Sustained success has a kaleidoscopic quality. The outcome is constant, but there are swirling variations as to how a win is accomplished. Of late, the Lightning had a blowout win (Arizona), a surrender-lead-but-hold-on-for-victory game (Colorado), and a keep-falling-behind-but-ultimately-prevail triumph (Ottawa). Last night’s win took a different form. It was a low-scoring nail-biter.
Tampa Bay was downright proprietary with the puck, and at even strength, Minnesota was thwarted on the attack and forced to defend. But the Lightning’s best shot attempts and scoring chances resulted in near misses or strong saves by Minnesota goaltender Alex Stalock through 57 minutes. In spite of poor puck luck, Tampa Bay and goaltender Andre Vasilevskiy managed to keep the game scoreless, allowing the Lightning to register the first goal with less than three minutes left in the game.
The drama of hockey can be intensified in an instant when a series of mistakes results in a glorious moment. In this case, the game-winning goal for the Lightning came off consecutive Jake Dotchin fumbles and eventually a turnover.
Collecting the puck in the neutral zone, Nikita Kucherov tossed it back to Dotchin, who was back-pedaling in his own zone. A pursuing Minnesota Wild forward, Mikko Koivu, was able to poke the puck loose from his stick and into the corner. Dotchin scurried toward the puck to retrieve it, and shoveled it up the boards, hoping that defensive partner Dan Girardi , or a Lightning forward, was along the half-wall to start the breakout. The prayer was not answered. Wild forward Marcus Foligno jumped on the misguided puck and directed it into the corner where his teammate Koivu was waiting to commence the cycle.
But then everything changed. Tampa Bay’s Ondrej Palat met Koivu in the corner and denied Koivu’s finesse move off the back of the goal, forcing separation from the puck. Minnesota forward Mikael Granlund promptly snatched up the loose puck, but got swallowed by Dotchin. Foligno, who was Minnesota’s F3, stood near the top of the circle, watching helplessly as the Minnesota forecheck was squelched. Lightning forward Brayden Point rescued the puck from the clutter of bodies around the goal line.
Point then made a brilliant coast-to-coast effort with a casualness that was disarming, carrying the puck from below the hash marks in the Lightning zone all the way to the other end of the ice. Once Point reached that off-slot space between the goal line and below the dot, he patiently waited while Palat pushed the defense back and helped create a seam for a cross-ice pass to defenseman Girardi, who had jumped in as the second wave of offense in transition. Despite the Wild having four players back in transition, their defensemen and forwards were mesmerized by Point and occupied by a nettlesome Palat charging the goal. No one picked up Girardi, and it cost the Wild the game.
The time it took for this to unfold was about the same amount of time it takes for an advertisement to play on a YouTube video. But while brief, it did encapsulate the Lightning’s performance quite nicely.
Tampa Bay exceled in their own zone in defensive coverage and zone-exiting forwards were able to slash through the neutral zone or sling stretch passes through the middle of the ice to keep the Wild on defense. In the offensive zone, the Lightning’s passing on the rush and cycle was exquisite. Confidence is evident in their top-nine forwards, and the Wild’s defensemen kept loose gaps on them all game, allowing Tampa Bay to enter the zone with impunity. The Lightning generated three times as many shot attempts as Minnesota at 5v5, and produced 26 Scoring Chances to the Wild 8.
A more nuanced understanding of playing good defense means keeping the puck away from the defensive zone and sustaining the territorial advantage. However, penalties happen, and the Lightning were forced into a half-dozen penalty kills, but conceded zero goals. After capitulating four goals to Las Vegas when down a man, Tampa Bay’s suffocating work in their own zone warrants praise. They sealed off passing lanes, won races to the puck, and kept mistakes to a minimum. The Wild do not have a dynamic offense, but like any NHL team, they can explode if given ample opportunity. Against Tampa Bay’s smothering penalty kill and expedient breakout, Minnesota struggled to gain any traction after a first shot attempt.
Because exceptional puck handling and passing are quotidian behavior by the Lightning talent, this masks how unusual these things are. It’s a bit like dreaming, where you can inhabit the consciousness of another mammal, like an eagle, and you can soar around and do a bunch of cool bird things that you can’t when you are an everyday, unremarkable human. The ability to ferry the puck through three zones and whip it cross-ice through a maze of players is unique. And somehow Tampa Bay has a glut of players who can do just that.