Defeating the Bruins in five is an astonishing result for the Lightning. Boston had the pedigree with a core that had won it all. The stats favored them as a puck-possession dynamo. But Tampa Bay exposed several glaring weaknesses in this team, and the Bruins crumbled as a result.
The biggest flaw for the Bruins was their defensemen, and their offensive impotence. In the defensive zone, the Lightning could play five-on-three hockey with impunity below the circles, and the Bruins defensemen were incapable of making the Lightning pay. With their wingers sinking so far down, the Lightning defensemen were emboldened. They could crunch a puck-carrier along the half-wall or chase him if he retreated to higher ice. Lightning defensemen had the support underneath, and the stacking of the skaters on the bottom half of the ice permitted freedom to roam.
If Boston had two forecheckers below the goal line, the Lightning would trump them with three skaters. The Lightning centers and wingers would rotate into the middle, and most importantly, they had the bodies to swallow the passing and shooting lanes and box out. The Bruins’ vaunted cycle was a bit of smoke and mirrors. It was entirely fueled by the forwards. The Bruins’ defensemen were like scarecrows.
The Lightning preferred to overload on the puck all season, and in their matchup with Boston this worked gloriously. On the rush, the Bruins encountered the same issues last night that they had experienced the entire series. The Lightning forwards gave maximum effort in back pressure, which allowed their defensemen to step up in the neutral zone and keep a tighter gap. It was the best transition defense the Lightning had played all season. Meanwhile, for the Bruins’ forwards, there was the issue of the puck being stripped and Tampa Bay turning it into a counterattack. So there was an incentive for the Bruins’ puck-carrier to dump the puck in. To sum it up: The rush was suffocated with unrelenting backchecking forwards and confrontational defensemen, and the cycle was smothered by a Grand-Central swarming crowd below the circles. No wonder the Bruins couldn’t score at even strength!
The only defensemen who showed any inkling of offensive prowess were Torey Krug and Charlie McAvoy. Once Krug was hurt, McAvoy was the lone offensive threat from the back end in Game 5.
Another wart was that the Bruins had no answer for the Brayden Point line. For context, at 5v5, the Point line finished with 34 Scoring Chances in the series. Nikita Kucherov’s line came in second with 25. After the Point line got roasted by Patrice Bergeron’s trio in Game 1, I suggested Coach Jon Cooper move the second line away from Bergeron’s line. Cooper didn’t, and that line flourished from Game 2 onward. The Point line used their speed to retrieve without mercy, and the Bruins were powerless to stop them. They were also smart about shooting from bad angles as a way of generating shot attempts closer to the net. Shooting for the follow-up shot is a crafty way of generating offense if you can win the battle for the second-chance attempt. (Their indirect passing was also superlative.)
Point finished Game 5 with a team-high three Scoring Chances at 5v5, and a goal. His goal was achieved with Pointillist precision. Point stayed on after his linemates changed because he wanted to participate on one last forecheck. He forced a turnover on Kevan Miller and moved it toward the opposite half-wall. And when J.T. Miller hurled the puck at Kucherov, it was Point who artfully moved the puck from forehand to backhand and slipped it past goaltender Tuukka Rask. Outstanding balance and touch. Point is an assassin.
The Lightning also had the better goaltender. Andrei Vasilevskiy was the Lightning’s best penalty killer, and while the Lightning did a strong job clearing the zone and winning faceoffs, Vasilevskiy made a few spectacular saves that kept the Lightning in the lead.
Finally, it was a foible of the Bruins not to seize on the struggles of the Kucherov line at the beginning of the series. In the Devils series, one of my biggest criticisms of the Lightning was that their power play was unwilling to challenge the penalty kill and goaltender from below the circles. Therefore, it was gratifying to see Kucherov strike on the power play in Game 4 and Miller in Game 5 from the lower half of the ice. The Lightning were much better at making an effort to move the puck below the dots, and the decision they forced their opponent to make between covering Steven Stamkos as the trigger man in the slot or Miller off the wall was brilliant. The Lightning have shooters who can strike from the off-slot. It was a relief to see them recognize that advantage.
The Lightning have played ten games to reach this point. They will be much more rested than their adversary in the conference final, and as Boston’s performance displayed, extra games takes a toll. What the Lightning proved was that they have the team defense and depth to beat any opponent. Now all they can do is wait.