NOW “Tampas” is third in the Atlantic Division (79), behind “Toronto” (84) and the phenomenal “Boston” (103). There’s no doubt the Lightning will make the playoffs. A different outcome for the Stanley Cup finalist would have seemed too drastic.
But in the last ten games, Tampa has won only twice, having faced weakness at Anaheim (6-1) and Detroit (3-0). Otherwise, the champion team sinks, having already suffered five defeats in a row in the last five matches.
Kucherov, Stamkos, Point retired
Perhaps it’s the February slump that needs to be filled for the April playoffs. But Tampa head coach John Cooper understands his team is not in good standing.
There was a game in Buffalo on Saturday and the Sabers led 4-1 after two periods. What did Cooper do? For the third period, he benched three of his leaders – Nikita Kucherov , Braden Point And Stephen Stamkos , which scored a “-6” overall for usefulness. As a result, “Tampa” lost with the score 3:5.
Cooper said after the game, “99.9% of the time they’re on the ice, those guys give us the best chance of winning. But now the impression is that in the third period they won’t give us those chances.
And we cannot say that the coach was right to find fault. Yes, Point opened the scoring when he scored a power-play goal off assists from Kucherov and Stamkos. But in general, according to advanced statistics, when the Tampa point guards took to the ice, the Buffalo hockey players clearly outperformed them.
In the second half, with the game 4v4, Stamkos and Kucherov couldn’t stop the hosts’ attack, which led to an easy goal from Tyson Jost, who made it 3-1. And when Buffalo scored the fourth goal, there Stamkos had no time to come back on defense. Kucherov, on the other hand, simply topped his last shift, logging 164 seconds on the ice. Point was on the ice when the Sabers scored twice. After the match, the three leaders were not taken to the journalists, who had a lot of questions.
“If you’re a coach, you have to do everything for your team to win,” Cooper said. “Tampa has been incredible throughout the decade, reaching the Stanley Cup Finals three times. There is not just that. We have a set of rules that everyone follows. And here, it is not freedom of choice, but a given. These guys are an important part of the team, but now for the third period we decided to give some other guys a chance. And they almost saved the game.”
Cooper’s Radical Gesture
The microclimate in the team is a tricky thing. I remember interviewing Mikhail Sergachev after Tampa Bay won their first Stanley Cup in 2020. And he said the key moment was the November trip to Stockholm for away games with Buffalo. The team was on the road for about a week, and all the guys became so friendly and united that they went through the whole season on this impulse, which turned out to be very difficult – a pandemic was announced in March, and in the summer they were to play the playoffs in the “bubble”.
If you look at the results for the past four seasons, then Stamkos is Tampa’s leading scorer (115+156=271 points), Point is second (115+128=243), and Kucherov is third (81+61=242), and we remember that he missed the whole championship because of an injury.
If we take the playoffs, then Kucherov is the top scorer in the league for this time (23 + 70 = 93), and Point is third (30 + 31 = 61), and Stamkos is not so far (20 + 18=38), although he was plagued with injuries.
What Cooper did against Buffalo is like removing Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman from the Chicago Bulls heyday. It would be the same scandal.
That’s why it was interesting to see how Tampa would react to this drastic move by the coach. Will she accept the challenge, will she start to play better, will she shake herself up before the playoffs…
But the horror of lightning continued.
The end of the Lightning dynasty?
That night, “Tampa” suffered a crushing defeat by “Carolina” with the score 0:6.
Okay, a six-step gap isn’t unique. Here, on February 6, the Lightning lost to Florida with a score of 1:7.
But Tampa threw just 14 shots per game, while Carolina threw 38 times and converted four of five majorities.
Of course, this cannot be called an “Italian strike”. But the Lightning’s game was one of absolute apathy, which turned into depression when Carolina forward Andrey Svechnikov hit Victor Hedman in the side in the second period, and Tampa’s leading defenseman flew quickly into groups. He was never able to continue the game. The Swede will have a check-up on Monday, and Lightning fans should pray that his injury before the playoffs doesn’t turn out to be serious.
“We’re in a hole right now and we just have to work our way out of it,” Cooper said. – Guys have a habit. They’re used to playing and when it gets a little disturbed, they start to doubt themselves.
Right now we’re just not doing our job and it’s slowing our game down. As coaches, we have to instill confidence in these guys. We have a group of veterans, so everything will be fine.
The coach is interesting. “They are used to playing” – but Cooper himself took the leaders out of the game. “We have to give them confidence”, but Cooper takes it himself. “We have a group of veterans” – but Cooper himself argued with her.
It’s not like they haven’t tried, though. Kucherov had four shots on target, Stamkos had five hits, despite not being a safety officer. But something broke in the mechanism of Tampa.
“Nobody is happy with what’s been happening to us lately,” said captain Stamkos. We are like a machine, we have been on the skids for some time. All of us, players and coaches, have to work on ourselves. I think people forget that we lost good players and we have young people in the team.
It’s a different team now. And we all have to understand what kind of team it is. Just because we’ve been successful the last few years doesn’t mean we’ll be in the Stanley Cup Finals again because we’ve been there three times in a row. Mental stability, the ability to use your experience is one of them. So the puzzle must fit together.
…But all dynasties end one day. Chicago has won three Stanley Cups (2010, 2013, 2015) and is now one of the weakest clubs in the league. Pittsburgh has won three Stanley Cups (2009, 2016, 2017), and now it’s clear to everyone that the team needs to be rebuilt. “Los Angeles” (2012, 2014) after the championship five out of eight seasons was out of the playoffs.
Perhaps in “Tampa” also begins a troubled period. It’s very interesting what the team will show in this Stanley Cup. So far, a number of pundits are inclined to believe that such a Tampa will lose the series to Toronto in the first round.
Source : MatchTV
I’m Emma Smith, a dedicated journalist and avid storyteller. I have been writing for news websites for the past 5 years, reporting on hockey news and delivering in-depth analysis of the sport. In my current role as Author at Athletistic, I write about hockey events from around the world to keep followers up-to-date with what’s happening in the sport.
