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When a Win Streak Is a Curse |
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Dying sucks. Every person reading this article, as well as its writer, will at some point cease to breathe, and that thought is both depressing and profound. Why profound? Because if life didn’t end, our choices would be stripped of meaning. We would become bored and indecisive. The stakes would feel impossibly low if we knew we had an endless amount of years to find love, or hone our craft.
A loss after a long winning streak is a bit like dying. It brings closure and reflection. But the Lightning, despite sputtering, inconsistent play, keep winning. They awarded the Rangers six power-play chances last night, but the Blueshirts couldn’t notch a goal with the man advantage. In fact, after the first period, the Lightning all but stopped generating offense, save for a few good shifts from the Nikita Kucherov line.
The numbers cause a person’s eyes to bulge: At 5v5, the Rangers manufactured three times as many scoring chances and nearly twice as many shot attempts. For most teams when they take shortcuts, there are consequences—like losing. The Lightning believe they can leave their defensemen on an island by pressing three forwards deep, ask their defensemen to play super aggressively, and give selective effort in the defensive zone because, worst case, Andre Vasilevskiy will rescue them. Still, just because they weren’t punished last night with a loss, doesn’t mean such play won’t bring damaging outcomes down the road.
Gaffe 1
If the Lightning don’t get consistent, relentless transition defense from their forwards, they will not win the Cup. Full stop. To be fair, they have gotten better in this facet in the last two months, but last night was not an example, as the Rangers' first goal from Mika Zibanejad illustrated. Brayden Point went for a swipe in the neutral zone, and Tyler Johnson and Kucherov coasted back, leaving Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak alone to deal with Jimmy Vesey and Zibanejad. McDonagh stepped up in the neutral zone, but once he directed Cernak to close out Vesey, he was lethargic to close the gap on Zibanejad. This was unfortunate because Cernak did a decent job closing on Vesey by pushing him into a position where he could only pass.
What was weird about the play was that McDonagh was playing the puck and not the body, leaving no margin for error if he whiffed on Vesey’s pass to the backdoor. This may have been a result of his decision to keep his straight-line trajectory instead of taking a diagonal route toward the space below the dot. But it also highlighted a problem for the Lightning, which we would see multiple times in this game. The Lightning defensemen, especially the top minute-loggers, play super aggressively and have unwavering belief in their recovery speed and in their forwards to provide transition defense. But that opens the door to an opponent exploiting Tampa Bay’s reckless puck management and aggressive positioning.
Gaffe 2
With 3 minutes and a handful of seconds left in the first period, J.T. Miller stopped at the left hash mark and backhanded a pass to McDonagh at the point. But Miller left it short and Chris Kreider got to the puck first. Not only did Miller’s bad pass catch McDonagh flat-footed, but McDonagh had no support to speak of. His forwards were deep below the circles. Steven Stamkos was below the right dot. Ondrej Palat was in front of the crease. Miller was the highest forward, just above the left circle. McDonagh’s defensive partner, Cernak, was closest, hovering around the high slot. Kreider moves like a Peregrine Falcon and McDonagh was toast once he caught up to his self-pass. Kreider ultimately would miss the net on the breakaway, but the Lightning should be leery of exposing themselves over the top like that come playoff time.
Gaffe 3
The next blunder was at 4v4 on the Jimmy Vesey goal. The Lightning had Stamkos and Tyler Johnson on the ice, and the Rangers were resetting in their own zone. Kevin Shattenkirk moved it to Fredrik Claesson below the goal line, and he zipped an indirect stretch pass up ice. He found Vesey, who was able to get behind Victor Hedman and ultimately fight him off for an outstanding individual effort. This was an example of the Lightning’s aggression weaponized against them. Hedman tried to intercept the stretch pass, but failed to pick it off. Still, he believed he had the recovery speed to spoil Vesey’s offensive efforts. Instead, Vesey was able to shield the puck and go backhand-to-forehand right in front of the crease.
Gaffe 4
The worst defensive effort of the game indisputably was the Boo Nieves goal. Mikhail Sergachev, who didn’t play against the Kings, watched Anton Stralman obstruct Nieves’s path to the puck, and still managed to get beat handily to the retrieval in the corner. Miller switched with Stamkos to take the center’s defensive role, and gave a weak effort on Ryan Strome, who managed to walk out of the corner, set his feet, identify the passing lane, and slip a pass into the slot to Nieves, who had somehow eluded the attention of not only Sergachev, but the cluster of Lightning skaters in the low slot.
Even with all the criticism in this article, it must be emphasized that the Lightning won again. Ten straight is an extraordinary feat. Still, epiphanies arrive unexpectedly, and the Lightning would be wise to identify their soft spots. The Lightning defensemen rely on the forwards to buoy the defense, just as the forwards expect the defensemen to reciprocate with offense—and when the effort slacks, Vasilevskiy is forced into the role of savior. The Lightning play their fastest and pass best when they are most decisive shooting the puck. Lucky for them, they can quickly redress their recent sloppy execution against Boston tonight.
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • 
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