With the NHL season in purgatory, we have time to catch our breaths and digest what has happened so far. Sixty-nine games provide a lot of data, and one way to process the season is to think about which players have been the most successful and which have disappointed. I offer two success stories and one disappointment.
Surprise success: Mikhail Sergachev Set to become an RFA this summer, the former top-ten pick had a lot of pressure entering the 2019-20 season. Sergachev needed to demonstrate he was not just talented, but dependable. I am not sure there is a player who has had his stock rise more in Jon Cooper’s estimation, with Sergachev seeing his ice time jump from 17:55 last season to 20:22 this year. With a spate of injuries wreaking havoc on the defensive corps, Sergachev has been the constant, never missing a game and soaking up more and more ice time. Against Boston on March 7th, he played an astonishing 28:20, and in the subsequent two games against Detroit and Toronto, he played 25:13 and 24:25, respectively.
There was never any question that Sergachev had the skill. His acceleration is elite among defensemen, and his puck-handling acumen allows him to gain separation. He is the best defenseman on the Lightning at finding the shooting lane, and that skill set has led Cooper to try him as the point presence on the first unit of the power play.
What always dogged Sergachev was his decision-making. His reads were poor on his breakout passes. He’d make an unwise pinch or take a bad angle on an opposing forward in the neutral zone. He was exploited around the paint as opposing forwards gained inside position. He took dumb penalties. He has worked hard to improve in all of the above areas.
People often identify the Lightning as a fast team. But what people really mean is that the Lightning’s forwards are fast. Truth be told, their defensemen are strikingly immobile, especially relative to the Eastern Conference’s other contenders. However, Mikhail Sergachev is a potential salve, especially as his minute-usage rises. His probable ascension to top-pair defenseman is the Lightning’s most transformative surprise this season.
Disappointment: Yanni Gourde After unexpectedly posting 64 points as a rookie during 2017-18, the 28-year-old Gourde has seen his numbers dwindle every season. Last year he finished with 48 points, which still placed him fourth among Lightning forwards. But this year Gourde registered 30 points in 69 games. He had a 35-game goalless drought. He spent a healthy portion of his time on the fourth line with Patrick Maroon and Cedric Paquette, and while their line was surprisingly effective, his lucrative contract makes his lack of scoring starker.
In November of 2018, the Lightning extended Gourde for six years at $31M. For a team in a cap squeeze, it was a perplexing move at the time, and it is made only worse by the fact that the Lightning provided him with a Full No-Trade Clause. In hindsight, it made zero sense because the Lightning needed to re-sign Brayden Point and Andrei Vasilevskiy last offseason and now have Sergachev, Erik Cernak, and Anthony Cirelli becoming RFAs this summer. All five of these players dwarf Gourde in importance.
In Gourde’s defense, he has been plagued by bad luck. His shooting percentage at 5v5 is 6.19, which is slightly below Kevin Shattenkirk. In individual expected goals for and high-danger chances, he ranks 7th among Lightning forwards. In both categories, he ranks ahead of Alex Killorn, who has been experiencing an incredibly fortunate season from a puck-luck perspective. Gourde does add speed and tenacity, and he scores most of his goals in the low slot, the area of the ice where the Lightning can sometimes be bullied. But unfortunately, Gourde’s value is not in a vacuum. The Bolts needs to dump salary for the flurry of second contracts that will need to be inked in the offseason.
Gourde is a fine player, and with better puck luck he’ll see his numbers improve. But statistically speaking, he should be at the tail end of his scoring prime, and he is at the start of his contract. There is going to be consideration as to whether Tampa Bay should move Ondrej Palat or Tyler Johnson, or both, but Gourde’s contract—in addition to his age—make him the most tantalizing option to trade if the price is right. This season only accelerated his departure.
Surprise success: Alex Killorn Killorn has always been a valued role player, but this season he is submitting career numbers. With a 20% shooting percentage, Killorn has had the Midas touch. Incredibly, Killorn has more goals than Brayden Point, and six less than Nikita Kucherov. That sentence is astonishing to type. But Killorn’s recasting as a top-six forward has been a welcome surprise.
Killorn and Cirelli are almost attached at the hip at this point—they have palpable chemistry—and Cooper leans on them to play the hard minutes. They take more defensive zone faceoffs than offensive zone faceoffs, and they can be deployed against the opposing team’s best line. Against Boston, Cooper has signaled he wants to use Killorn and Cirelli against the David Pastrnak-Patrice Bergeron-Brad Marchand line.
When Steven Stamkos was healthy, Cooper had Point, Kucherov, and Stamkos as the first line, and Killorn and Cirelli were the putative second line. With Stamkos’s injury, and the mediocre production from Palat and Johnson, Cooper has come to depend on Killorn and Cirelli for scoring to help buttress the superstars.
What makes Killorn such a joy to watch is how he always finds a way to short-circuit the machinery of an opposing breakout. His positioning is excellent. He consistently takes the right angle on a forecheck, and he plays off the puck very well, whether that is screening the goaltender or setting picks. Killorn understands how to utilize his body and the puck in the most efficient way possible. He is a talented player, but intelligence oozes out of him in the way he manipulates enemy defensemen and manages to hold onto the puck and place pressure on all opponents.