It was a weekend filled with vertiginous highs and groggy lows as the Lightning beat the team with the league’s best record before losing to the team with by far the worst. On Saturday night against Boston, the Lightning notched two shorthanded goals on one penalty kill, took a three-goal lead, and nearly lost the game. Against the woeful Red Wings, Tampa Bay trailed 4-2 and clawed back to tie it 4-4, but then couldn’t manufacture the go-ahead goal before the shootout, ultimately losing 5-4. Here are my heroes and offenders from the weekend.
Offender: Nikita Kucherov It was a tough weekend for Kucherov. The Lightning need number 86 to be sufficiently attentive on defense so as not to be a liability, especially when playing a formidable opponent like Boston. But Kucherov was sluggish and apathetic in his transition defense and own-zone coverage, and it proved costly.
In the second period of the Boston game, Kucherov failed to pick up Charlie McAvoy on the counterattack and McAvoy buried the shot to cut the lead to 3-1. On the Sean Kuraly goal, Kucherov took such a bad angle on McAvoy that he allowed the Bruins defenseman to shed him by indirect passing it to himself. McAvoy’s shot off the self-pass couldn’t be absorbed by Andrei Vasilevskiy, and in the jumble of bodies, the puck squeaked through for Kuraly’s goal.
But Kucherov’s troubles weren’t all defensive errors. With the Lightning up 4-2 and trying to run out the clock, Kucherov committed a cross-checking penalty on Matt Grzelcyk. David Pastrnak would blast a one-timer on that power play to make it a one-shot game. With six minutes left in the third period, Kucherov had a two-on-one with Point but failed to register a shot because he wanted to get a stride closer to the net. His hesitation allowed Grzelcyk to poke the puck away and defuse the odd-man rush. The Boston game had a playoff-like atmosphere, but Kucherov was stuck in regular-season mode.
In the game on Sunday in Detroit, the Lightning trailed the Red Wings 3-2 in the third period. After a shot by Erik Cernak was stopped and batted toward the corner by Wings goaltender Jonathan Bernier, the puck got funneled up the boards. Ryan McDonagh stepped up, hoping to stanch the Red Wings zone exit and expecting his forwards to cover him over the top.
But rather than support McDonagh, Kucherov made a swipe at the puck and stopped skating. Had Kucherov continued skating, he would have been able to halt the two-on-one that Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony Mantha generated off McDonagh’s failed pinch. Poor Cernak never had a chance, and neither did goaltender Curtis McElhinney. Kucherov is so incredible offensively that he can mask his defensive miscues. But as the postseason inches closer, he needs to adjust his game slightly. There will be less room and with offense harder to create, he needs to ratchet up his defensive awareness. On a two-on-one, he needs to shoot if he has a shooting lane and is below the circles. On defense, he needs to show effort to pick up his man in transition defense and cover over the top for his defensemen when he is the high forward. He can’t let opponents’ defensemen walk around him at the point or be guilty of reckless penalties. For the Lightning to make a deep playoff run, they need their forwards overcompensating for their vulnerable defensive corps. This weekend Kucherov made the Bolts defensemen’s lives harder.
Hero: The Paquette line One theme from the weekend’s games is that both Boston and Detroit managed to keep the Lightning’s top-six forwards to the outside, curtailing their shots from around the paint. But creating shot opportunities in that space in the low slot is a valued feature of the Paquette line, and they generated two goals this weekend in that area of the ice.
On the Paquette goal that gave the Bolts a 3-0 lead against Boston, a shot from Braydon Coburn sailed wide, triggering a Zach Bogosian pinch as it landed along the boards on his side of the ice. As Bogosian carried the puck and circled the net, Paquette was left wide open in front. The goal was enabled by Bruins defenseman John Moore’s peculiar decision to leave Paquette and chase Bogosian, but credit to Paquette for freeing himself for the feed.
On the Patrick Maroon goal that tied the game against Detroit, Luke Schenn hurled the puck on net, and while it hit Trevor Daley before it reached Bernier, the Lightning had Yanni Gourde crashing the low slot, joining Maroon as another presence around the crease. The pressure caused Daley to accidentally kick the puck onto Maroon’s blade, resulting in the tying goal.
The Paquette line will shoot the puck from anywhere, and their willingness to whip the puck on net from any angle creates a lot of chances off rebounds and blocked shots. (Hesitation led to the Robby Fabbri goal as Palat had the puck stripped from him and Detroit utilized the stretch pass.) The top-six forwards may not achieve that same traction to create chances in traffic, but they have the speed and skill to push the defense back. Where they falter is when they pursue the perfect shot opportunity. Point did it right in his second goal against the Red Wings. On the rush, he shot into a screen in stride and a double deflection off the Red Wings’ defenseman led to a goal.
If Kucherov were on the ice, Point probably would pull up, U-turn, and pass it back to the defense.
Hero and Offender: Jon Cooper Cooper is an easy scapegoat, but kudos to him for realizing that the top-six forwards needed a shakeup. In the Bruins game, the Palat-Point-Kucherov trio allowed eight shots on 5v5 while posting three. Moreover, they allowed three high-danger chances against while collecting zero. Their expected goals for percentage was an atrocious 14.33. Cooper identified the first line’s struggles and paired Kucherov with Blake Coleman and Anthony Cirelli. Against Detroit, Cooper tried Kucherov with Alex Killorn and Cirelli. The Lightning should experiment with different lines before the postseason, just so Cooper has contingency plans in case things go sideways again. With possibly no Steven Stamkos for the first round, the Lightning need their forwards dominating offensively and defensively.
The Point-Kucherov breakup proved fruitful for both parties. Killorn-Cirelli-Kucherov accrued eight shots on goal while allowing five, and they led the Lightning with seven scoring chances. Point played with Palat and Tyler Johnson, and they finished with a +11 in Corsi Plus-Minus and had a +1 high-danger chances differential.
And yet, Cooper hasn’t squeezed out the desired production from Coleman and Barclay Goodrow yet. Coleman has been very close to scoring on multiple occasions, and he has shown flashes of being a very valuable addition, but Goodrow’s presence has been more muted. Over the weekend, he posted the worst on-ice expected goals percentage of any Lightning player who played both contests. With 13 games remaining in the season, the Lightning have time to find their postseason form. But the playoffs are coming, and Tampa Bay needs to be ready.