Lightning Eyeing a Road Rebound
There is no reason for the Tampa Bay Lightning (or its fans) to overreact to the team’s shocking 4-0 loss to Boston on Saturday at Amalie Arena.
However, that doesn’t mean there is nothing to be concerned about.
The Lightning are still in a very good position for the postseason, however, as veteran coach Jon Cooper referred to the loss in a postgame press conference, it was indeed “disappointing.”
“I think that it started two nights ago,” Cooper said, “when Buffalo came in and I don’t think (our players) were ready to play that game, and clearly, we weren’t ready to play tonight.”
Therein lies part of the concern for Tampa Bay.
The Lightning are in third place in the Atlantic Division with 78 points and trail Florida (81 points) and Toronto (79 points). They had an opportunity to gain ground on both by beating a Bruins team that flew into Florida in turmoil.
Over the past four days, Boston has dealt away six players, received five draft selections and two players in return, and called up four players from its American Hockey League affiliate (Providence). That chaos included trading the team’s captain, veteran center Brad Marchand, to Florida on Friday.
The current group of Bruins not only weren’t familiar with each other, but the team hadn’t even conducted a practice or morning skate prior to Saturday’s game.
Yet, it was Boston, which is one of the NHL’s worst teams on the road, that “worked their tails off,” according to Cooper.
“It was a little bit of seeing some of the (regular) guys out of their lineup,” Cooper said of his team’s lack of focus, “and you can’t do that in this league.”
No, you can’t.
The Lightning not only missed a chance at scoring two points, but the bad exhibition of hockey, as Cooper noted, was the second consecutive such game by his team.
The Sabres are the worst road team in the Eastern Conference and came into Amalie Arena Thursday and dropped five goals on the Lightning. The only thing that saved Tampa Bay was that Buffalo is a miserable defensive team (5th worst in the NHL) and gave up six goals to the hosts.
Also of concern is that Tampa Bay’s top two players, defenseman Victor Hedman and wing Nikita Kucherov, are injured or playing poorly, respectively.
Hedman played for less than three minutes against Buffalo before leaving the ice with a reported lower-body injury. He tried to go through a pregame skate on Saturday but was scratched.
In the case of Kucherov, he did not play for nearly eight minutes in the second period against the Sabres following a costly turnover in the Buffalo zone, which resulted in a Sabre goal.
Kucherov did return in the third period and assisted newly acquired Oliver Bjorkstrand on the game-winning goal, but he finished the game with a zero in plus/minus.
On Saturday, Kucherov also contributed a pair of mistakes to Tampa Bay’s season-high 16 giveaways and was a minus-two.
If all of that wasn’t enough to concern Lightning fans, the team’s schedule is about to get really challenging.
As Tampa Bay fans are aware, this team is very good at Amalie Arena – the past two games, aside. However, it is middling (14-14-2) on the road, and six of its next seven games are away from Amalie Arena.
“It’s been turned,” Cooper said of his team’s mentality of “turning the page” from Saturday’s outing. “We can’t get these points back. We can’t look through the rearview mirror. We have to look straight ahead.
“We’ve got a proud group here, so, I’m not worried about these guys. This was just really disappointing.”
Tampa Bay begins this hard stretch with a test at Carolina (37-22-4) on Tuesday (7:30 p.m.), followed by games at Philadelphia (Thursday) and Boston (March 15).
Cooper’s team returns home for a game against Philadelphia (March 17) before heading to Dallas (March 20), Utah (March 22), and Vegas (March 23).
Tampa Bay is currently nine points ahead of the top wild-card team, Ottawa. However, what is in peril, particularly if the team plays poorly during this road stretch, is the Lightning’s positioning in the postseason.
A second – or third-place finish in the Atlantic Division will more than likely result in a first-round series with either Florida (which is the defending Stanley Cup champion and just traded for Marchand and Chicago defenseman Seth Jones) or Toronto.
If the Lightning could win the Atlantic Division, they would open the postseason against a wild card team, more than likely the top-seeded wild card team, due to the (probable) Metropolitan Division winner, Washington, having more points. Facing Ottawa, Columbus, the New York Rangers, or Montreal, in the opening round, as opposed to Florida or Toronto, would certainly be a more attractive option.
That is why an inexcusable performance cannot occur moving forward. “This group knows,” Cooper said of his team being cognizant of its performance. “It’s unfortunate. We blew an opportunity to try and gain some ground. Now we’ll have to make up for it (on Tuesday).”
