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For the second straight season, in this still-weird-as-hell playoff format, the Tampa Bay Lightning have emerged as the winners of the Atlantic Division playoff bracket. In just a combined 10 games, too.
Not only is that the absolute best case scenario for the guys on the ice -- although eight or nine games would be even better, but now you’re just being greedy -- but it’s the best for those that could not skate for the Bolts thus far, namely captain Steven Stamkos and top-pairing defender Anton Stralman.
That’s become the rallying cry for the Lightning throughout this postseason, too, as this team wants to play to the point where they see both Stamkos and Stralman suit up beyond practice sessions.
And with the Lightning axing the New York Islanders in a 4-0 win at Amalie Arena in a series-clinching Game 5, head coach
Jon Cooper’s group is
that much closer to reaching that goal.
Let’s take a look at how it was done...
Big Ben Bishop stands taller than ever
Ben. Freaking. Bishop. Need I say more, really? Probably not. As (absolutely welcomed) colleague Erik Erlendsson wrote today, Bishop’s postseason play has really thrust him into the category of superstar. It’s not even a debate. And Bishop got better with each game of Tampa Bay’s second-round series.
The Lightning needed that, too. When I watched Bishop struggle to the tune of four goals against on just 13 shots versus the Isles in Game 1, a part of me thought this could be the club’s undoing, especially with the way Bishop had struggled against New York in the regular season, too. But as the series progressed, Game 1 looked more like an off night than anything else (not to mention that night came and went with Bishop getting
very little help from the team in front of him).
And he was damn near untouchable once the Lightning nabbed the series lead.
Bishop finished his Game 4 overtime win with 27 stops on 28 shots against, and followed that up with yet another series-clinching shutout in Game 5’s 28-of-28 effort. It was the fourth series-clinching shutout of his NHL career, which tied him with Marty Brodeur and Jacques Plante for the second-most all-time, just one away from the No. 1 spot, held by longtime Detroit netminder Chris Osgood.
In addition to being stellar when he has the chance to eliminate the other team, Bishop has been great when the team has entered the game with a series lead (as alluded to). In seven games that began with the Lightning holding an edge in the series, Bishop has six wins, and has stopped all but 11 of 219 shots against (a .954 save percentage). And the Bolts were shutout in that one loss, while No. 30 did his part and stopped all but two of the 30 shots thrown his way (Detroit’s Game 3 win in round one).
With his numbers locked in ‘til round three, Bishop’s .938 save percentage and 1.89 goals against average both rank second among 2016 playoff netminders, behind Washington’s Braden Holtby.
Boyle line came through as perfect combatant for energetic Islander fourth line
Let me preface this entire thing by saying that I am an unabashed
Vladdy Namestnikov fanboy. I’ve loved what Namestnikov has done for the Bolts this year, and I’ll always be on the forefront of the ‘Please give him more ice-time’ charge. So when I saw how the Isles matched up with the Lightning, I immediately said, “Alright, time to put Namestnikov in the middle of the second line, drop Valtteri Filppula to the third line and reunite the super checking line with No. 51 between Cedric Paquette and Ryan Callahan.” I thought it was Tampa Bay’s best hope at containing the Islanders.
But then I saw Cooper put the big-bodied, do-it-all forward
Brian Boyle in the middle of that Callahan and Paquette combo and it blew my mind at how well it all seemed to work right from the start. Given the way the New York fourth line of Matt Martin-Casey Cizikas-Cal Clutterbuck preferred to handle their business -- in hard on the forecheck and destroy everything in sight -- plugging Boyle in that center spot over Filppula proved to be the perfect counterattack for the Bolts.
This group had some straight-up nasty shifts. Downright mean. And while it’s almost impossible to match hit-for-hit with a Martin/Clutterbuck combo, this trio came damn close and helped prevent N.Y. from taking over the pace of a game and “swinging momentum” their way.
Somehow, Tampa Bay made Tavares disappear
So, the Lightning neutralized the impact the Cizikas line had on these games. But they also made the Isles’ best player,
John Tavares, vanish into thin air when New York needed him the most. Matched up with
Victor Hedman for almost the entirety of this series, Tavares came through with a goal and an assist in Game 1 (a win for the Islanders), but was held completely off the scorecard in the four games that followed (all losses for New York). There’s a direct correlation there, too.
The Hedman Show
Speaking of Hedman… this series really
was the Victor Hedman Show.
There were times this season where I wondered what exactly was going on with the 6-foot-6 defender. He wasn’t playing bad per se, but he just wasn’t pushing the pace the other way with the frequency I had come to expect. It seemed as if teams had adjusted -- or maybe just sorta, finally realized that he’s damn good -- to what Hedman can do with the puck on his stick and space through the neutral zone.
But in this series, I saw the return of a Hedman that I thought should have had more serious Norris Trophy consideration over these last couple of years. Along with a three-point Game 3 night, Hedman came through with two goals in Tampa Bay’s series-clinching Game 5 effort. That two-goal game made Hedman just the third Lightning defenseman to score two goals in a playoff game in franchise history (Paul Ranger accomplished the feat in 2006 while Pavel Kubina did it in 2011), and gave Hedman a total of eight points in this five-game series (a single-series high by any T.B. defenseman in franchise history).
Nikita Kucherov’s playoff prowess puts him among all-time greats
The Lightning’s top scorer this year, and biggest offensive weapon with Stamkos on the shelf,
Nikita Kucherov finished his second round with goals in the final three games, and goals in four of five games in total. And through two rounds, and 10 games of play, Kucherov has now scored nine goals.
A year removed from his incredible 2015 postseason, Kucherov’s thrilling playoff sequel has put him among some of the league’s all-time greats, at least through the age of 22.
Kuch is Clutch.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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