Big Decisions for Lightning after Strong Run

By Mark Pukalo

No complaints.

That’s how Tampa Bay Lightning fans should feel today. The team battled through about every obstacle it could face and finished one win – possibly even a few breaks -- from a second straight trip to the Stanley Cup finals. You had to wonder what was happening at times during the regular season with this group, but when the biggest moments came the Bolts showed their heart and made it an entertaining playoff drama.

It wasn’t difficult to see it all coming apart in the second period Thursday night. The magic was fading, except for a bit of individual mastery from Jonathan Drouin. The Penguins were coming in waves and the Lightning struggled to exit their zone, continually sending the puck backward and fighting through long shifts. Whether it was fatigue or it was more about the forwards not helping out enough, a defensive corps that had been a little better than expected in the postseason finally succumbed in the final two games. With all the pressure Pittsburgh had, it’s a credit to the Lightning that they still had a chance until the final seconds. Andrei Vasilevskiy was outstanding.

Yes, the Penguins outshot the Lightning throughout the Eastern final. Overall, they played better. Regardless, the Bolts could have easily won the series in six games and the goal by Drouin that was taken off the board due to an offside call may have been the biggest moment of the near three-week war. The Penguins’ video coach deserves plenty of praise for urging the bench to challenge the play which was so close that if the officials ruled it was inconclusive, few would have argued.

Several players took turns making big plays through the 17-game postseason, but no one was better overall than Victor Hedman. How a local radio host could keep him out of his top three is beyond me. The big Swede was at his best against the Islanders and the first five games of the Eastern finals, but maybe the mental fatigue hit him in the final two contests. Hedman was actually pretty good in Game 7, but was asked to do way too much work in his own zone and it took something out of him.

Nikita Kucherov’s 11 goals probably make him No. 2, but he was a bit too quiet in the all-important Game 6 against Pittsburgh. Kucherov is a goal scorer and everyone would like to see him become a little more selfish. Third choice would likely be Drouin or Alex Killorn. Lightning fans will have to live with the occasional turnover from Drouin. He is a high-risk passer. He will slowly eliminate some of the more dangerous chances he takes as he continues to gain experience. Anybody that says he doesn’t care to play defense wasn’t watching in the playoffs. He’ll never win a Selke. But he worked at it.

Hopefully this postseason taught coach Jon Cooper, and perhaps even GM Steve Yzerman, that this team plays much better when it is aggressive. Look who won the Bolts’ division – the Florida Panthers, who threw three scoring lines out when they had a healthy roster available. Look who ended their season – the Penguins, who had three scoring lines and one gritty, smart fourth-line center.

Yzerman told reporters at his closing press conference Friday that the Lightning needs more scoring throughout the lineup. Will the coach get the message? Too many times in the regular season, Cooper leaned toward sending a pair of checking lines to the ice. They were reacting to the other team, rather than making their opponent react to them. That changed, for the most part, during the postseason with Drouin introduced to the mix. You wonder what would have happened if Steven Stamkos had not been gone and Drouin wasn’t quite as productive when he returned to Syracuse.

That leads us to one of the most important offseasons in Yzerman’s tenure. He gave the same group a second chance at a Cup this season and now changes need to be made. There will be some pain, but Yzerman can minimize that with some strong deals and a touch of luck.

The good thing for the Lightning GM is he has valuable players to deal while he sets the salary cap plan for the next five years. In my opinion, the most essential players to keep are Hedman, Kucherov, Drouin, Ondrej Palat, Killorn, Ryan Callahan, Brian Boyle and Anton Stralman – some because they are the best players and others because they are key components to a winning team. Many would argue with Callahan’s inclusion. He is surely not an untouchable if someone offers a great deal, but it would be foolish to overreact to one rough year offensively. Let’s be honest, he was used in a checking line role most of the season and did put up points when he played with Stamkos.

Yzerman’s job begins with decisions on captain Stamkos and the goaltending situation. In many ways, they are linked.

Ultimately, it will come down to what Stamkos wants for himself. The 26-year-old is not going to sign an eight-year, $68 million contract offer that reportedly has been laid on his table. The question is, if Yzerman pushes the total to 72, 74, maybe even 76 -- will it make a difference? If the NHLPA is urging Stamkos to take no less than $10 mil per and he is on board, I don’t see the Lightning doing it. Honestly, even 76 would be pushing it. Yzerman should put the $72 mil on his captain’s night stand and see what happens. If Stammer just wants to push it up to 9.1 or 9.2 per to make himself look better, fine.

Stamkos is not so essential that the Bolts need to open the vault. But I think at around $9-9.5 million he is worth building around, rather than trying to replace his 30-50 goals. Stamkos and Hedman as faces of the franchise for nearly the next decade would be comforting. They are both leaders with strong character. The Lightning, in my opinion, do not have a No. 1 center without Stamkos. They’d have a No. 2 and a pair of 3s -- at best.

