It’s here. The Stanley Cup Final between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Chicago Blackhawks begins tonight at Amalie Arena. After three grueling rounds, it all comes down to this for the two clubs left standing.
One of the things that has been noted time and time again since the Final matchup was set is that Chicago and Tampa Bay play a similar game. Both like to possess the puck, both have high-flying offenses, and both are built on skill rather than grit. It’s a recipe that will hopefully be emulated by other teams in the coming years, as it provides for oodles of entertainment. Fans in attendance at Amalie tonight are likely in for a treat.
Of course, that previous paragraph strives to highlight that the Bolts do a lot of things well. The trouble, though, is that Chicago does some of those things better. Forward depth is one area where the Blackhawks absolutely blow Tampa out of the water. Unless something has changed since the last three rounds, which is possible, the Lightning are running as a two-line team right now. Sure, Jon Cooper uses all four lines, but his bottom-six units haven’t been able to create a sniff of offense; in fact, they’ve been routinely dominated in all facets of the game. That could be one of the reasons he’s gone with 11 forwards and seven defensemen on so many occasions in the postseason.
Whether Cooper sticks with that 11F/7D setup remains to be seen, as this morning’s skate was an optional one. It’s difficult to get a read on the lineup when certain key cogs aren’t on the ice. With that said, it shouldn’t shock anyone if the coach does stick with that formation given how successful it has been for him through three rounds. It lets him play his better forwards more, and it helps him to shield some of his weaker defensemen when necessary.
Speaking of defense, the blue line is one area where Tampa Bay might have an advantage. Yes, Chicago’s top-four is likely stronger than Tampa’s as a whole, but beyond that it’s hard to argue that the Blackhawks have an advantage. They rely heavily on those top four horses at the expense of their bottom pairing guys. That means that Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson, and Johnny Oduya play a crazy amount of minutes. In contrast, Cooper and Rick Bowness are able to spread out the ice time on the Lightning’s blue line. And it’s not like there’s a lack of quality there, either. Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman, who form Tampa’s top pairing, can be comfortably assigned to any offensive threat in the league.
Because this series hasn’t started yet and because these two teams don’t face each other all that often, some prognosticators are looking at the regular season matchups between these clubs as a way to predict the series. Unfortunately, that’s probably not the best way to go about making a prediction. The teams played two games this year, with the last one taking place in late February. These are different teams now. Plus, it’s not like you can look at those games and find any discernible trend. Each team dominated one of the games. Then there’s extra silliness like this:
The @TBLightning have won 6 of the past 7 meetings between these teams dating to March 9, 2011 (CHI: 1-2-4) – 5 of those games went to OT.
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) June 3, 2015I think the reason we see so much talk about regular season (and past) success in advance of first games is that they are the toughest ones to write about. We haven’t seen enough to get a feel for how these teams are going to stack up against each other in this series. Chicago could win 8-0 tonight. Tampa could win 1-0 in quadruple overtime. We just don’t know. And, as such, I’ll sit back and watch the game just like the rest of you. Here’s hoping it’s a good one.
Go Bolts! As always, thanks for reading.
Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter.