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The Tampa Bay Lightning, who enter Game 4 with a 2-1 series lead and Ben Bishop still on top of his game, are still in control of their first-round series with the Detroit Red Wings. But the Bolts, no stranger to the ebbs and flows of an opening round series with Detroit, know that there’s still a chance it all changes if they don’t snap a few bad habits before the final horn sounds tonight at Joe Louis Arena.
For one, the Lightning have to find a way to stay out of the box.
Although the Lightning have found a way to successfully kill 16-of-17 penalties against, including an impressive 7-of-7 in their Game 3 defeat, this is a pattern that will simply gas the Bolts. This series is undeniably hateful on both sides -- the Lightning straight-up despise Justin Abdelkader and the Red Wings hate, uh, everybody -- but it seems as if the Bolts are taking the Wings’ bait.
When you’re a substantially better even-strength team -- the Lightning scored the 12th-most 5-on-5 goals in the regular season while the Red Wings finished 25th in this category -- this hurts.
Lightning head coach Jon Cooper admitted such after the Game 3 loss. He noted that a barrage of penalties against ‘disrupt your flow’ and that it’s ‘taxing’ on your penalty killers.
And in a series where the Bolts’ de facto top line of Alex Killorn, Nikita Kucherov, and center Tyler Johnson have accounted for seven of Tampa Bay’s eight goals in total, ‘taxing’ and disruptions of flow for the offensive game simply can’t become patterns if Tampa Bay is to advance.
The Wings have tinkered with their home-ice lines a bit, with the biggest shift coming with the separation of Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, as Datsyuk has moved down to center a second line with Darren Helm and Brad Richards while ‘Z’ skates between Gustav Nyquist and Dylan Larkin. That’s a ton of speed, and a stronger balance than what the sans Steven Stamkos Lightning have right now.
At least to the eye test, anyhow.
In essence, this is a game where the Lightning need to have the Valtteri Filppula line, with Ondrej Palat and Jonathan Drouin on the wings, come through with some tangible results. If that line is still intact by the end of this game, that is. And maybe this is where Vladdy Namestnikov, although in more of a checking line role with Cedric Paquette and Ryan Callahan on the Tampa Bay third line, chimes in with some much needed secondary scoring help. And if that doesn't work, and the sole production is still coming from the Johnson line, I'd suggest flipping Namestnikov up to the middle of that Palat and Drouin combo, and dropping Filppula back down to his more familiar third-line role.
The good news, in terms of pressure anyhow, is that the Bolts likely won’t need to put five in the net if they’re to keep pace with the shifting Wings, as Bishop has remained strong as ever, even in defeat, something evident by his 34-of-36 night at the Joe this past Sunday night.
On the heels of a 16-save shutout, Detroit will go back to Petr Mrazek in net.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.