3
0
Unfocused Lightning go out in the first round again.
FLA-6
TB-3
Florida Wins the Series 4-1
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed five goals on 30 shots for the loss. Bobrovsky just made more timely saves than Andrei tonight. I thought Vasilevskiy had a big rebound season this year and was generally ok in these playoffs, but given what the Lightning were dealt they needed him to be great.
First Period
2:33 TB Goncalves (1), (Glendening, Hedman)
5:21 FLA Verhaeghe (2), (Tkachuk, Reinhart)(PP)
10:06 FLA Lundell (2), (Marchand, Luostarinen)
12:16 TB Paul (2), (Geekie)
Second Period
0:52 FLA Barkov (1), (Forsling, Luostarinen)
9:57 TB Guentzel (3), (Hedman)(PP)
15:13 FLA Bennett (3), (Lundell, Luostarinen)
Third Period
13:02 FLA Luostarinen (1), (Marchand, Lundell)
15:36 FLA Reinhart (2), (unassisted)(EN)
Gage Goncalves was the game’s third star.
The Lightning just didn’t have it tonight. They didn’t have the focus and sharpness they needed, particularly in their defensive shape and puck management. I thought it’d be tough for them to rebound emotionally from Game Four and it was doubly tough with Hagel out injured and they just didn’t have it. The PK really missed Hagel tonight, but ultimately too many mistakes by veterans like Cernak and Hedman and Kucherov and too few timely saves by Andrei Vasilevskiy to paper over them.
It’s tough. I actually think the Lightning are a dramatically improved team from where they were a year ago, but it’s not reflected in the identical playoff outcome as last season. There’s logical reasons for that. The Lightning didn’t have their biggest deadline acquisition (Bjorkstrand) due to injury and didn’t have their 35 goal, 90 point Four Nations caliber winger (Hagel) for half of this series due to the foolishness of the NHL DOPS and some weapons-grade dirty play by an opponent. You got the bootleg version of the Lightning in this series and although they didn’t embarrass themselves from an effort standpoint, bar the last 40 minutes of Game One perhaps, they were squarely behind the eight ball from jump street in this series and it went downhill from there. If you want to think about it from an equivalency standpoint, imagine if Sunrise had to go into this series without Brad Marchand and ended up losing Sam Bennett for half the series against a full strength Lightning roster. It’s about the same thing.
What happens next? For the reasons I delineated above, I don’t think you’re going to see the same kind of tectonic changes to the Lightning roster that Julien BriseBois made last offseason. Buzzard’s luck explains a lot of what happened in the postseason, and after a couple of seasons of declining possession stats and defensive play the team improved in those areas markedly this season. I don’t think you’ll see a lot of changes to the forward corps. There’s a decision to be made by the organization and the player as to whether Yanni Gourde is re-signed. I think he got nicked up in Game One and that really hampered him from being as effective as I thought he was down the stretch of the regular season. Beyond that, I think a lot depends on the continued development of Conor Geekie and Gage Goncalves. Goncalves needs to work on his strength and positioning and being on the right side of pucks and winning board battles more. He shows a lot of quality as an offensive playmaker, but my goodness does he make my skin crawl in the other areas of his game at times. Geekie, I think, just needs experience. He’s got the stuff of a really good NHL player and just needs time and reps to put it all together. To the degree they do change things, I would think BriseBois would want to get a heavier player or two onto the roster because even with Bjorkstrand they weren’t optimally set up for the playoffs in that department and I’m sure he knew that going in. If they entertain the idea of bringing someone up from Syracuse for a job, it’d probably either be Dylan Duke or Jack Finley, I would think.
Defensively, I think the biggest potential point of failure is the age of veterans Hedman, McDonagh, and Cernak, all of whom had pretty good seasons in my books. Cernak, in particular, was way healthier and effective than I’d have expected after a couple of injury-riddled campaigns. Were I BriseBois, I’d be locking those three in a hyperbaric chamber and then hoping that the pre-injury version of JJ Moser is what comes into training camp next season. Before his mid-season injury, Moser was playing out of his mind good hockey and the club has to hope that was foreshadowing rather than a flash in the pan. To the degree changes could be made, they might want to remake their bottom pair. Emil Lilleberg had his moments, but his advanced statistics are abysmal and tell the tale of a defenseman who more often than not just isn’t cutting it. On the right side, you have the flip side of the equation where Nick Perbix and Darren Raddysh may look acceptable from a counting statistics and advanced statistics perspective, but man they don’t pass the eye test at times. Crunch RHD Max Crozier, in my opinion, is an NHL caliber defenseman today. I’d probably make a spot for him and go shopping for an upgrade at LHD, ideally one with some upside to replace some minutes for McDonagh and/or Hedman.
In goal, I think folks just need to give up on this fanciful notion Andrei Vasilevskiy’s ever going to give up his net for 30 nights in the regular season for freshness. Accept that a workhorse wants to work and move on.
It’s going to be a long offseason of what-if’s, but I do think the Lightning turned a corner foundationally that they should feel good about going into next season.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
