With a month left in the regular season, the Lightning can spend their remaining contests trying to sand the edges of their game. Last night was a flawed performance over a mediocre Canadiens team that was suffering from a few injuries to key players. Nonetheless, the 4-0 victory was deserved. The Lightning were the better team. They spent most of the game in Montreal’s zone making them defend. At 5v5, the Bolts finished with the higher expected goals rate and more high-danger chances.
The Lightning strive to be a team that controls possession through the forecheck and cycle and beats teams with unceasing retrievals and traffic in front. It is fortunate they’ve had this moment of clarity because this style of play works in the postseason. All the same, it is worth noting that two of the Lightning’s three even-strength goals last night were a byproduct of the forwards buttressing their defensemen to dash the Canadiens’ scoring hopes.
On the first goal, the sequence started with a lost faceoff by Brayden Point in the offensive zone. The Canadiens quickly exited the zone, and a pass in the neutral zone launched Artturi Lehkonen down the right side. The hole that Lehkonen found was a result of an aggressive pinch by Victor Hedman in the neutral zone, as Hedman expected to have back pressure covering him underneath.
The transition defense would arrive at the top of the circle, as Erik Cernak cut down Lehkonen’s path to the net. But when Hedman tried to stand up to his man in the neutral zone, he anticipated his forwards being his safety net, and fortunately Point, who was a little late to support Hedman, eliminated Phillip Danault from the rebound opportunity in the slot.
Once the rush chance was stymied, the counterattack was engaged. Hedman scooped up the puck and swung it to Nikita Kucherov, who zipped it to Point on the right wing. The puck moved from Point to Cernak, who slipped it to Kucherov below the circles.
Kucherov then slapped a pass to the weak side where Hedman was all alone. The former Norris Trophy winner had time to walk the puck in farther, or drop it to Point, who was also abandoned in the slot. Instead, Hedman hammered it past Carey Price. Given the complete abdication of the right side of the ice, the counterattack destabilized Montreal.
On the Kucherov goal, a shaky entry attempt by Jake Evans got easily thwarted by Cernak, who stepped up and disrupted the offensive zone entreaty.
Cernak also had support as Point wedged himself into the mix, and his chop at the puck allowed Kucherov a chance to guide the puck toward the Canadiens’ net. But instead of plunge head-on into Ben Chiarot and try to beat him one-on-one, Kucherov shoveled a pass to Patrick Maroon. The hope was that, if he cut to the net, Maroon could fling a pass to the slot. Maroon unleashed a pretty pass that landed on Kucherov’s left side in a spot where only No. 86 could make a play on it, and Kucherov steered the puck past Price for the drive-by goal.
The common thread between the two goals is that stingy defense goosed the offense. Point was a step late to provide support for Hedman, but instead of giving up on the play, he let Cernak close on Lehkonen while he latched onto the man off the puck. Mitigating the rush allowed the Lightning to leave their zone and enter the offensive zone with speed, preying on the Canadiens’ disjointed defensive coverage. On the Kucherov strike, a turnover on the entry enabled the Lightning to have a two-on-two, with three Montreal players coasting back. The Lightning forced a lot of turnovers on Montreal’s breakouts; when the Canadiens’ were in their defensive posture, they were harder to generate quality scoring chances against.
When the Lightning forwards are at their laziest, they treat defensive coverage and applying back pressure like it’s a chore. The most high-profile example was against the Blue Jackets during the last playoffs, when the forwards’ apathy toward aiding their defensemen helped accelerate their demise. True, that was last year and this is this year. But those demons still lurk, even if they appear more sporadically.
With the regular season coming to a close, the forwards need to remember to participate in transition defense rather than watch idly. It is dangerous to frequently leak out of the zone before the Tampa Bay defenseman has collected possession. The Lightning need to be ferocious in board battles and retrieve the puck to help initiate the breakout. Tight gaps on the rush and in a team’s own zone can be a stimulant for offense, like on the Alex Killorn goal, which was stoked by a poor pass that Anthony Cirelli turned into an odd-man rush. Last night was an object lesson in how effort and attention to detail on defense can empower an offense.