By Mark Pukalo
Let’s all calm down for a minute.
Yeah, it’s okay to be mad. You should be. It’s embarrassing. The Tampa Bay Lightning failed you from top to bottom in the playoffs.
Everyone will point to their personal favorite whipping boys because there is plenty of blame to go around from four dreadful performances against the Columbus Blue Jackets. But when things like this happen - the total collapse of a 62-win team - it’s never one thing or one player. It was, pardon me, a perfect storm.
These will not be excuses. Don’t mistake this surface analysis as sour grapes. The Lightning just got beat by a capable team with a great coach that outplayed them in every phase of the game for seven days.
The team’s brass must now figure out internally what were the main reasons for this disaster. They weren’t guaranteed to win the Cup. It’s the hardest trophy to win. But they looked so bad trying to do it this time around after finding ways to win games all season long. Why did the Blue Jackets come to Tampa, fall behind 3-0 in the first period, then proceed to dominate the best team in hockey - over the previous six months - for most of the final 220 minutes of the series?
The answers aren’t easy. Defenseman Ryan McDonagh told reporters after the game: “It’s tough to pinpoint one thing. We hurt ourselves in a lot of different fashions. Strengths that were keys to us winning in the regular season didn’t get it done in this series. They won all those categories.”
The autopsy of this 2018-19 team will take a while.
It seems silly to say this, but some of the problems could be seen during the regular season. The Lightning constantly had to rally in games. Sure, they always seemed to come back. But that is not a recipe for success against the better teams come playoff time. The Bolts also had a stretch late in the season when they couldn’t keep the puck out of their net. Many of their weaknesses were hidden by an offense, a power play, that literally couldn’t be stopped. They were also mostly healthy at the trade deadline. So why do anything, right?
Perhaps the trades just weren’t there. We never know what was asked and offered. But, after watching how Columbus manhandled the Lightning in this series, you wonder how Wayne Simmonds might have helped staring down Josh Anderson or Brandon Dubinsky. You wonder if another defenseman would have helped their depth if two of their top four went down - a scenario that unfortunately occurred.
The way the season ended could not have helped Tampa Bay either. The Bolts pretty much clinched the Presidents’ Trophy in February. There were so many games left to play, meaningless contests, plenty of mileage on bodies. How you manage the end of the season in that situation can be tricky, but one thing I noticed in this series was the Lightning looked tired at times. Maybe that is mostly frustration fatigue and from chasing the Blue Jackets around the ice too much, but they looked more drained than they probably should have been. Could players have been rested more down the stretch?
These are things that you can’t always control. Players want to play. You want to keep the continuity. But injuries are another wild card. Anton Stralman didn’t play in the series, Victor Hedman suffered an injury with four contests left in the regular season and was a shell of himself in the two games he played before sitting the final two while Dan Girardi looked slow after coming back from a long injury absence just before the playoffs. That’s a big chunk of your defense.
But everything looked just fine after 20 minutes of the postseason. Or did it? I honestly thought the Lightning looked a little sloppy in the first period of Game 1, but a puck jumps over Seth Jones’ stick, Sergei Bobrovsky coughs up a delicious rebound and Columbus limps to the locker room down 3-0. Coach John Tortorella tells his Blue Jackets they need to “grind” with the Lightning if they are going to win the series and they do just that. The Bolts get sloppier, the dependable McDonagh makes a poor decision and his turnover leads to a goal that gives Columbus life. The Blue Jackets feel good about themselves, Bobrovsky’s legs stop shaking and they get down to business.
Watching this core group of Lightning players for several years, you get used to strong responses. They always seem to fight back. This time they really didn’t. A Game 1 loss was followed by a Game 2 dud and their soon-to-be Hart Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov gets himself a one-game suspension for a stupid, frustration hit in garbage time.
What more could go wrong? The Bolts fall behind again in both games in Columbus to ignite the already delirious fans. They play a good third period in Game 3. They fight back a little in the second period of Game 4, but you never thought they had a handle of Tuesday’s contest.
A friend texted me after Game 3 to say simply: “This is NOT the same team.”
It’s true. Not in mind or body. They looked lost at times. I’m not sure it’s a team that’s not built for the playoffs, though. They might need a tiny bit more grit. Just about everyone does come playoff time. But I don't think Pittsburgh and Chicago had a lot more and they won multiple Cups recently. Plus, this core group has won a lot of playoff games.
There are plenty of reasons for the meltdown floating around, and many are good ones. Frankly, it’s not just one thing.
Listen, I’m not going to dwell on this, but there is no way I would have extended Jon Cooper's contract before the end of the season. I understand the reasons to do it, but I don't think it would have hurt to wait. Intelligent hockey people think Cooper is a great coach, but in my opinion he has a very small role in the team's success.
Coaches sometimes get too much credit when they win and too much abuse when they lose, but there are certain times when the best of them step up and you notice it. Tortorella did that during the last week. Cooper once again showed he doesn’t seem to have the answers when adjustments are needed. He can sure steer a Cadillac to the Fair without an accident, but he has yet to bring home a first prize ribbon. No, the Calder Cup does not count.
