The Tampa Bay Lightning have been labeled a few things, both good and bad.
Actually, there’s really only one negative thrown at them, but it’s a fairly awful one to be stuck with. The Bolts have infamously failed to punch all the way through in the post-season, losing the 2015 Stanley Cup Final to Chicago and a pair of Eastern Conference Game 7s in 2016 and ’18.
That about does it for the bad.
As for the positive, does anything boggle the hockey mind more than Tampa’s ability to find not just good, but elite-level players where others do not? Drafting Steven Stamkos first overall in 2008 and Victor Hedman second the following June formed a wonderful foundation. That said, we wouldn’t be picking this team — which sits atop the league standings and is presently on a six-game winning streak after pounding Colorado 7–1 on Saturday — to win the Cup year after year if not for its ability to consistently unearth gems outside the first round of the draft.
The most points posted by any second-round draft pick this season is the 44 recorded by Nikita Kucherov. Switch your search to the third round and you’ll find Brayden Point tops the list with 39. As for players who were never selected at all, check the top five undrafted scorers this year and you’ll see Yanni Gourde at No. 3 (24 points) and Tyler Johnson at No. 5 (22).
Rookie Mathieu Joseph, a fourth-rounder in 2015, has nine goals this season. Ondrej Palat bagged a pair against the Avs and if he can move past the injury issues he’s had in recent times, he’ll go right back into the conversation for all-time best selections in the final round of a draft (seventh round in 2011).
Of course, Tampa has never hesitated to make bold trades, too, which has landed them defencemen Ryan McDonagh and Mikhail Sergachev. And I still can’t take my eye off another blue-liner, Erik Karlsson, when it comes to this team. Karlsson, who was heavily linked to Tampa before San Jose swooped in and made a deal with Ottawa, picked up three points on the weekend. If he does hit the open market next summer, can anybody make a better pitch than the Bolts?
That said, should the Karlsson thing never come to pass, no team is better positioned to endure high-profile rejection thanks to its unbroken string of unheralded finds.
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More weekend takeaways
• Edmonton’s 1–0 win over the Flames Sunday night seems like the strongest proof yet the team can thrive playing Ken Hitchcock hockey. The Oilers, now 7-2-1 under ‘Hitch,’ allowed Calgary just four shots in the third period while protecting their one-goal lead. The Flames have been one of the hottest teams in the league recently, so while Edmonton still has a ways to go to make the ‘Battle of Alberta’ a true fight for the Pacific Division title, we certainly appear to be headed in the right direction.
• Even when he’s a pending UFA, people don’t talk enough about Joe Pavelski. The Sharks captain — whose contract status is easy to ignore because it’s so hard to imagine him playing anywhere else — has 19 goals on the season after potting one in Saturday’s win over the Arizona Coyotes. Pavelski has six tallies in his past seven outings and, after 31 contests this year, is just three goals shy of his 82-game total of 22 from last season. Three also happens to be the number of goals he trails league leader Alex Ovechkin by.
• Oh yeah, that guy. Ovie slipped one past his countryman Sergei Bobrovsky of the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday to give himself seven goals in his past eight games, as the Capitals have moved to the head of the class in the Metropolitan.
• The Chicago Blackhawks are 3-11-2 since firing former coach Joel Quenneville following Sunday night’s 3-2 loss to the Habs. New bench boss Jeremy Colliton has watched his team lose seven straight games and Chicago’s minus-31 goal differential is the worst in the league. Zero playoff series won since 2015 and no post-season games won since 2016. It’s officially all about the lottery this year and figuring out if GM Stan Bowman will get to lead the team through its next phase.
• In consecutive years, Canadian teams drafted centres Connor McDavid (2015), Auston Matthews (2016) and Elias Pettersson (2017). McDavid is going to win his third consecutive scoring title (even current leader Mikko Rantanen knows that), Matthews refuses to play an entire hockey game without scoring a goal (16 in 16 thus far) and, on Sunday, Pettersson registered the second five-point night of his 26-game NHL career. The fact they’re all from different countries also makes me want to drive to the NHL offices immediately and make sure these guys are at the 2020 Olympics.
Red and White Power Rankings
1. Toronto Maple Leafs (20-9-1): I’m seeing Tampa take control of the division, Buffalo slipping back and wondering if the Leafs will draw Boston again in the Atlantic 2-3 matchup.
2. Winnipeg Jets (18-9-2): The Jets are tightening up defensively, having allowed just a single goal in each of their past three games.
3. Calgary Flames (19-10-2): Noah Hanifin logged a season-high 25:09 of ice time on Sunday against Edmonton in the absence of suspended captain Mark Giordano (two games for kneeing Mikko Koivu on Thursday). The former Hurricane is really finding his stride with Calgary.
4. Montreal Canadiens (15-10-5): Carey Price has started seven straight for the Canadiens and his struggles from the first quarter of the season are becoming an increasingly distant memory.
5. Edmonton Oilers (16-12-2): Mikko Koskinen’s shutout on Sunday only strengthens his bid to become Edmonton’s full-time No. 1, but Cam Talbot has looked better his past couple times out, too.
6. Ottawa Senators (13-14-4): Three more points for Mark Stone in two weekend games, a win over Pittsburgh and an OT loss to Boston. It will be absolutely fascinating to see how things play out with Stone and fellow pending-UFA Matt Duchene (presently sidelined with a groin injury) in the next couple months.
7. Vancouver Canucks (13-16-3): Per the NHL stats department, 60 per cent of Vancouver’s goals this year have been scored by players aged 23 or younger. Brock Boeser’s hat trick on Sunday helped with that.
In Your Ear
Why is Phil Kessel a fascinating and entirely unremarkable personality all at once? The twice-traded star is having another very strong season for the Penguins, yet there’s some notion Pittsburgh would move him in the right package. In the most recent episode of the Tape to Tape podcast, co-host Rory Boylen and I examined a few potential fits for Kessel should the Pens actually pull the trigger.
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Looking Ahead
• The first tilt of the year between Atlantic heavyweights Toronto and Tampa goes Thursday night in Florida. That will be the second and final game of Zach Hyman’s justifiable suspension for his late hit on Bruins defenceman Charlie McAvoy on Saturday night.
• I don’t want to get too excited here, but there’s a real sense among plugged-in people that we could see some major moves before the holiday trade freeze hits a week from Wednesday (Dec. 19). When you see names like Bobrovsky and Alex Pietrangelo out there, hands start rubbing together.
