As troubling as the Victor Hedman and Anthony Cirelli injuries are, there should be little question that the Lightning are underperforming this season. Against a Mika Zibanejad-less Rangers squad, the Lightning mustered only one goal and were outplayed for long stretches last night, ultimately losing 4-1.

Tampa Bay struggled in the neutral zone. And as a consequence of their lack of success moving the puck, they tried to chip and chase, but couldn’t forecheck with any consistency. Their puck management was poor in all three zones. They also looked sluggish defending the cycle, and even their decision-making seemed a beat slow. The game-winning goal by Filip Chytil in the third period followed a series of Lightning errors that proved fatal. The Chytil goal was a microcosm of the Lightning’s problems, so dissecting what went wrong helps explain where the Lightning have room for improvement.

After a long shift, both the Rangers and Lightning were looking for a line change. But while Nikita Kucherov left the ice, Brayden Point fanned out to the far blue line in the hopes of generating a little offense. After all, it was Point’s excellent drive off a sloppy Rangers' line change that created the Lightning’s first goal. But this time, Erik Cernak and Point failed to connect off the stretch pass, leading to an icing that pinned the Lightning for a faceoff in their own end. This kept a tired Point and Tyler Johnson on for the draw, and when they willed the puck out of their zone, they must have felt reassured as the puck was moved to Yanni Gourde, the player who had fresh legs and had replaced Kucherov.

The first problem was that, once Gourde controlled the puck along the boards, he made a miscalculation.



Gourde seemed to have forgotten that he jumped on the ice with exhausted teammates, because instead of chipping the puck deep and making the Rangers go retrieve it, he swerved left, presumably thinking he had support coming from Point and Johnson. But that was not the case, as Point had gone to the bench for the change and Johnson was coasting in that direction. Three Rangers converged on Gourde and forced a turnover just below the blue line—and suddenly three New York players were charging out of their end with speed.

This is where Johnson could have stayed on the ice and at least attempted to stem the transition. But instead he continued toward the bench, perhaps fearing that, if he stayed, the Lightning would suffer another Too Many Men penalty. This created a three-on-three for the Rangers, and it led to the miscue that would sink the Bolts.

Pavel Buchnevich controlled the puck on the entry, and in his lane was Steven Stamkos. But Ryan McDonagh was a few feet to the right and with a tighter gap, and he appeared to believe he also had Buchnevich. Stamkos called McDonagh off, as there was Chytil powering down the middle and he needed to be covered by McDonagh. But McDonagh was late on this read, and when he identified Chytil, he pivoted the wrong way. Instead of pivoting toward Chytil and playing the body, he tried to play the puck, and Buchnevich snuck a nice saucer pass by McDonagh.

Goals are easy to reverse-engineer, and if McDonagh had disrupted Chytil too early, that is possibly an Interference penalty. I also sympathize with the Lightning defensemen, because if blame is being doled out for last night, the forwards should largely be held responsible for the loss. Tampa Bay’s forwards mismanaged the puck all night, and their lack of pressure in the offensive zone put the Tampa Bay defensemen in retreat-and-defend mode far too often. Even if the Lightning retrieve the puck after dumping it in, it’s astonishing how easy it is for some opponents to defend them. Opponents know the Lightning are going to shoot from the middle of the ice, and if they are in the off-slot, they will try an east-west pass. Fuse that with the torpid pace with which the Lightning cycle the puck, and they are shockingly easy to diffuse for a team that is well coached.

Without an impactful rush and forecheck, the strain on the defensemen and Andrei Vasilevskiy is tremendous. The Lightning have shown flashes in recent games of wanting to dominate their opponents by controlling the territorial advantage and by shooting more (a la Carolina Hurricanes hockey), but on Tuesday the support wasn’t there. Far too many times, the Lightning demurred from shooting and the subsequent pass led to a counterattack. The Lightning are going to suffer injuries, but these should not affect their decision-making and effort.

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