Lightning Find Themselves Struggling At The Wrong Time
- Mike Smith
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
By Mike Smith | Thunderstruck Sports
What a difference a month can make. Entering the Olympic Break on February 5th, the Tampa Bay Lightning were riding an impressive streak of 19-1-1 in their last 21 games. Add in an impressive performance for 56 minutes upon their return on March 4th against Toronto, and it seemed the break would not affect their level of play.
The next night in Carolina, the wheels fell off. In the two games since Toronto, the team has been throwing unnecessary sparks and flames all over the ice as they try to drive on the rim, only to get blown out along the way.
Lopsided losses to Buffalo at home and Minnesota on the road the past few nights have Head Coach Jon Cooper flustered in a way only the 13-year coach can truly express: Calm confidence in the team, yet subtle concern about the performances.
"I'm really disappointed, actually," Cooper said postgame after the 6-2 loss to Buffalo. "To be 50-plus games in, put ourselves in the position we are, and then come out and play like this (with) no pushback, no urgency, no drive, no attention to detail. Really, really disappointed in our compete level."
The Bolts find themselves mired in a scenario similar to the opening of the season, where they lost their first six of seven games.
Tampa Bay righted the ship by game 8 and then went on a tear right up until the break last month. However, as tight as the Atlantic Division is as we enter the last six weeks of the season, the Lightning can't wait four more games to right the listing ship yet again.
The six-point cushion they enjoyed just days ago is down to two, while Buffalo, Detroit, and Montreal are keeping pace and closing in quickly.
Lightning Defense Needs Redefinition
O, Lightning Defense, where art thou?
Since the final minutes of the Tampa Bay win against Toronto last Wednesday night, the Bolts' defense has become porous and almost unrecognizable from the team of January.
While cruising to a win against the Maple Leafs, something just went awry. The Leafs managed a few quick goals in the final minutes of that game and exposed some vulnerability in the Lightning defense.
Buffalo and Minnesota capitalized on that in the past two games.
"We've kind of gotten away from our identity as a team," Cooper said Tuesday night. "Defensively, we've been exceptional this year, and right now we are not. So it's dig-in-and-dig-your-heels time. We gave them (Minnesota) some gifts. When you're going to give a good team like that some freebies, it hurts your chances."
"We gave up too many odd-man rushes," Lightning Captain Victor Hedman said Saturday. "And they're going to make you pay."
Penalties have also hurt the team in recent games. The Lightning had 48 minutes of penalties combined on Saturday and Tuesday nights, leading to scores in both affairs.
"I don't think I've ever seen penalties like that where we just took three consecutive high sticks, too many men," Cooper said. "Those are on us. You feed a good team like that chances, they capitalize, and we didn't on ours."
Both Buffalo and Minnesota picked up the pace of their offensive attack and controlled the neutral zone for most of their nights against the Lightning. The Bolts' sudden inability to limit their opponents' chances on the rush has led to giving up 11 goals in 120 minutes of play.
"We really don't have a lot of winning habits in our game, and it's kind of been a tough stretch here where you can say things aren't going our way, our will to win, our want to win," defenseman Ryan McDonagh said Tuesday night.
When the Big Cat isn't quite so big
Another factor in the team's recent struggles is the play of goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. Vasilevskiy recorded his worst performance of the season on Saturday night against Buffalo by giving up five goals on only 14 shots for a 13.70 GAA and .643 save percentage.
That's with only 22 minutes of ice time before being pulled for backup Jonas Johanssen.
The odd-man rushes and breakaways given up by the defense aren't helping, but the Big Cat isn't doing himself any favors right now, either.
Vasilevskiy seemed even more off-sync Tuesday night against the Wild at Grand Casino Arena, where the team has only won three times in 25 years. An uncharacteristic glove muff that led to a Yakov Trenin goal summed up the past few nights for the normally stellar goalie.
He finished the evening with his 9th loss of the season, stopping 17 of 21 shots for a 4.12 GAA and .810 save percentage.
Don't count Vasilevskiy out of the Vezina trophy running quite yet, though. If there is one thing Lightning players and fans can count on, it is that Vasilevskiy has been and still is the best in the world. The future Hall-of-Fame goalie will find his way again.
The Foundation
In his nearly 13 years of coaching the Tampa Bay Lightning, Jon Cooper has always maintained that a strong foundation will weather the team through any storm. Despite cloudy skies and rough conditions the past week, Cooper still believes the team will find its way.
"We've got a great group of guys in there, so I'm not worried about them," Cooper said postgame Tuesday. "And yes, does it sting a bit that we've lost three in a row? Sure. Are we giving up too many goals? Of course we are."
"But there's a foundation there. Again, it's 82 games."
"It's just getting back to our old habits, the ones that made us have success," forward Oliver Bjorkstrand said. "Every time you get on the ice, you've got to be ready to play, and you can't have these swings in your game."
"It's all the way through the lineup, and we've just got to get back to the old habits."
The old habits of January. Not the old habits of October. Therein lies the challenge.
"You look for answers, but sometimes you have to look within yourself," McDonagh said. "And us as a team, we've got to work through this here and start getting back to winning habits. We've proven we can do it, and it's a matter of digging deep and starting to build something here."
The Lightning look to right the ship and get through the current storm on Thursday night in Winnipeg. The slumping Jets may be just what the doctor ordered, or it could be a trap game where the Lightning play down to the competition and get upset.
How the game plays out is entirely up to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
"The bottom line is, now we have to end this now," Cooper said sternly. "We can't let this slide continue, and I'm confident they won't."
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