In my opinion, he was the best player in this series.
"It’s probably too early to say, but he’s never probably going to be a huge point producer but he’s probably right out of that Bergeron mold where he’s going to end up playing on the power play somewhere, he’s going to end up killing penalties for you and he’s going to end up having those assignments where he’s going to have to be the shutdown guy."
The Lightning created all kinds of trouble for a battered Bruins blue line in this series by using an aggressive forecheck. That’s how Point started the sequence that allowed Tampa to erase Sunday’s early 1-0 deficit, pressuring Kevan Miller into a turnover before heading to the net and beating Tuukka Rask with a backhander.
"We had experienced guys on the ice," said Cassidy. "It started with mismanaging the puck and our slot coverage broke down and Point made another good play. I mean he’s been good."
"I’m very impressed by Pointer’s first playoffs," added veteran Lightning defenceman Anton Stralman. "It’s not easy, for sure, but he’s playing like he’s never done anything else."
Facing the NHL’s top possession team from the regular season, Tampa controlled the series at 5-on-5. It generated 55 per cent of the shot attempts, 60.3 per cent of the high-danger scoring chances and 62.5 per cent of the goals at evens.
Boston had an edge on specialty teams but surrendered the Game 5 winner while killing a penalty. It came on a mesmerizing sequence where J.T. Miller and Nikita Kucherov traded the puck back and forth while skating around the right circle before Miller ripped home a shot while Zdeno Chara helplessly watched it happen.
They’d spent time working on that play late in the season. On Sunday, Kucherov told Miller to break it out before they jumped over the boards.
"It’s hard to get shots by yourself in the middle," said Miller. "That’s hard to come by, even on the power play. I mean it took five games and we had a lot of power plays. I think we just kind of put it in the bank for hopefully a situation like this.
"Obviously super pumped it worked."
By finishing off the series now, they’ve saved themselves another three-hour flight to Boston, not to mention another three-hour one home. They’ve also bought more time to rest up and prepare for the winner of Pittsburgh-Washington, a series the Caps currently lead 3-2 but could very easily be decided in a seventh game.
When Tampa lost to Chicago in the 2015 Stanley Cup final, it ran out of gas. The Lightning played 26 games that spring and can go no more than 24 this time around.
"That’s the thing: You have a long run like that and I think [Johnson] was playing with a broken hand and guys get hurt," said Stralman. "The more games you play the odds go up, obviously. That’s why it’s great we have a healthy team and all the small things now you get a little extra time to mend."
[snippet id=3918715]
They’re trending in the right direction at the right moment. Tampa surged out of the gates to start this season and built up a huge lead in the Presidents’ Trophy race. It ended up finishing third overall – four points back of Nashville – because of a mediocre 6-6-1 finish.
"Our desperation I would say in March, well, it’s not what it is now. We knew the guys had it in them," said Cooper. "I mean it’s 100 per cent buy-in with this group and that’s how we’re doing what we’re doing now."
After charting the easiest course to the Final Four, the Lightning’s odds of playing for the Stanley Cup have gone up significantly. Hey, it might just be their year to win it.
[relatedlinks]