Should Stamkos be in the fold and Hedman comes in at $8-8.5 million per after next year -- with Kucherov somewhere in the $6 million range -- the most logical way to save money would be to deal goalie Ben Bishop as early as this summer. It won’t merely take buying out Matt Carle or trading Valterri Filppula, although those options should be explored thoroughly in the next few months. It's not the 2016-17 cap number that is the problem. The ones in 2017-18 and beyond are. Yzerman has been creative in the past and it’s time for him to perform more magic.

It may seem strange to trade Bishop after what many think should be a Vezina campaign. Goaltenders are like pitchers, though. Only the very best can sustain the kind of quality he displayed last season over a long period and big long-term contracts for netminders are dangerous -- unless your name is Brodeur. Bishop has been hurt three straight postseasons as well. Matt Murray and Martin Jones, who would not be picked in the top 10 of the league, led teams to the finals this season. Most years, it’s the players in front of the net who get a team to the promise land. Will Vasilevskiy be great, one of the best in the league? No one knows. But who could tell you he isn’t any good after what you have witnessed from him before he turns 22?

There are other options if Filppula and Carle cannot be dealt. The big one I have mentioned before is trading Tyler Johnson. He will be due a big raise after next season if he puts up numbers more like his 2014-15 campaign a year from now and I believe others are more important to the team moving forward. Johnson is a talented player. It’s nothing against him. You just wonder if he will be able to sustain a strong level of production for a long period of time on a big contract. Palat and Killorn are more versatile, and likely cheaper. In addition, Johnson would be a valuable piece that could possibly bring in a top-3, right-handed defenseman that the Lightning so covet.

The other option if Stamkos is out the door is to try and extend Bishop at a reasonable rate (6.5?) and explore a big package in return for Vasilevskiy. You could maybe get a center with potential to be a No. 1 in the deal or at least a solid No. 2.

If the Lightning can keep the next contracts of Stamkos, Kucherov, Killorn, J.T. Brown and Vladislav Namestnikov under a total of around $22 mil, the latter plan could work better. But that will be difficult. It may also mean discarding Jason Garrison at some point, getting something for Cedric Paquette in a trade or starting the buyout process on Carle right now. Yzerman must be a true Jedi master in the next 50-60 days.

You could have a top nine that includes Palat, Stamkos, Drouin, Killorn, Namestnikov, Kucherov and Callahan along with a few trade acquisitions, Adam Erne or perhaps Filppula, with a Brown-Boyle-Tanner Richard fourth line.

Hedman, Stralman, Braydon Coburn, Garrison and the emerging Slater Koekkoek give you a solid five on defense, but one right-hand blue liner would make a huge difference. The Lightning could use Garrison and Andrej Sustr in trades as well if they are to bring in two D – one solid mobile righty and a lefty with size and potential on the younger side. Sustr shows flashes. He was better in 2015-16 than in 2014-15. He’s just so inconsistent. I just don’t see him as a long-term answer.

You can be sure Yzerman has a plan, and plenty of irons in the fire. He usually surprises us. That’s why, for some strange reason I think a Stamkos deal could still happen. If it does not, there is still plenty of work to be done and options to choose.

It will be a fun next few months.

The Lightning Finding Answers

By Mark Pukalo

Instead of fading without two of their best five players, the Tampa Bay Lightning used their dilemma to fuel them in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

No Steven Stamkos. No Anton Stralman. No surrender.

The one simple phrase you can use to describe the Lightning the last two seasons is, “they have learned how to win,” and most nights it doesn’t matter who is in the lineup. Whenever they’ve needed a big effort, a big goal, a strong goaltending performance, they have found a way to get it. The only time they came up short was in Games 5 and 6 against Chicago in the Stanley Cup finals last June and that could have gone either way.

There’s no doubt you start with Ben Bishop, Victor Hedman and Nikita Kucherov when picking heroes from the first two rounds, but as made-for-postseason forward Alex Killorn said -- it was going to have to be about a “collective effort” and it truly turned out that way.

Without Stralman, defensemen Braydon Coburn and Jason Garrison had to come up big and each had strong moments throughout the first 10 games. Andrej Sustr avoided critical mistakes for the most part and Matt Carle contributed on the back end as well, although he struggled in a few games. It took way too long, but Slater Koekkoek has finally moved ahead of Nikita Nesterov on the depth chart.

The Lightning was able to navigate an out of synch Detroit team and a plucky, but flawed, New York Islanders squad without Stralman. They desperately need the Swede in the third round against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who run out three scoring lines that have all produced. Hedman was able to limit Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk of the Red Wings and concentrate on Islanders captain John Tavares to keep him scoreless the final four games. Pick your poison with the Penguins. Play against Sidney Crosby’s line? Evgeni Malkin’s? The red-hot Phil Kessel-Nick Bonino-Carl Hagelin unit? Yes, Connecticut’s own Bonino.

