The Lightning recipe | The Press

After the Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated on Saturday night, their head coach, Sheldon Keefe, pointed out that the Tampa Bay Lightning had developed a recipe for winning. And that obviously, he applied it well.

Simon Olivier Lorange
The Press

The Florida Panthers just saw the same thing. So despite a stellar first-half start, the Cats found themselves trailing 1-0 in this contested second-round series in the Sunshine State.

The Lightning’s 4-1 win was nothing short of rocket science, when you think about it. Special teams that work – three goals scored on the power play and none allowed on the shorthanded. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy who fully found his groove – 34 saves on 35 shots, his best playoff performance so far. So-called “deep” players who stand out – the only even-strength goal came from the fourth line. And stars who, in the absence of Braydon Point, rise.

In fact, we use the plural here, but the singular would probably be more appropriate. We could even put a name to our idea.

With eight points in six games, Nikita Kucherov obviously contributed to the effort that defeated the Maple Leafs in the first round. However, it went under the radar a bit given the symbolic strength of the Toronto loss, but he was the worst player in his camp in the seventh game. Scrambled passes, bad decisions, lost pucks.

On Tuesday, the Russian was downright dominant. Late in the second period, he first forced Mackenzie Weegar to hang him then, during the ensuing power play, he made sure to haunt Aaron Ekblad’s nightmares for years by humiliating him at one on one. Once cleared of the defender, he delivered a perfect pass to Corey Perry, who tied the game at 1-1.

Kucherov did it again in the third period, again with the advantage of a man, by scoring with a beautiful shot, which he had about 12 hours to release.

It was also poor Keefe who, his heart kneaded with the emotion of defeat, pointed out the secret ingredient of the recipe for the representatives of Tampa Bay – a town without gentiles, if anyone ever cares.

Despite all their offensive guns, it’s the Lightning’s defensive play that is perhaps their most formidable weapon. Combining the 2020 and 2021 series, Jon Cooper’s men have been among the best teams in almost every defensive category. By giving up shots and chances to score in dribs and drabs, and with one of the best goalkeepers in the world in net, the chances of success are good.

The model seemed to have faltered during the series against the Leafs. But we can see that the machine is working at full speed today. An easy illustration: the Panthers did not target any shots during the last 87 seconds of play, and this, while they were playing 6 against 5. We thought we were seeing the end of Saturday’s game in Toronto.

Shy Panthers

Well, we can always pour out for a lifetime on the successes of the Lightning. But there are also the Panthers who, by losing this game, deserve attention.

Vasilevskiy certainly had to stand out a few times in the second and third periods, but certainly not as much as one would have expected, knowing that he faced the attack which has just scored the most goals in a quarter of a century in the NHL.

It was ordinary at even strength, but we wouldn’t talk too much about it if the power play, another department where things were going pretty well thank you during the season, had contributed. Roughly speaking, in 2021-2022, the Panthers scored one goal per four chances (24.4%).

Including their previous streak against the Washington Capitals, there they are at… 0%. No goals in 21 occasions in total. It’s a big problem. In the same way that we cannot endlessly evoke the St. Louis Blues of 2019 to hope for a spectacular rise in the standings this season, it is not very constructive to recall that the Boston Bruins won the Cup. Stanley in 2011 with a pitiful 11.4% power play. By the way, these Bruins would have already scored two goals with the chances that the Panthers had in 2022.

Any account of a first game ends with a reminder that the series is young and anything can happen. It’s not false. Still need the Panthers to adjust quickly. It is indeed one thing to finish in first place in the general classification, it is quite another to adapt your pace to the rhythm of the series.

Especially when those who impose it know by heart the recipe for success.