With a little less than nine minutes left in the first period, the Tampa Bay Lightning color analyst Brian Engblom, a doyen of hockey, remarked on the Lightning breakouts: “Boy, the execution by the Lightning so far in their own zone is really good. They are getting on pucks, they are turning pucks over, making good first and second passes coming out.” Engblom would go on to talk about how the Lightning have focused on their faceoff execution, in their own zone and in the offensive zone, and the decision-making that arises from that.

The first and second goals by the Lightning came off of an offensive zone and defensive zone faceoff. But the second goal, before the period concluded, is the one worth discussing first because it exhibited sterling work from an execution standpoint. Center Tyler Johnson won the draw into the left corner. When Devils forward Taylor Hall tried to accelerate toward the puck, Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman ran a pick that pushed Hall to the outside, and opened up the lane along the boards for Stralman. Off-the-puck interference and stick positioning (foreshadowing!) are hockey minutiae that take on enlarged importance come playoff time.

Brayden Point, who was lined up along the opposite hash mark from Hedman, sprinted toward the red line. Once Stralman was met by Devils forward Kyle Palmieri along the boards, Stralman was able to chip it forward to Point, who proceeded to move the puck to Ondrej Palat, who was cutting through the middle for the entry.

Once Palat crossed the blue line, the Lightning’s speed and positioning took over. Palat lost the puck, but Johnson was in support and able to keep it in the zone. When he chipped it down low to Point, Point lost the puck, but gained it back and moved it to Palat, who found Johnson cutting to the low slot where he buried the shot. There was a complete breakdown in defensive coverage by the Devils’ top line, which is especially shameful considering how low the Devils’ wingers sink.

The Johnson positioning may have been a bit serendipitous, but good fortune courts proper behavior. It also exploits careless defensive coverage. The Lightning were disciplined and won races and the individual battles in the first period, and they also exposed the Devils’ Hall line as being vulnerable when hemmed in its own end. The first goal also seized on the Hall line’s weakness in coverage.

On the first goal of the game, Johnson won the faceoff in the offensive zone, Point batted it back to Ryan McDonagh. McDonagh smacked the puck into traffic, and when the puck was blocked, it was Palat who extricated himself from the welter of bodies to retrieve. The Palat-Johnson give-and-go was unfolding. Palat would move the puck deep for Johnson and curl back toward the low slot – where he was left uncovered.

It was a peculiar sequence for the Devils. And by peculiar I mean ugly. Palmieri was lined up against Palat. Nico Hischier followed Palat into the corner on the retrieval and yet Hischier followed the puck, so when Palat passed it to Johnson, Hischier broke off Palat to contain the puck along the boards. Meanwhile, Palmieri gravitated toward the point, leaving Hall flailing in an effort on the far wing to stop Palat. Yikes.

The Johnson threesome was hardly the only Lightning line to abuse the Devils’ defense. New Jersey was ill-equipped to handle the Lightning’s speed on the Yanni Gourde line. The Gourde line was able to force turnovers on the forecheck and rush. Gourde finished with seven shot attempts at 5v5, a goal on the power play, and he nearly put in another goal, but he whiffed on the attempt to deposit it in the open net. That sequence was generated along the boards, and the Lightning dominated on the perimeter in the first and third, torching my prediction that it would be a space where they would struggle.

On the Alex Killorn clinching goal, the sequence started on the Lightning breakout. And Killorn was cunning. The puck was thrown deep by New Jersey’s John Moore, and Killorn led with his stick when Devils forward Patrick Maroon recovered it as the F3. But Killorn’s stick positioning eliminated the area below, where his two forward linemates were stationed. Once that possibility was eliminated, Maroon looked toward Devils defenseman Mirco Mueller as an option. (He also may have been trying to go weak side to Moore, but the pass didn’t make it far so it is a bit hard to match trajectory with the recipient.)

But the joke was on Maroon and his Devils counterparts, because their control of the puck was an illusion. Once the puck rimmed around the boards to Maroon, Gourde was moving with speed and anticipated the second read by Maroon. Maroon was put in a very bad spot, and this is exactly why puck placement on dump-ins is vitally important. If incorrectly placed, it can lead to counterattacks.

Gourde picked off the pass by Maroon and forced Mueller and Moore to sag as Anthony Cirelli drove the middle and Gourde harnessed the two-on-one on the left side with Killorn. Gourde moved the puck to Killorn once the gap was sufficient for Killorn to catch and release from a favorable shooting area.

The Gourde-Cirelli-Killorn line has been effective for a string of games now, and it completely alleviated the lackluster showing from the Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov line. For a team with Cup aspirations, depth needs to buoy the core during a deep run.

If the Lightning are much faster to the puck in this series, the Devils are going to get stomped. New Jersey’s only hope of competing is if they match the Lightning’s effort. And yet for too much of the game they looked like they were injected with anesthesia. The tranquilizer wore off in the second period, but Tampa Bay was faster in the third period as well. The Lightning created 11 Scoring Chances to the Devils’ 5 in the first. In the third, Tampa Bay generated 11 Scoring Chances to the Devils’ 2. The Devils played their best in the second frame, but in terms of Scoring Chances they accrued only two more than the Lightning that period.

This speed around the puck also applied in the Lightning defensive zone, where with about seven minutes left in the second period, Engblom said, “One of the things the Lightning have done really well in this game is they have closed down on people in their own zone, instead of sort of mirroring and getting in shot lanes. They are closing down on people and turning pucks over. They are putting fear in them and causing bad passes.”

He is 100 percent right. The Lightning’s shadowing, especially over the last 20 games, was a nettlesome habit that could possibly spell doom in the postseason. But there was that play in the first where McDonagh dropped Palmieri and then promptly cleared the puck. There was Point’s speed in retrieval and in transition defense deflating the Devils’ first line. The Lightning were more pragmatic about punting on a direct pass and clearing the zone if all lanes were blocked. Aside from Palat’s gaff, the Lightning breakout looked sharp.

It was very Lightning-esque to jump out to a three-goal lead, and then proceed to almost blow it. But it seemed evident that the last 20 games of the season were a mirage, and this team does have another gear. The first and third period underline that point. The Lightning are faster and more skilled than the Devils. With the Bruins and Penguins a danger to cruise past their adversaries, it is necessary for the Lightning to make this a short series because they unequivocally have agency to finish the Devils’ season in five or less games.

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