There was an interesting exchange between Los Angeles Kings color analyst Jim Fox and Lightning analyst Brian Engblom last night during Tampa Bay’s 4-2 victory.
Jim Fox: I got the feeling with Tampa Bay this year, we’ve all heard the saying, ‘It’s not how, it’s how many.’ I think that has turned around this year. For Tampa Bay right now, it’s not about how many, it’s about the how. Last year, right Brian, great regular season going into the playoffs, doesn’t work. Right now, they are concentrating on game management situations. They know they have the skill. Do they have the other elements that make you more successful in the playoffs?
Brian Engblom: Yeah, that’s exactly right and that’s how they played during that [win] streak in particular, but they’ve been practicing it, particularly for the last two months. I expect them to take very few chances with a one-goal lead. They will sit on it on purpose and instead of trying to win 5-2… or 6-2, which is what they would do invariably last year on the way to 62 wins all season long. Now, led by the captain and their leaders, they go, ‘We have enough. We are ahead by one goal. We have to shut it down.’ They’ve been really good at doing it. It’s a necessary skill going into the playoffs.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but this exchange homes in on the central philosophical question gnawing at the Lightning: What style of play will win in the playoffs? The Lightning’s understanding of why they were demolished by the Blue Jackets is that their M.O. was not conducive to postseason hockey. There is truth to this: The Lightning couldn’t forecheck, they weren’t disciplined, and their breakout crumbled without a healthy Victor Hedman. Moreover, the defensemen couldn’t play as aggressively as they would like because the forwards weren’t providing any back pressure, so the defensemen were forced to backpedal and cede the blue line.
Engblom’s statement about the Lightning adopting prevent defense once they captured the lead proved prophetic. The Kings would collect 23 shot attempts to the Lightning’s nine in the final frame, as the Lightning tried their hardest to salt away the remaining time in the game. But asking forwards and defensemen to stop attacking early in the third period is dangerous. A mentality that is too risk-adverse can result in less possession time. And it is a truism that the best way to prevent goals is to control the puck and make the other team defend.
The Lightning are blessed with some of the most gifted scorers in the NHL, and they are especially dangerous on the rush. A complete reorientation of identity this early in the third period is troubling. There are risk-management tactics that make sense: defensemen can pull back instead of sinking to the top of the circle, and the F3 can stay a little higher in the offensive zone. Nikita Kucherov can avoid making reckless passes above the circles. But the Bolts’ skill and speed off the rush are why Tyler Johnson notched the Lightning’s first goal, and also why Mitchell Stephens nearly potted another but was foiled by the bar. Tampa Bay might be able to pull out wins when taking their pedal off the gas against an offensively impotent team like the Kings. But against squads like Washington or Boston, the Lightning need to be able to manage the game without kneecapping their best players.
The Hurricanes are a good model for the Lightning of what the right balance looks like. Down 2-1 in the series against the Capitals in the first round of last year’s playoffs, Carolina entered the third period of the fourth game with a 2-1 lead. And what they did was hold onto the puck, dominate Washington territorially, and make sure they conceded nothing on offense. The Hurricanes demonstrated you can still utilize the rush when protecting a lead, and you can do that through counterattacks and with unflagging support for the puck-carrier. They finished the game with 17 shot attempts to the Capitals 11. In Game 6, the Hurricanes took a 3-2 lead, but they didn’t immediately go into protect-the-lead mode. Instead, they kept attacking, finishing the third period with more shot attempts than the Capitals, and notching three goals to seal it.
Carolina did the same thing when they faced New York in Round 2. Nino Niederreiter gave the Hurricanes a 2-1 lead early in the third, and yet the Hurricanes finished with more shot attempts than the Islanders. The number of shot attempts is an imperfect gauge of the story of a game, but if the Lightning are allowing nearly three times as many shot attempts as their opponent, that is a problem.
It is wise that the Lightning are using the regular season as a practice run for how to close out one-goal games. It’s definitely a skill they’ll need, and they should be tinkering with it. But I worry that the Lightning went from one extreme to another. Last season it was push the pace; play as aggressively as possible and Andrei Vasilevskiy will shore up the gaps. Now, the third period mentality is to get-the-lead-and-shut-it-down. Hopefully the Lightning find the right balance before the season concludes.