Cooper seems to either act too slow or irrationally in tough spots. His lines in Game 4 had three combinations that had never been used before and low and behold the Bolts gave up odd man rush after odd man rush.
Before I get to what happens next, a quick look at the positives and negatives I put forth before the playoff run and what happened.
The positives?
* Steven Stamkos was playing his best hockey: Stamkos did not hit the scoresheet until Game 4, but he seems to be getting way too much criticism in my opinion. I’d go to war with the captain. Remember, he chose Tampa. He scored 45 goals folks.
* Andrei Vasilevskiy is the best goalie in the world: He still is, but he was outplayed by Bobrovsky. You can only blame the Big Cat if the Lightning played better defense and they were atrocious. He just couldn’t save them this time.
* Experience edge: It did not matter at all, due in part to Tortorella.
* Depth edge: The Lightning showed they may not have been deep enough on defense when two of their top four went down with injuries.
The Negatives?
* Anton Stralman’s lower-body injury: This was a major factor. They needed his steady play and cool. Their bottom four (of eight) defensemen ended up playing too many minutes and Cooper’s decision to go with Jan Rutta over Braydon Coburn the first two games was about as puzzling as it gets.
* Special teams: They were far from special. The penalty kill had no answers for a Columbus power play that struggled during the regular season. Playoff refereeing took over and Tampa Bay had few chances to save itself on the power play.
* The Lightning’s propensity to fall back to old habits: The Bolts lost their game in the second period of Game 1 by thinking too aggressively on offense with a 3-0 lead and turning the puck over constantly with high-risk passing. They also played more passively on defense at the blue line as the series went on.
* While Tampa Bay is more physical than it has been, they can’t play that type of game against big teams: The Lightning had a lot of hits, but not many that made a difference. They were pulled into a physical game and lost most of the board and puck battles against the feisty Jackets.
* Coaching adjustments non existent: Cooper was stubborn to change his penalty kill unit, but totally put his forward lines in a blender for Game 4. His players did not respond, or they ignored him.
It looked as though there were more positives than negatives before the playoffs. But it did not work out that way against Columbus.
Again, let’s all take a breath, though. To start pointing fingers at everyone wildly, especially the team leadership in the room, is not helpful. Yeah, I want better from Cooper. But this team is very close to one that can win a Stanley Cup. It’s not time to blow it up.
Moves will have to be made though, not just to change the mix in the room and on the ice, but out of necessity. With Brayden Point about to become a $7-8 million player and Mikhail Sergachev, Vasilevskiy and Anthony Cirelli due deals in the summer of 2020, the Bolts have cap issues.
So who goes and stays? Let’s start on defense.
The Lightning have four unrestricted free agents - Stralman, Girardi, Coburn and Rutta - and I’d be surprised if more than two will be back. I wouldn’t be surprised if only one returned. The Bolts must decide if Stralman’s injury is going to be a problem going forward. If not, you try to get him back for two years and about $6-7 million total and start there. After that, you must be frugal. Rutta and Girardi have the advantage being righties and could be cheap. The big question is whether Dominik Masin and Cal Foote could be ready to move into the lineup. Foote, another right-hander, has come on in the second half of the season in the AHL and Masin is a plus-61 combined the last two seasons. I think it was a mistake to not give Masin a few NHL games after the Lightning clinched, especially after the injuries.
Who goes up front to clear cap space will likely depend on no trade clauses and the return when players are dangled around the draft. Alex Killorn, Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat have no-trade deals. Yanni Gourde and J.T. Miller do not.
Johnson’s value is at its peak after scoring 29 goals. You would think teams like Los Angeles, Anaheim, Vancouver (near his home in Spokane) and San Jose might be interested in adding speed. But Johnny has to consent and, like the other four, seems to love it here.
Miller would probably be the easiest to move. But, to me, you’d be trading one of your best physical forces. Cooper has moved Miller around on lines so much his head is probably still spinning. But, then again, Miller only has three goals in 61 career playoff games.
I still think Palat is an integral part to this team, but I can understand people not being wild about his offensive totals. I still go back to who scored the goals in the only Game 7 win after the first round in this core group’s era: Palat and Killorn. I just think they are cogs in the machine, but if they have to go, they will go. Gourde is another lunchpail guy, but my opinion is the Bolts handed him a much bigger contract than they needed to.
The Lightning is probably better off to keep Ryan Callahan for the final year of his contract. The only way to deal him would be to eat more than half of his near-$6 million cap hit. His leadership can help and that cap hit, along with the final year of Matt Carle’s buyout, comes off the books after next season.
There will be moves, and there should be. But this is still a team that is close to something special. They just need to shuffle the deck and see young players develop.
We all hope that we are wrong about the coach, that a few tweeks here and there, a little luck and inspiration from this season’s failure can fuel a big run in 2019-2020. Julien Brisebois will have to show what kind of GM he really is. Tough decisions have to be made. I liked what I heard from him Thursday, for the most part.
Just a week ago, the Bolts seemed almost unbeatable. Now everyone has plenty of work ahead to put the pieces to the puzzle back together.
The best news for Lightning fans is they have many very good pieces to finish the puzzle. They will be back. They will have the chance at redemption.
To me, that is the only definite and positive in what will be a long painful offseason for the franchise and its fans.
