Tampa Bay offered a first look at its probable postseason defensive group Saturday afternoon, and it was a glorious sight. Braydon Coburn and Andrej Sustr were healthy scratches, and Jake Dotchin started the game with Victor Hedman. Dotchin also saw time with Ryan McDonagh, who made his long-awaited debut. The Lightning won 3-2 in a shootout, and while the victory was not the merciless bludgeoning the Lightning inflicted on New York, it was very encouraging in multiple ways.
The Lightning’s top defensive pairing at 5v5 Corsi Plus-Minus this season has been Anton Stralman and Mikhail Sergachev, boasting a +65. In second place are Hedman and Dotchin with a +55. Both of these pairings have logged 499 or more minutes together, but in a smaller sample size of 200+ minutes, Hedman and Stralman registered a +48 Corsi and Sergachev and Girardi a +40. With McDonagh on board, coach Jon Cooper has the flexibility to mix and match defensive pairings, and can do so without fear of a Coburn pinch punishing his curiosity. (One would also hope that with less than 15 games remaining, and a massive lead in the standings, Cooper starts to rest Hedman with less ice time and the odd game off.)
To be fair, as atrocious as Coburn and Sustr have looked at times, they did finish with a +4 Corsi Plus-Minus in 290 minutes at 5v5. However, what was so notable about the game against Montreal was the agency that Tampa Bay suddenly possesses. Many of Montreal’s best chances came off turnovers by forwards on high-risk passes that led to odd-man rushes instead of from blunders by the Lightning defense.
On the Alex Galchenyuk goal, it was McDonagh who whacked a pass east-west after an impressive interception that led to an entry, but his decision-making gave the Canadiens the odd-man rush. Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos both had plays where their passes along the top of the blue line were picked off and turned into odd-man rushes. But those are choices. A choice means free will. Which means in the future, maybe Kucherov and Stamkos do not blindly funnel the puck toward the blue line and generate a counterattack. A less reckless pass eliminates the odd-man rush.
Strip out the reckless, and the Lightning defense might get stingy. In their own zone, the Lightning looked sharp. Without Sustr and Coburn, their breakouts were significantly better. McDonagh had a retrieval at the end of the first period where he exploded through the defensive and neutral zones, and eventually drew a penalty off the entry in the offensive zone. When Montreal did gain territorial advantage, the Lightning were sealing off the slot better, rotating more efficiently, boxing out, and exiting the zone more fluidly.
Cooper wants his defensemen to play aggressively. He wants them to step up in the neutral zone. He wants them pinching in the offensive zone, and switching with the forwards. In the defensive zone, he wants them overloading on opposing forwards along the half-wall and below the goal line. But to do this well, a defenseman must be able to recover when he attacks and it does not work. Coburn and Sustr never had the skating proficiency or positioning to pull this off with any sustained success. Montreal’s offense is injured and in free fall, but the level of competency with four of the six Lightning defensemen now mobile and offensively capable, points toward a much higher upside for the Lightning’s defensive group.
As encouraging as McDonagh’s first game and its wholesale impact on the defense were, J.T. Miller has solidified himself in the Lightning top six. His first great play was on the power-play goal by Tyler Johnson. Miller was the net-front presence on the man advantage and, after a shot by Sergachev that sailed high, Miller snatched control of the puck off the boards and, despite being shoved to the ice by Canadiens defenseman Jordie Benn, steered the puck toward Yanni Gourde along the half-wall. The puck was deposited into the net seconds later as Gourde guided it to Sergachev at the point and dropped it to Johnson for a one-timer along the left circle that was powered into the net.
Even though Johnson started the game playing with Kucherov and Stamkos, Miller was moved onto their line to provide a spark. It worked. After Miller received the outlet pass from Girardi, Stamkos and Kucherov attacked the right side. But once Stamkos got pinned and Benn looked to reverse it, it was Miller who crashed in as the F3, taking the body and blocking the pass. Stamkos picked up the loose puck and shuttled it to Kucherov, who whisked it into the back of the net.
The exciting part about all this regards not just Miller, but also how it re-slots the Lightning lineup. Alex Killorn is playing on the third line with Adam Erne and Anthony Cirelli; Ryan Callahan and Chris Kunitz are on the fourth. Ondrej Palat will return to the lineup at some point. The Lightning have considerable depth at forward, and their defensive group is dramatically improved. As long as the Lightning stay healthy, this team is built for a deep run.