It was as if the Lightning recovered their true identity last night, and it came at the expense of the Ottawa Senators, the worst team in the NHL. Tampa Bay’s defensemen had four goals, but they could have had more as they pummeled Ottawa 5-1.

With less than five minutes into the first period, the Steven Stamkos line lugged the puck out of their end, buried it deep, and passed, interchanged, shot, retrieved. Then they repeated. The whistle was finally blown after Victor Hedman ripped a shot off Craig Anderson’s mask that went skyward and out of play. But that strategy—of pinballing the puck around the offensive zone and demanding that the defensemen pinch deep while a forward or two rotates and supports up high—is how the Lightning want to play when they cycle. And the Senators were completely incapable of stopping it.

The only difference between the Hedman head shot sequence and the Hedman goal was transportation method. On the goal, Alex Killorn carried the puck in on the entry rather than Stamkos chipping it deep and Ondrej Palat retrieving it. The Hedman goal came off the fifth Lightning shot attempt. The Lightning won three crucial races to the puck, one by J.T. Miller on the initial rush chance, and then two more by Hedman that kept the Lightning in possession and with their foot on the Senators’ throat.

I’m not counting the Hedman follow-up attempt off the Girardi one-timer because it landed where he was gliding, but clearly that was the biggest retrieval of all.



What went right on this play was the net-front presence by Anthony Cirelli, the high rotation of Miller (who facilitated the movement of Hedman and Girardi), and Hedman’s remarkable mobility, which allowed him to rove around the offensive zone.

When McDonagh scored on what would become the game-winning goal, the first significant play was a one-on-one battle that was won by Cirelli, who got an offensive zone opportunity with Brayden Point and Kucherov. Cirelli lost the faceoff, but Point tied up the Senators’ Christian Jaros, halting the breakout pass and allowing Cirelli to pilfer the puck from the Senators’ clutches. This set the table for the Kucherov show, as Kucherov had one revolution around the offensive zone before he laid the puck at the feet of Cernak. Apparently in awe of the grace and majesty of Kucherov’s puck-handling sizzle, Jean-Gabriel Pageau completely lost McDonagh in coverage and Cernak was able to find the seam and hit McDonagh on the weak side.



But most opponents aren’t the Senators. The Lightning do a lot of interchanging and rotating against superior opponents, and what happens is that the Lightning get pushed to the perimeter, pass and skate a lot, and the puck fails to move to the middle for a shot—or a turnover is created and the Lightning concede an odd-man rush. While the Lightning cycle worked delightfully last night, the Senators’ best scoring chances came off these miscues.

The insight from last night is that, while it is great to involve the defensemen in the offense, the Lightning’s success on the cycle is predicated on their ability to retrieve the puck, and their willingness to shoot it from anywhere. Kucherov’s goal has not been mentioned, but that came from a non-scoring area and found the back of the net because of a Lightning double screen. The Lightning can be their own worst enemy when their cycle doesn’t generate a shot because its participants are so focused on unlocking the perfect scoring chance. As last night demonstrated, the Lightning can shred teams when they lower their ambitions and let a sequence evolve organically.

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