Good morning from cold sunny Boston, where the Bruins continue to shake off staggering roster losses (Patrice who? Krecji what?) to play above last year’s insane pace. I’d be very happy to let somebody else enjoy the President’s cup in 23’-’24, but the B’s can’t seem to lose.
But I’m not here to talk about the leaders, the elite, the front runners. We’re talking about the Bolts, slugging it out mid-pack. As we log on this morning, with about a fifth of the season over, the Lightning sit in fourth tied with or within a point of the Panthers, Wings, Leafs and Sabres. The past couple of weeks have been OK, taking three out of five of the games a good team should win (smoking the Sharks and beating the Habs and Senators) while dropping games to weaklings Columbus and the Blackhawks.
The two games that I’d have liked to have seen Tampa win were against the Kraken and the Leafs. Because in my humble opinion, the Bolts are sitting on one quality win (versus the Hurricanes) in their games against four quality opponents this season. And to make things worse, the Kraken and Leafs losses were fumbled away in overtime. And that gets me to this week’s topic.
Why can’t this team win in overtime?
As a painful reminder, the Bolts are 0-4 this year in games that go more than 60 minutes. They’ve been outshot in those games fourteen to nothing. They haven’t even gotten to a shootout. This comes after they lost three in OT in the first round of the ’23 playoffs and before a win last March against the Devils they had lost four more dating back to last February. By my count that’s seven losses in a row and eleven of their last twelve.
Let’s look at this year’s OT futility.
Buffalo Sabres – The fifth game of the season, against one of the league’s doormats. Buffalo always looks like things are about to turn around. But they don’t.
The game got to overtime on a greasy goal by Brandon Hagel with seven seconds left, so the Bolts headed into three-on-three with some lift. But the overtime effort was weak. Skilled enormous freak Tage Thompson took the opening faceoff from Anthony Cirelli and it was all Buffalo after that. Thompson tried to get creative dangling through the defense but was unsuccessful. Thompson then got to the high slot for a wicked shot attempt before he had to play it back to his own goalie. The Bolts almost got the puck after Alex Tuch fell and broke his stick, but possession never changed hands and the rest of the game was played in the Tampa end.
The whole thing took a minute and forty-six seconds. Owen Power rung one off the post. Casey Miiddlestadt had a clean shot attempt that he missed. Finally last year’s 39-goal man Dylan Cozens got clear of Connor Sheary’s defensive effort for the game winner. Really nothing Johansson could do. What could the Lightning have done differently? Win the faceoff? Maybe. Because after that every individual skill battle was won by the Sabres.
Maple Leafs. Two games later and the Bolts are back in overtime. Its popular to hate the Leafs, but I don’t. They’re super-skilled, they should have beaten the Panthers to go to the conference finals last year. I would call a victory over them a quality win.
Unlike the Sabres game this didn’t go to OT due to any last-minute heroics by the Lightning. The Bolts took a 3-1 lead in the first and carried it into the third before giving up two goals to budding beast Matt Knies.
OT started out with faceoff specialist David Kampf getting a clean win into a relaxed set-up for the Leafs. Marner had a good shot twenty seconds in and the Leafs picked up the rebound and retreated. Morgan Reilly sent Matthews in clean before another retreat and another attempt to spring Matthews and his weird looking mustache. Johansson tied up the puck, ending two minutes in which the Bolts had not had possession.
Tampa won the ensuing faceoff (their only OT faceoff win this year) And Stamkos took off down the ice with fire in his eyes. He dumped the puck to Nick Paul who circled behind the net so he could hand the puck back to Timothy Liljegren. The Leafs patiently moved the puck up ice before finding Matthews for another in-close attempt.
Possession number two for the Lightning lasted about five seconds as Nick Paul shoveled a weak little backhander right to Morgan Reilly. Once up ice again Marner had a one-timer and a spin-o-rama for two nice chances. Brandon Hagel made something of the Leafs third and final possession, streaking down the right side for a shot attempt that the Leafs cleaned up efficiently. The rush that followed ended with a Nylander to Tavares pass that went in off Sergachev’s stick for an own goal.
This overtime was worse than the previous effort. Outshot five-zip. Widely out-chanced. The Bolts had possession three times but didn’t seem to know what to do with the puck. Matthews and Marner ran wild. Incredibly frustrating to watch.
Seattle Kraken – Game number nine and we’re back into extras. Cooper sent out Luke Glendenning to take the faceoff- but that didn’t work. A few slick, patient cycles led to good chances from Yanni Gourde and Jaden Schwartz that JJ easily handled.
A minute and a half in Point and Sergachev converged on Matty Beniers along the boards leading to the Bolts’ first possession of the game and some mock cheers from the home crowd. The takeaway resulted in a beautiful 200-foot sequence from Sergy to Point to Kucherov that hit the post but stayed out.
If you blame the rest of it on the refs, I’m not going to argue with you. Nick Paul lost the faceoff to Alex Wennberg thanks to an uncalled trip and then was called for a verrrrry cheap hook as Seattle transitioned to offense. The Kraken used the extra ice really well on the power play, ending things on a slapshot by 40-goal man Jared McCann.
Leafs again. Game twelve. This one hurt. Tampa built a 4-1 lead in the first, gave it away, and came back with to tie it at five with a few minutes left. At this point OT gives you a sinking feeling, and this one was unbearable.
Brayden point lost the opening faceoff to Auston Matthews. The Leafs settled back into the open space to look for an opening and found Matthews for a huge clapper form thirty-five feet just seven seconds in. Solid puck possession kept the puck on the Leafs sticks before Point abandoned Calle Jarnkrok at the corner of the net to challenge Morgan Reilly. Reilly recognized it and fed Jarnkrok for a tap in with forty-six seconds gone.
So now you’re 0-4, outshot fourteen to zip and out-possessed by more a better than 90/10 split. What do you do?
- Get better on the dot. Toronto has thrown out David Kampf who then immediately heads to the bench for Matthews. I guess that’s why Glendenning got an OT start. Try it again.
- When you lose faceoffs, pressure that opening possession harder. It’s a fast league and overcommitting on a check leaves a lot of ice open, but desperate times call for desperate measures. What are you going to do. Lose sooner?
- When you have the puck, calm down. Watch the few possessions they’ve had this year in OT. Urgency has not been the Lightning’s friend.
- Use the whole 200 feet. If it’s not there in front of you, throw it back to your own end.
- Use your space. There’s a lot of open ice in three-on-three.
Bolts Faithful – What do you think? Do we wait for things to even out or do big changes need to be made.
The Morning Skate 