If you asked each and every single Tampa Bay Lightning fan which offseason acquisition he/she likes the most, you’d probably walk away with a plethora of answers. With that said, two names likely stick out above the rest. Jason Garrison and Anton Stralman are two players who could help take the Lightning to that next level.
I think it’s fairly easy to see what makes both Stralman and Garrison effective as individual players. Stralman is that superb possession player who brings elite-level on-ice shot suppression and shot generation skills, while Garrison is that steady, big-bodied defender with a cannon-like shot.
Each is an upgrade on Sami Salo, who remains an unrestricted free agent. And having both in the lineup gives the team more time to develop players like Mark Barberio and Andrej Sustr.
On the surface, it’s easy to conclude that the Lightning will be a better team with Stralman and Garrison in the lineup. But I truly believe that their impact on the Lightning will be bigger and better than any individual attributes they bring to the ice.
The biggest thing either player will bring to the Lightning won’t be Garrison’s huge shot, or Stralman’s steady presence. No. The most impactful thing that will come from adding them to the lineup, in my opinion, is the fact that Jon Cooper and Rick Bowness will finally be able to split up Radko Gudas and Matt Carle.
For evidence of how bad the Carle/Gudas pairing was last year, consider the following graph:
What you’re looking at there is quite clearly a second pairing that was dominated at five-on-five. Whenever Gudas and Carle were sent out on the ice together, the Lightning were chasing the puck. The opposition was controlling the play. You won’t find many hockey people who think that’s a recipe for success.
The best part about this argument is that you don’t need the advanced stats to paint this picture. Anyone who watched the Lightning last season knows that Gudas and Carle were woefully ineffective (read: downright abysmal) as a pairing.
In Gudas’s case, you’ve got a young player who was likely given too much responsibility in just his first full NHL season. The Bolts didn’t have enough depth on defense to shelter him in a way you’d want to shelter a young player. In Carle’s case, you’ve got a player who didn’t come to Tampa as advertised. I think it’s probably fair to say that Carle isn’t the player Steve Yzerman thought he was getting when he signed him to a six-year, $33-million contract, but what’s done is done. Putting them together was a recipe for trouble right from the start.
What were the Lightning left with? Rather than having Carle carry Gudas, as the team probably intended, they were left with a second pairing that struggled night after night.
Adding Stralman and Garrison changes that. In short, the second pairing from hell is no longer a thing. The key for the Lightning now is to build a second pairing, likely one with Carle on the left side, that can contribute solid minutes.
I spent a great deal of time earlier this summer discussing Stralman’s possession heroics, so I won’t go into great detail here. What I will say is that the Lightning signed a player who has consistently proven that he has the ability to improve the players with whom he’s playing.
That, if you ask this blogger, is exactly what Matt Carle needs. He’s had success with possession drivers before. As uf1910 noted in the comments section of the last blog, Carle can be a solid top-four contributor with the right partner. Given his body of work prior to joining the Lightning, Stralman could be that partner.
Getting Garrison, another positive possession player, in there just gives the team even more options. Bowness and Cooper can shift Gudas down to the third pairing, a place he’ll be more sheltered and able to contribute. They can put Carle with a positive possession player, which should help get him out of the Corsi doghouse. And they can give Hedman a better partner than Sami Salo.
If you’re one of the many who believed that the Lightning’s defense was its weakness last season, you might be convinced now that it will be a strength this season.
In conclusion, it’s great that the Lightning will be adding Garrison’s big shot and Stralman’s steady presence to the lineup this season. But where the real ‘win’ exists is in the fact that the Bolts will likely be able to split up Gudas and Carle without sacrificing anything.
As always, thanks for reading.
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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