Give Jon Cooper credit. He has pushed the right buttons in the playoffs so far. Circumstances have worked in his favor, but his tweaks in the forward lines have worked out.

The biggest question is -- where would the Lightning be without Jonathan Drouin?

Drouin’s departure and subsequent suspension may have been the best thing that has happened to the team this season. The speedy forward going home to Montreal for six weeks did two things. It lowered the quality of trade offers that Steve Yzerman received and he intelligently decided to pass. It also allowed Drouin to get his head together, figure out some things he had to do to be more successful at the NHL level and he came back with a positive attitude along with a chip on his shoulder.

You wonder if Drouin would have gotten the chance at a bigger role if Stamkos did not develop the blood clot? The kid is playing well on both ends of the ice and his full-time addition to the power play – something that has come about 1 ½ years too late in my opinion – has made a major difference for that unit. A friend in the pressbox said the other day about Drouin – “He sees everything on the ice.” It is gratifying to me that many people are eating serious crow about Drouin. Although I haven’t heard enough of them admitting they were wrong.

The Lightning can beat the Penguins if they make them work for everything they get. Bishop can do that alone, but even he can’t plug every gap if the Bolts are careless with the puck. While the Penguins defense has improved over the last two months – helping them go 22-5-0 -- I still think Tampa Bay can put up goals on them in the series. Cooper should keep the Lightning in attack mode. They can win a game here and there 1-0 or 2-0, but they are much more dangerous team when they force teams to react to them. Perhaps Cooper has finally learned that from the first two series.

In some ways, the rest is gravy for the Lightning. They are the clear underdog in this series. But grab one of the first two games and it’s anybody’s ballgame.

Tampa Bay in seven.

Bonino shows his skill

I remember talking to Avon Old Farms coach John Gardner one day and asking him if Bonino could have success at Boston University and even make it to the NHL down the road.

Gardner did not need to say anything. He made a gesture with his hands. Bonino had NHL hands in high school and as his skating improved to go along with his keen hockey sense, the sky was the limit.

Bonino led Farmington to the Division II high school title in his final year there, scoring more than 90 points in 20-something games. He was a gangly player with great skill and smarts, and no one could stop him at that level. It was between Bonino and Fairfield Prep’s Mark Arocbello, who is now with the Toronto Maple Leafs, for high school player of the year in 2004-05. I split the decision. Picked Arcobello and wrote a feature on Bonino for the cover of the All-State issue.

The next season Bonino went to Avon Old Farms prep school -- a place that also produced Brian Leetch, Chris Higgins and Jonathan Quick – and proved wrong many of the downstate Division I high school coaches who told me his numbers were just a product of his competition at Farmington. He needed to improve his skating big time and he worked at it, making a huge jump in the first few months at Avon.

After success at Boston University, including a national championship, Bonino has spent time with four different organizations. He scored 22 goals for Anaheim in 2013-14, but was traded to Vancouver the next season and one year later to Pittsburgh. Bonino notched his third career overtime goal in the playoffs Tuesday to push the Penguins on to the series against the Lightning.

Gardner had it right with Bonino. He could see him in the NHL because of his skill level at that age. His hockey sense was also vivid. Many scouts missed that before he was picked in the sixth round by San Jose. I saw it with Killorn as well when he played for Deerfield Academy (Mass.) in many of the same rinks Bonino performed. Killorn just needed to get stronger. It goes to show you – skill and hockey sense should be the first things scouts look for. Compete level and physical attributes almost always can be improved.

Boucher is Back

Guy Boucher always preferred to stand at the level of reporters in a scrum to answer questions when he was the Lightning coach.

It wasn’t possible with all the television cameras at morning skates, or when practices were well attended. One day, Boucher climbed up to the podium and smiled when a local scribe asked him, jokingly, if he felt power standing above them.

“A false sense of power,” Boucher said, followed by his patented mischievous laugh. “You guys got the pens.”

Boucher had his faults as a coach in Tampa Bay, but had way more positives than negatives while bringing the Lightning to the Eastern Conference finals in his first season. One break and maybe they would have held the Cup that year.

Whether it was that he was too much of a players-coach or too stubborn to change his defensive style and tactics, things fell apart for Boucher in Tampa. No one knows what was happening behind closed doors, but one thing that has bothered me about his final season is some of his players seemed to quit on him. If he has learned since then to adjust some of his ideas defensively, the Ottawa Senators will be a difficult out with Boucher as head coach from this day on.

Here’s what Vincent Lecavalier said about Boucher back then.

“He’s a hard-working guy and he knows what he’s talking about. He’s got an answer to any question. There’s never a pause. He knows it. For the players, that gives us confidence that he really knows what he’s talking about. Everything he does is calculated. Every drill we do is with a purpose. It’s almost like a game simulation. He’s the type of guy that if you’re in a conversation with him, you listen. You’re learning.”