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Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: Johnson's Effort Costs Lightning

April 17, 2021, 9:57 PM ET [7 Comments]
Michael Stuart
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Tampa Bay Lightning dropped a key divisional match against the Florida Panthers on Saturday night. The Bolts may have deserved better in what was an evenly played game, but mental lapses from one player in particular ultimately helped the Panthers grab a win. Here are tonight’s thumbs:

Thumbs Down: Tyler Johnson’s… Whatever That Was
When the Lightning look back on what went wrong in this game, a lot of their problems come down to one player: Tyler Johnson. He was horrible. The underlying numbers paint a picture of an unspectacular – but hardly offensive – performance; make no mistake, though, this was offensively bad.

His effort on Jonathan Huberdeau’s late first period goal was inexcusable, and essentially turned a manageable one-goal deficit into a more daunting two-goal climb. With only eight seconds left on the clock, Johnson looked far more interested in getting to the dressing room than finishing out the period strong. And, while that was the only egregious error that hit the scoreboard for the opponent, the rest of Johnson’s night was far from blemish free. It was just an ugly, ugly performance.

However, perhaps the craziest thing about it all was that Jon Cooper just continued to give Johnson regular minutes, including late in the game when the team needed a goal to even things up. There was no explanation for it, aside from historical loyalty. It will be most interesting to see what Cooper does with the lineup when both Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov are ready to return.

Thumbs Up: Victor Hedman’s Assists
With his assists on Erik Cernak’s third of the season and Mathieu Joseph’s 11th (!), Victor Hedman surpassed 400 career assists in a Lightning jersey. It’s a remarkable accomplishment for any player, but especially so for a defenceman. He currently sits fourth in the all-time assists ranking for the Lightning franchise, behind only Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, and Steven Stamkos. Much like Stamkos, Hedman is already among the franchise greats while still having plenty of time left on his career clock. Let’s enjoy the ride.

Thumbs Down: The Vasilevskiy Effect
The last two games have provided a great example of how important Andrei Vasilevskiy has been for a Lightning team that’s slumping these days. Last game, he was spectacular and really the only reason they were able to steal an overtime win. Tonight, he was fallible and the team around him was unable to pick up the slack. This is not the same tight, defensively sound style that saw the Bolts cruise to the Stanley Cup last Fall. This is a disinterested, lackadaisical style that leaves the all-star goaltender out to dry far too often. The idea that they are just going to be able to flip a switch come playoff time feels increasingly farfetched.

Thumbs Down: The Unfortunate Reality of Waiting for the Playoffs to “Turn it On”



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Things don’t get any easier from here for Tampa Bay, as they’ll see the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday.

As always, thanks for reading.
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