In the playoffs, giving your opponent second chances can be a death knell. The Devils defensemen were creaky without Sami Vatanen, and the Lightning were happy to apply pressure with an unwavering forecheck from their first three lines.

On the Mikhail Sergachev goal, the Devils’ Travis Zajac and Andy Greene tried to do a controlled reset after the Lightning’s third line spent time in the offensive zone, and even though both had a clear look to at least fling the puck out of their own end, they opted to exit the zone through direct passes. Thanks to the tenacious work by Yanni Gourde, a turnover was forced on Zajac. Anthony Cirelli beat Greene to a spot where he could receive a pass. The effort by Gourde and Cirelli to steal the puck below the goal enabled Sergachev’s seeing-eye shot through traffic.

On Nikita Kucherov’s goal, it was a blind behind-the-back pass by Devils forward Blake Coleman on the retrieval that triggered the Lightning cycle. Coleman had the other side of the ice to himself if he wanted to ring it around the boards out of the zone, but he was being pursued by Steven Stamkos, and his misguided first pass ended up on Kucherov’s stick.

Game 5 was the Lightning’s most controlled performance in this series. Tampa Bay should be cheered for only going to the penalty box once. But a sense of caution was evident in other ways. On the game-winner, Kucherov ran a give-and-go with Anton Stralman, and as Stralman tugged the defense toward him as he lugged the puck across the middle, he returned it to Kucherov who shot his beloved fadeaway wrister. And Kucherov scored. What was so interesting was that as Stralman drifted left toward Ryan McDonagh’s spot, McDonagh went over the top of Stralman to move back toward the middle.

This is a sharp contrast from the regular season. Any Lightning fan will tell you that when a forward moved toward higher ice, the weak-side defenseman would cut toward the back door. But in the playoffs the Lightning are serious about having both defensemen deep. Although even that is not failsafe; Coach Jon Cooper played Braydon Coburn and Dan Girardi once together and the Devils split the middle for a Jesper Bratt breakaway.

Yes, Kucherov ran an interchange with Victor Hedman earlier in the game where Hedman slid down the wing and attacked from the off-slot, and it was Sergachev who led the entry on the sequence that led to his eventual goal. In general, though, the Lightning defensemen are being asked to produce less offense and the focus on breakouts and defensive coverage seems to be paying dividends.

But the power play: I can’t get past the Lightning’s refusal to challenge the Devils along the goal line. It is unconscionable. The Lightning had five power plays against the Devils, and it was repeatedly the same tortured efforts to force a long-distance shot. Through ten minutes of power play time, they only once really challenged the Devils from below the circles. Stamkos whipped a pass at Kucherov, who was stationed alongside the far post after having switched with J.T. Miller. Devils defenseman John Moore made a strong defensive play preventing Kucherov from slamming the puck in on the backdoor. While a nice design, it was not the same action as attacking off the goal line. The Devils were cheating toward Hedman at the point and challenging Kucherov and Stamkos along the wall and circles.

This left acres of room below the circles, where Miller would have been completely capable of receiving the puck and walking the puck out from the goal line to try to beat Devils goaltender Cory Schneider from in tight. Miller has a strong shot and good hands. Unlike many players who are asked to walk the puck off the goal line into the crease area, he has the skill to score, and it is not just a mechanism to involve the man in the slot or the shooter on the weak side. And while some players may be afraid because they would likely face some punishment, Miller is built like a house, and would likely not be frightened at the prospect of a check drilling him into the ice after he carried the puck from the goal line to the low slot.

The whole point of the maneuver is what it would free up. Depending on where Miller’s rebound ended up, either Alex Killorn would have a swipe to try to bang the rebound into the net, or even Stamkos if the puck went off the far pad. Those are two options assuming Miller doesn’t score off the initial shot. But most importantly, if the Lightning are so enamored with Kucherov, Stamkos, or Hedman shooting the puck, then this will open up more separation for those three to operate. Keep them honest! If the opponent knows the shot is coming from above the dots, it makes the penalty kill much easier to defend.

Tampa Bay’s first unit saw far more time than the second unit, so the sample size is smaller, and may be less applicable, especially if opposing penalty killers sag more and give Palat less room to try to jam the puck in off the goal line. That said, the Lightning still may want to explore attacking off the goal line, and even using the space below it. Palat is more brittle than Miller, so maybe he walks it out and feigns a shot before dishing it to Brayden Point in the low slot to shoot. Or Palat explores using the far-pad jam shot to spring a Gourde follow-up chance. Palat could even go behind the net and try to create from there, and perhaps Tyler Johnson sinks there with him and they invert the entire penalty kill’s coverage. As good as the Lightning power play was in this series, and it had flashes of brilliance, Games 4 and 5 were infuriating because of its predictability.

But hey, that is in the past now. The Lightning exploded predictions from the naïve scribe(s) who thought this series would go seven, and concluding it in five gives them time to rest. The Bolts are very likely playing the Bruins, and they will win that series only if they are faster in all three zones, much like they were in their final meeting of the regular season. And a smattering of creativity on the power play would not hurt either.

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