When the Washington Capitals played the Lightning in last year’s conference finals, the Capitals were faster, deeper, and made the Bolts’ breakout seem like a Sisyphean task. The Capitals were able to cycle and retrieve with impunity, and the reason the series went seven games was due to the unnatural brilliance of Andre Vasilevskiy. What a difference a year makes. Last night, the Lightning won 6-3 and were the faster, deeper squad, dominating the boards.

The Lightning played playoff hockey last night. To win in the postseason, they will need to be able to forecheck consistently against good teams that take away the rush and clog the neutral zone. Those worries abated after the Lightning manufactured offense with well-placed dump-ins and strong puck support by the F2 and F3. The game-winning goal by Erik Cernak was a superb display of the Steven Stamkos line forcing turnovers, retrieving the puck, and being able to transport it around the offensive zone while under duress from the opponent.

The Lightning’s time on the attack started off a turnover that was forced by Miller on Matt Niskanen when the Capitals were looking to regroup. After Miller blocked the pass by Niskanen, he retrieved it and worked a give-and-go with Stamkos that resulted in a shot attempt. But it was after that initial takeaway and shot attempt that the Lightning really showed their postseason readiness.

Stamkos retrieved the Miller shot attempt, and passed it below the goal line to Ondrej Palat, who slid under Brooks Oprik’s shoulder to collect the pass and carry the puck up the boards before whisking it back into the corner for Miller to retrieve. The area pass went a little long, and the Capitals’ Chandler Stevenson had the inside track to the puck, yet Miller used his body to knock Stevenson off balance. Stevenson would still grab possession, but the physicality from Miller forced him to poke the puck up the boards toward Palat, allowing the Lightning a chance to wrestle possession back.

As Miller fell to the ice after taking a stick to the face, Palat was able to stab at the puck and shovel it back to Ryan McDonagh at the point. McDonagh held the puck patiently as the Capitals wingers scrambled to close at the point. First McDonagh faced a swipe by Tom Wilson, and then Jakub Vrana ambled over, but Wilson’s initial feint left him a few steps behind Cernak, who was ready to jump down into the slot on the weak side for a beautiful finish.



The Capitals had opportunities to stanch the bleeding after the Niskanen turnover, but they failed each test. Stamkos won the retrieval after the shot attempt. Palat won the one-on-one against Orpik below the goal line. Miller got the better of Stevenson in their head-to-head match, which allowed Palat to position himself for the loose puck. Palat’s seizure of the puck and pass to McDonagh would allow Cernak to beat Wilson to the edge of the middle slot a couple of seconds later. Winning the one-on-one battles when there is no space to be found is a requisite for postseason success. So is puck support.

As for the extraordinary individual effort by Alex Killorn for the Lightning’s third goal: Victor Hedman fought off Wilson as he lugged the puck behind the goal and tossed it up the boards to Mathieu Joseph, who had a nice touch pass to Anthony Cirelli despite facing pressure from Orpik. Cirelli guided the puck to Killorn, who was all alone, and the rest was history. (This pass through the middle from Joseph had a little extra significance because Palat had a turnover that resulted in a John Carlson goal earlier in the period.)

The transition defense and breakouts by the Lightning in this contest were impressive, and the Killorn goal is a great example of their economy of motion: quick passes, no wasted movement, knowing where they are moving the puck to before they receive it. The positioning and awareness by each forward and defenseman, young and old, make them extremely difficult to contain. Even in this game, the second Alexander Ovechkin goal was the result not of a failed breakout pass, but of a strange bounce off the stanchion on the dump-in that allowed the Capitals to gain possession in the offensive zone.

The Lightning scored four goals on Braden Holtby, yet none of them came on the power play—and Nikita Kucherov was held in check. To wit, two shot attempts and zero Scoring Chances at 5v5 is the same stat line for Jan Rutta. In the playoffs, Kucherov might not be shadowed like the star kid in a bantam game, but the opposition will scheme to ensure that he is not the sole reason they are defeated. Kucherov knows this, so he will look to find room and space in other ways, like from neutral zone turnovers. He was not the only one who harnessed the power of the counterattack, but an example of his fingerprints in this scenario was his pass to Brayden Point that led to the Tyler Johnson goal. One foible in the middle of the ice and the Lightning have the passing, puck support, and speed to exploit it.

It is a long season, and these two are meeting twice more before a possible playoff matchup. It would be foolish to read too much into one result, but the way the Lightning supported the puck offensively and defensively, and the contributions they received from their stars, role players, and rookies, make one think that, if we do get a Bolts-Caps’ playoff matchup, the tenor of the series would be very different from last year.

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