Like when a favorite TV show begins a new season, we will soon have our friends back. With several months for fans to shed the melancholy from last season’s finale, the bad taste is gone and hope springs eternal. Mercifully, the contract turmoil is over, and the nucleus is set for the foreseeable future. Impressively, the Lightning managed that feat while only parting with J.T. Miller, Ryan Callahan, Anton Stralman, and Adam Erne. To everyone’s relief, Dan Girardi retired. With storylines aplenty, I get to make predictions for how I think the season will unfold. Here are three.
Mikhail Sergachev’s season leaves more questions than answers. I fall into the camp of people who are tantalized by Mikhail Sergachev’s talent. Putting aside his dazzling acceleration for a second, the way he strikes the puck puts him in a very elite group. Even with a quick wrist shot, he can pick a corner from distance. And when he wants to smash a slap shot, the velocity he gets on his shot makes it extremely difficult to defend and stop.
Sergachev’s mobility and quick release make him perfectly tailored for today’s NHL in some ways. Sporting a heavy shot with pull-away speed, Sergachev can blow past defenders and open up the ice. His stats tell the story of a player who drives possession and creates opportunity. His Corsi Plus-Minus was +189 at 5v5. He had more primary assists at 5v5 than Victor Hedman and trailed only Ryan McDonagh among Bolts defensemen.
But then there is the dark side of Sergachev. His most glaring weakness is his decision-making. Few NHL defensemen can look more lost on the ice than he. Sergachev is susceptible to stepping up with no support underneath or chasing a player to the outside and completely capitulating the inside lane. In the postseason against Columbus, the opponent’s forwards managed to get behind him on stretch passes or waltz past him with a cheeky deke.
His passes on breakouts can get sloppy. When hemmed in his own zone, he can get lost. Consequentially, Cooper heavily protected him last year. This season, Sergachev looks like he’ll get his chance in the top four with Victor Hedman, likely playing the off side. It could be an electric pairing, but it could also get ugly at times. Sometimes Sergachev needs a babysitter, and I don’t think Hedman has any desire to play that role.
My guess is it will be more of the same this year. Dizzying highs where Sergachev makes spectacular offensive plays, and the head-scratching lows where he commits a turnover and subsequently fails to box out a player around the net after the giveaway. If Sergachev can be more responsible in his own end, he can be a dynamic force, but I am skeptical it happens this season. I still think such a performance would warrant a bridge deal, but the Lightning management may view stagnation more negatively.
Cirelli finishes fourth among Lightning forwards in points. It seems very likely the Lightning’s top three scorers will be Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, and Brayden Point in some order. Even with Point slated to miss the beginning of the season, he is just too good a player to finish outside the top three.
Where it gets interesting is who comes in fourth? Last season, Yanni Gourde edged out Miller and Tyler Johnson for fourth among Tampa Bay forwards, but Gourde also played five more games than Miller. Gourde finished in fourth among Bolts forwards in 2017-18, two points shy of tying for third place.
But Miller is in Vancouver, and I think Cirelli is capable of besting Gourde and Johnson. We already know Cirelli is going to be leaned on at 4-on-4 and 3-on-3. Last season, he performed so well in those situations that he eventually got paired with Steven Stamkos as the other top forward option in the whittled down even-strength play. (Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov were the 1a to their 1b.) It makes sense that Cirelli thrived: his speed and penchant for winning puck battles are his two greatest strengths. I also expect Cirelli to get more looks at closing out games, and he should have ample opportunities to register empty-net goals.
The key is whether Cirelli is given more looks on the power play, ideally on the first unit. With Miller gone, that net-front presence spot is ripe for the taking. I suspect Ondrej Palat will get opportunities to seize it initially, as will Gourde, but Cirelli seems ideal for the role. He is skilled at deflecting shots, and fearless at retrieving pucks behind the goal line should the shot miss the net.
Whether Cirelli plays No. 3 center or works as a winger in the top six, I think he’ll see more chances this season with more prominent players. The Kucherov-Stamkos-Cirelli line that was flashed against the Blue Jackets may get used again, and any time he plays with those two dominant offensive players should buoy Cirelli’s numbers.
If Cirelli finishes somewhere in the 50s for points, it gives him a chance to vault over Gourde and Johnson. To me, other than Erik Cernak, he still has the most upside not yet realized.
Nikita Kucherov is the only Lightning player who registers 40+ goals. Since the 2015-16 season, Kucherov’s shooting percentage has swung like a pendulum between 14 and 16 percent. After finishing the year with a career best 16.7 shooting percentage last year, regression is in order. But the way for him to stave off his goal production declining is simply to shoot more. If Kucherov swats 275 to 280 shots on net—which is what he posted in 2017-18—he can regress to a shooting percentage at 15 and still surpass 40 goals.
Kucherov likely won’t see Point in the 40-goal club considering Point is going to be sidelined for the first several games. Also, for Point, there is his impossible-to-replicate shooting percentage of 39 percent on the power play, which accounted for 20 of his 41 goals last season. Point prefers to act as the playmaker, although I think his offensive prowess is such that he surpasses 30 goals nonetheless. He will need to shoot much more, though, because his all strengths shooting percentage of 21.5 is likely to drop by at least six or seven points. Maybe more.
There is reason to be wary of penciling Steven Stamkos for another 40 goals. He led the Lightning last year with 45, but since the 2012-13 season, he has registered 40 goals only one other time, which was in 2014-15. Like Point’s impossibly high shooting percentage, Stamkos had a shooting percentage last season that will be difficult to replicate. At all strengths, Stamkos’s shooting percentage was 19.2. What differentiates Stamkos from Point is that Stamkos has a ridiculous shot, and in his scoring prime his shooting percentage hovered around the 16-20 percent range.
Like Kucherov and Point, the way for Stamkos to fight off regression sapping his goal production is to shoot more. Last season Stamkos finished with his most shots on goal since 2014-15, when he potted 43. But if Stamkos lets his shots on goal dip to below 220, expect a sharp decline in his goals.
Last year, The Lightning were lionized for their wonderful regular season and then ridiculed for their embarrassing fall. But October 3rd signifies a new beginning with new possibilities.