Maybe it’s because Cernak, 24, and Mikhail Sergachev, 23, have grown as defensemen. Maybe that’s because Steven Stamkos has been in the lineup every night compared to his memorable cameo in 2020. In every way a team can be smarter, the Lightning are. They have fewer turnovers handling the puck, and have made fewer trips to the penalty box. The power play has been much better and the overall shooting percentage is up. They are scoring a little more than last year (3.4 goals per game compared to 3.2) and giving up a little less (2.0 compared to 2.2). That means they are a ridiculous 15-3 in regulation against some of the best teams in the NHL. This year, they’ve only played three overtime games and have lost all three. They were fortunate last season to win a ton of close games, in particular going 6-2 in overtime. Tampa Bay is 15-6 this postseason, has gone six games once and seven games once.īut if you look a little deeper, the Lightning are actually a better team. The Lightning went 16-6 last postseason and were stretched to six games twice. On the surface, they seem fairly similar. They needed to put the ghosts of past failures behind them, and validate all the work they had done to reach that point. Those players were hellbent on proving they were not some fancy-pants collection of scorers. Shattenkirk, Bogosian, Coburn, Cedric Paquette and Carter Verhaeghe are the significant departures. The only additions are Ross Colton, Mathieu Joseph and defenseman David Savard. Of the 20 players the Lightning have used this postseason, 17 were part of last year’s run. In terms of personnel, the difference really is minimal. īut is it really that clear-cut? Should there be a distinction between the group that won the Stanley Cup in the bubble last fall, and the team that is one victory from closing out Montreal this summer? Right wing Barclay Goodrow (19), right wing Nikita Kucherov (86) defenseman Victor Hedman (77) and defenseman Mikhail Sergachev (98) all were also part of the 2019-20 team that won the Cup.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |