Can the Lightning Finish the Job?

By Mark Pukalo


The Tampa Bay Lightning are the best team in hockey.

Heck, they may be the best team in all of sports right now, including European soccer leagues. Yes, the shootout thing diminishes their NHL record-tying 62 wins in the regular season, but they lost two straight games in regulation once in 2018-19. Once!

But, in a lot of ways, that was the easy part. An accumulation of wins in the regular season comes down to the amount of talent you have, some luck and health. The team with the most offense and the best goaltender in the league won a lot of games. No surprise.

It will take much more to win a Stanley Cup. The Lightning probably had the most talent in the NHL last season and were an offensive juggernaut, but got shut out in the final two games of the Eastern Conference finals. They had a chance to win the East in 2017 in Game 6 at home, but failed. Two years earlier, the Bolts had a 2-1 lead in the Stanley Cup finals with two home games left on the schedule and lost three in a row.

Tampa Bay needs to prove it can finish the job. Can they do it? Absolutely. Will they be able navigate the gauntlet if they must get through Boston and Washington again? We will see.

The positives?

* Captain Steven Stamkos is playing his best hockey since 2011-12. Is this finally going to be his big playoff run?

* Andrei Vasilevskiy is the best goalie in the world and the Lightning have the edge between the pipes in every series, especially if they should make the finals.

* Experience. The Lightning has been there, done that. The pressure will not be the factor in them losing.

* Depth. Tampa Bay has even more depth than last season and has the ability to use different combinations against different teams. The Bolts don't have to overplay the top six.

The Negatives?

* Anton Stralman’s lower-body injury. In a lot of ways, Stralman is the glue to the defense. If he can’t play, that moves either Dan Girardi or Mikhail Sergachev - on his off side - into the top four. It’s not the end of the world, it’s just not ideal, especially with how slow Girardi looked in his comeback game Saturday.

* Special teams. You don’t get as many power plays in the postseason, so the best unit in the league won’t easily win a game. The penalty killing better not be as bad this time around against Boston, if the teams meet.

* The Lightning’s propensity to fall back on old habits when it gets harder to score goals, over passing and missing the net.

* While Tampa Bay is more physical with Erik Cernak, Adam Erne, J.T. Miller in the lineup, if the Bolts get pulled into that type of game against Boston and Washington it won’t be a good thing.

* Then, there are coaching adjustments.

Listen, you can’t take 62 wins away from Jon Cooper. And maybe you can’t blame him for Ben Bishop skating to the blue line to get to a puck or Jonathan Drouin’s skate being a sliver off the ice at the blue line (was it really?) to take the lead goal away. But there have been some tough losses along the way and the Lightning are 0-7 - 0-3 at home - with leads in their final playoff series three of the past four years.

You can argue things could have been done to win both the Chicago and Pittsburgh series. The players also could have played better. But Cooper and his assistants never got a grip against Washington last season and the Bolts were better in about three of the 21 periods during the series. They were destined to lose, even though they were up 3-2, and playing the fourth line against the Caps’ top unit Did Not Work. Perhaps changes in the coaching staff, adding Derek Lalonde and especially Jeff Halpern, will help.

The hope is that Cooper has learned from his mistakes and will guide this team where it belongs by not overthinking his decisions.

Will the positives outweigh the negatives? It sure looks like they can. They should for the best team in the league.

No way am I making a definitive prediction, though. The playoffs are a different animal with injuries and momentum. But I will throw forward two possible scenarios.

* The Lightning beat Winnipeg in the final. The Bolts show they are truly the best team by rolling through the playoffs. No one can slow their offense and, with Vasy manning the net, the Cup is raised again in the Bay.

* The Capitals win their second straight title, knocking off Vegas in a repeat of the 2018 final. Marc-Andre Fleury takes the Knights to the final as the best goalie in the West. The Bruins knock off the Lightning in the second round, stealing one of three in Tampa and winning all of their home games.

I can see both scenarios happening very easily. Anything goes in the playoffs. Things happen so fast.

Perhaps its a good omen that Tampa Bay meets John Tortorella and Columbus in the first round. Tortorella made all the right moves to give the Bolts their only Cup in 2004. It seems right they see Torts to start their run to a second.

Lightning fans just need to hope that this is not a crazy playoff season - that the best team wins it all.

Not the best team the next two months. The best team.