Steven Stamkos has been the most prolific North American goal scorer over the last ten seasons. Over the same ten years, only Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin boast higher points per game. Unsurprisingly, since the 2009-10 season, only Alexander Ovechkin has notched more power-play goals. When factoring in that Stamkos had two seasons derailed by injuries, it is remarkable how productive the sharpshooter has been. And in last night’s 6-3 victory over the New York Rangers, Stamkos reached and surpassed 700 points, a feat accomplished only by 176 other players. Right now Stamkos is on fire—he has eight goals and four assists in his last seven games—which means it is plausible that he could reach 1,000 points.
Notwithstanding how much the league has evolved from when Stamkos exploded for 51 goals in his second season (2009-2010), his hat trick against the Blueshirts had echoes of his halcyon sniper days. The first two power-play goals were one-timers from the left circle that were stashed in the upper reaches of the net. On the first strike, Henrik Lundqvist was able to square up and wasn’t screened by his defenseman or by Tampa Bay’s Yanni Gourde. But the velocity and precision Stamkos has on his one-timer is sui generis. Lundqvist was in position and had a clear view of the shot and he still failed. You can’t stop what you can’t see. If one stops the video exactly at the 30-second mark, you get a perfect still shot of the torque on Stamkos’s shot as he flexes his stick like a rubber band.
The fluidity of the movement, and the ease with which he drives it into a space the size of a mail slot, belies the extraordinary craft it takes to hone that skill. The man can shoot missiles. It is power married to grace.
Stamkos’s second and third goals were equally impressive, but for different reasons. On the marker that tied the game at two, Stamkos rocketed a shot top corner as he was falling down. How he was able to hammer a shot past Lundqvist while he was off-balance and his legs were in a pretzel shape is downright spooky. For his final tally, Ondrej Palat dished it to Stamkos as he was coasting in on the odd-man rush. As Stamkos slows down while the puck glides toward him, his skates stay parallel and his stick is raised. Then like a guillotine falling to end the life of an unworthy opponent, Stamkos whips his hands downward, his right leg dragging while his left leg propels forward. The puck is buried in the netting, putting the game out of reach.
The Rangers were felled by too many penalties, which is unfortunate for them because they kept pace with the Lightning for the first period and at least the early part of the second. In the first period, the Lightning and Rangers were even with four High-Danger Chances at 5v5. In the second period, the Lightning generated seven to the Rangers’ zero. So what happened in the second period? The Lightning began to establish their forecheck, create odd-man rushes, and the Rangers’ defensemen were exposed. There were sequences in the third period where the Lightning pressure continued. The ugliest manifestation of this was the incredible Anthony Cirelli goal, where Fredrik Claesson was too casual about retrieving the puck in the Rangers’ end and Cirelli picked his pocket and it ended up in New York’s net.
The Rangers also struggled to contain the Lightning defensemen, whose offensive presence is a sneaky reason why the Tampa Bay offense cannot stop scoring. On Ryan McDonagh’s goal, one reason for the Rangers defensemen’s reluctance about keeping a tight gap on Brayden Point’s entry was that McDonagh had a few steps on Vladislav Namestikov, and a confrontation on the right side of the ice would have likely surrendered the left side.
Without question, Lundqvist conceded a soft goal on McDonagh’s shot, but the way the former Rangers blueliner jumped into the rush was emblematic of the assault all night from the Lightning back end. Victor Hedman nearly nabbed a goal as he rang one off the post, and Mikhail Sergachev was attacking from the point. Braydon Coburn, Erik Cernak, and Dan Girardi are eager to pounce when they see an opportunity to jump into a rush or exploit a slow-moving defense that is struggling to keep up with the rapid interchanging that is characteristic of the Lightning cycle. Because the Lightning defensemen are so unapologetically aggressive, they need to be accounted for, and this opens up room for the Tampa Bay forwards in transition and on the cycle.
It was a special night for Stamkos, and the Lightning keep winning. The Rangers are just another casualty.
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • 
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