The Lightning surrendered first place in the Atlantic Division last night by losing 4-2 to the Bruins, and lambasting Tampa Bay would be easy, a crutch. But that is boring writing. This space wants to find solutions! Last night proved fascinating because the blueprint for how to attack and beat the Bruins crystalized by the final whistle.

The biggest problem the Lightning had was their obstinate wish to dump-and-chase on the Bruins. Boston is as fast as Tampa Bay, and they are extremely efficient at moving the puck out of their own zone on breakouts. The first and second periods at even strength displayed a series of lost board battles and races by the Lightning. But as quick as the Bruins are at sprinting to the perimeter, they are less graceful defending the middle. And lo and behold, once Tampa Bay realized that they should try to attack off the rush, scoring chances proliferated. Once the Bruins had time to fall into their defensive posture, the Lightning were stymied.

Consider the offense generated from the rush by the Lightning during the final frame: There was a Brayden Point entry with 15:50 remaining, where he pushed the defense back and stopped and looked for help before almost connecting with Yanni Gourde on the backdoor. That entry led to several looks by his line with Gourde and Tyler Johnson. There was a Nikita Kucherov play with 15 minutes left, where he curled away from the action in the neutral zone, found J.T. Miller through the middle, and Miller carried the puck on the entry and almost ripped a goal far side.

There was Braydon Coburn stepping up in the neutral zone, which sprang an Alex Killorn entry. Instead of dumping it, Killorn self-passed and scored on the follow-up opportunity. Unfortunately, the goal was waved off because of goaltender interference. Steven Stamkos presented a backdoor pass to Ryan McDonagh off the rush with less than 13 minutes in the third. Cory Conacher’s dash up the boards with 5:45 left in the game was nifty. Conacher circled the net and found McDonagh in the slot. Finally, there was Stamkos’s reluctance to relinquish the puck for a dump-in on an entry with less than four minutes left, and his patience led to two Kucherov shot attempts that could have tied the game.

For the sake of not cherry-picking information, the goal by Victor Hedman was generated by a dump-and-chase and good F1 forechecking by Johnson. However, the first two periods made it very clear that the forecheck should be used sparingly and for the purpose of adding variability. The Lightning struggled to spread out the Bruins for most of the game because the boards proved to be such a black hole, but once the rush was correctly harnessed, the prospect of the Lightning slinging passes to the backdoor and expanding the playing terrain became a reality.

If these two meet in the playoffs, I think a successful rush is accomplished two-fold. First, there is a variation of the version I kept citing above. Player X enters the zone, buys time, and eventually finds player Y on a pass, and that scoring chance triggers the cycle. But the other way is a deliberate entry with a bunched rush. That means three forwards and a defenseman passing in a relatively tight space to accomplish the zone entry. Sure, it is less potent without the speed from the other rush look, but it is ultimately a mechanism for precipitating the cycle.

There were times when a Lightning defenseman tried to break away from enemy pressure and open up the neutral zone, and too often that led to a Bruins counterattack the opposite way. In fact, McDonagh’s turnover on that exact scenario offered up the Bruins’ first goal. But a bunched rush, undergirded with puck support, is intended to prevent the McDonagh turnover scenario. The Lightning’s skaters can beat Bruins players one-on-one, but a bunched rush would be a complementing, collective effort.

A deliberate, clustered rush is most effective over 200 feet, so this would help patch up the leaks in the Lightning’s breakouts, which wreaked havoc for Tampa Bay over the first two periods. There was just too much separation between Lightning forward and defenseman, and forward and forward. If the Lightning are to beat the Bruins come playoff time, they need to connect on their passes.

By the third period, the Lightning discovered that the Bruins are vulnerable off the rush and through the middle. Tampa Bay has a path forward. But the lesson is only useful if internalized.

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