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On Stamkos's Historic Night, Bolts Tame Coyotes

March 19, 2019, 8:31 AM ET [3 Comments]
Sam Hitchcock
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Coyotes’ 1-2-2 defensive coverage stymies their opponents’ creativity. Even though the Lightning would try to use the stretch pass to bypass the Coyotes’ first two layers of skaters, the pair of Coyotes defensemen waiting for the puck-carrier limited Tampa Bay’s offensive capability on the rush. Instead, the game was won in the off-slot and at the point. With varying degrees of effectiveness, the Lightning bested the Coyotes from those areas to squeak by with the misleading score of 4-1.

The off-slot
The Coyotes are proficient at getting into shooting lanes and disrupting passes into the slot. Last night, when a Lightning puck-carrier would run out of racetrack and turn toward the boards to look for help, a pack of Coyotes would be sprinting through the middle in support. The first and second wave was mitigated, and this lack of traction caused fits for the Lightning.

It was this lack of room in the foreground that resulted in the Lightning color TV analyst suggesting playmaking from behind the net. Brian Engblom has a sharp hockey mind, and it was something the Lightning attempted to do, with limited success. While Nikita Kucherov had an excellent pass from behind the goal line to Brayden Point, which Point bungled, overall the Coyotes did an impressive job denying the Lightning opportunities in the low slot.

The Coyotes proved adept at retrieving the puck and moving it efficiently on their breakout, and when they could put two or three bodies below the goal line they had a lot of success thwarting the Lightning’s efforts. Instead, where the Lightning found the room for playmaking was on the perimeter. As in the Victor Hedman goal.

The catalyst for the Hedman goal was Alex Goligoski. Usually a smooth skater, Goligoski carried the puck behind his net and lost an edge, causing a scrum of skates and sticks in the corner, all hoping to fetch the forfeited puck. After some nice strength on the puck by Anthony Cirelli and an important keep-in by Mikhail Sergachev, the puck was chucked back behind the goal line. This led to Miller pinning Goligoski to the boards and Cirelli retrieving the loose puck. When Cirelli back-passed it to Miller, it was Alex Killorn who ended up snatching possession. Killorn curled toward the inside of the right circle, whipped around, and snapped the puck on net. This forced a save by Darcy Kuemper, and more importantly, it gave a chance for Cirelli to make a play on the rebound, as he beat Mario Kempe to the puck and shoveled a pass to the weak side to Hedman.



That pass by Cirelli in the slot does not happen without the shot from Killorn in the off-slot. Sometimes shooting from the perimeter is the best way to shoot from the middle against a well-coached defensive team. The opposite instinct nearly cost the Lightning a goal in the first period.

When the Brayden Point line refuses to shoot from the off-slot, it doesn’t just hurt its production, it hurts the team. Nearly halfway through the first, Kucherov and Point worked a give-and-go near the top of the right circle, and instead of whipping a shot on net or pushing one more stride and shooting, Kucherov pivoted and attempted a pass behind him that went between Erik Cernak and Alex Killorn to leave the zone. That peculiar pass by Kucherov led to Hedman attempting a regroup pass in the neutral zone that would become a takeaway by the Coyotes. Shortly after, Kempe got a prime opportunity on Andre Vasilevskiy, which Killorn committed a penalty on.

Reluctance by the Kucherov line to shoot from the off-slot will hurt the Lightning if it continues in the postseason. They won’t be able to always pass themselves into space and room, and instead should exploit their speed, which allows them to find time on the perimeter. As a team-wide dictum, shooting in the home-plate area is a noble goal, but if it is clear that area will be initially sealed off, give your teammates an opportunity to make a play on the puck with a shot from the perimeter. The Lightning love to utilize their defenseman at the point as a springboard for offense, so shooting from the off-slot should be seen as a logical extension of that.

Shots from the point
The Lightning defensemen had a surprising degree of success getting shots through from the point, most notably Ryan McDonagh on the franchise-significant Steven Stamkos goal. It has gone a bit under the radar how dramatically the Lightning defensemen’s offensive prowess has evolved from game 1 until now—but it has been a valuable part of their Presidents’-Trophy-winning regular season. Erik Cernak went from seventh defenseman to top four, from defensively capable to offensively frisky. Suddenly, the second pairing of Cernak and McDonagh offers two defensemen who pose a threat with their mobility, from pinching to jumping into the rush and finding the shooting lanes on the cycle. Not only was this not true with Anton Stralman, but he was such a non-threat on offense that the opposing winger did not have to respect him. This hurt the Lightning forwards because it allowed the opponent to stack the bottom half of the offensive zone.

Finally, as we enter the final stretch, one of the most exciting dimensions from the back end is the Sergachev-Hedman pairing. Sergachev has a laser wrister that he can flick and go bar down, and more and more he is demonstrating a slap shot that is both piercing and carries the potential to produce deflections and rebound opportunities. The Lightning have a set play where they flex him out to the weak side and he hammers a shot into traffic, and it seems like it should be a threat to score every time. A potential goal would come off the initial shot, or on the opportunity that the shot from the outside, zooming toward the inside, creates. Funny how that works.
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