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Lightning-Devils: An Answer for Hall and Hischier |
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When the Lightning scheme for Thursday’s game, inevitably the talk will arrive at the question of what to do with containing Taylor Hall and Nico Hischier. Hall is so fast and so skilled that the Lightning would be wise to deploy not only a “shutdown” defensive pair on him, likely Ryan McDonagh and Anton Stralman, but also an entire line designated to defusing the Hart Trophy candidate. Hall led the Devils in both goals and assists by the wide spread of 15.
Not surprisingly, Hischier, the 2017 No. 1 overall pick, is joined at the hip with Hall, an indisputable superstar and former No. 1 pick from eight years ago. Hall and Hischier played together at 5v5 for 76 games this season, and the stats capture their asteroid-sized impact. Together, they finished with a Goals For percentage of 59.09 percent. In simpler terms, they finished with a +16 at 5v5 goals when they were on the ice together.
When neither was on the ice, the Devils finished with a -25 5v5 in Goals plus-minus. Make no mistake, though, this was mostly because of the absence of Hall. When Hall played without Hischier, the Devils still had a 53.85 Corsi for and 55.91 shots for percentage. There is not a team in the NHL that finished over 54 percent in shots for percentage and Hall’s Corsi was better than any team that qualified for the postseason. Needless to say, when Hischier was without Hall, his numbers drop, although not precipitously.
So who to assign the task of suppressing Hall and Hischier? The Anthony Cirelli line with Alex Killorn and Yanni Gourde has a Corsi for percentage of 61.95 together, which is outstanding. Incredibly, they have six goals to their name as a line and zero goals against! If the Lightning can control possession against the Devils’ best scoring line, New Jersey will be forced to rely on a host of untested young players and career role players.
The game the Devils and Lightning played from October is so long ago that it seems irrelevant, but there are interesting trends from their two games in 2018. On March 24th, the Devils, despite playing against Pittsburgh the night before, finished the first and second period with more Scoring Chances for. Once they went into lead-protecting mode, and fatigue likely set in, Tampa Bay was finally able to successfully apply pressure and sailed past them in that statistic. Even looking at the shot-attempt metrics, they were neck-and-neck through two frames. The Lightning finished with the much higher total, but that was driven by the third period and the Devils playing their sixth period in 48 hours.
In February’s contest, my lede to the article was, “The primary reason the Lightning lost to the New Jersey Devils last night was goaltender Eddie Lack altered the outcome.” And Lack was spectacular. But diving into the causes of several of the Devils’ goals, the Lightning’s shortcomings are familiar: defensive coverage woes, poor decision-making with the puck, and hyper-aggression used to spur a counterattack. If anything, things have gotten worse since then.
One interesting moment from the game in March was during the second period when Victor Hedman was gliding around his own zone and letting his forwards run curls to gain speed before they bolted forward on the regroup. Hedman completed a stretch pass to Nikita Kucherov, who took advantage of the alignment of the Devils’ Andy Greene-Sami Vatanen defensive pairing. The Devils were sitting back on the far blue line, but Greene and Vatanen were congregated on the left side of the ice. The Devils had Stefan Noesen just above the line and Blake Coleman along the right side, but Kucherov caught the Hedman pass and darted through the middle and screamed past the forwards and Greene.
When the Devils go four wide on entries, it makes the carry-in tough. But the Lightning have had moderate success connecting on passes that cut through the middle, as teams that sit back are always preparing to rush the edges. Sometimes, the front door is left wide open. The Lightning should test splitting the middle whenever possible, and that in turn, will create more space on the outside.
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • 
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