Remember the start of the Eastern Conference Final? The rested Tampa Bay Lightning took to the ice against a tired New York Islanders team and blew them out of the water. Even though the score wasn’t quite as lopsided, last night’s Game One of the Stanley Cup Final gave the Bolts a taste of what it’s like to be on the other side of one of those games. For 40 minutes, Tampa looked unprepared, tired, and woefully inadequate when compared to the Dallas Stars. By the time the Lightning figured out how to play, Anton Khudobin had settled into a nice rhythm that allowed him to lead his team to a convincing 4-1 victory.

The common narratives following the game included two key themes:

1) The Lightning were tired. Things will be fine once fatigue evens up.
2) The Lightning showed they can dominate the Stars in the third period.

Rather than go through a play-by-play of last night’s game, I want to focus on the issues I have with each of those trains of thought.

As mentioned in my opening paragraph, it’s fair to say that the Lightning were more tired than the Stars. While Dallas wrapped their Western Conference Final in relatively quick fashion, the Bolts were still battling in a hard-fought series against the Islanders. Multiple overtimes plus tight defensive hockey is a recipe for a toll on bodies. With that being said, it’s a little bit premature to automatically assume that the Lightning will be fine. The truth of the matter is that we really don’t know how the Lightning will compare as the Stars burn off the added rest. It strikes me as perhaps a little bit overconfident to suggest that rest was Dallas’ only advantage through 40 minutes last night; they dominated beyond a threshold allowed by a few days off.

On the second front, there’s certainly some truth to the idea that the Lightning took control of the game in the third period. However, just because Dallas generated nothing doesn’t mean that the Lightning generated an absurd amount of quality. Quantity of shots aside, it’s not as though Tampa was getting Grade-A chance after Grade-A chance. And, when they did, Anton Khudobin was there to make huge saves. Check out this chart from @IneffectiveMath for a summary:

Tampa third period extremely impressive by total shot count; somewhat less so if you look at shot locations.

(Stars got literally nothing, for comparison) pic.twitter.com/rDbe8o7Rq2

— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) September 20, 2020

The other important thing to consider here is that Dallas purposefully went into a shell. They had their lead, and they were comfortable to sit on it. It’s not a strategy that’s going to work for them every time, but it did work last night. Putting too much stock in a solid third period from Tampa with that factor in play seems like a bad idea moving forward. The Lightning can’t assume that the third period will be the norm in this series.

As the Lightning showed in the Boston series, though, losing one game to start is hardly the end of the world; there’s still plenty of time for the franchise to earn its second Stanley Cup. Still, last night’s contest should show the coaching staff that changes are necessary, both in strategy and (potentially) personnel. That’s where my focus is shifting for Game Two. This Lightning coaching staff has been incredibly reluctant to adjust their plan over the years, which sort of lets the cookie crumble in any way it chooses to do so. The best in the game spot weaknesses in their teams' performance and make changes to compensate for them; going back to the same well and hoping for a different flavour of water is just too risky in a short seven game series. Let’s see if Jon Cooper & Co. can change things up tomorrow.

As always, thanks for reading.

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