Playoff losses used to be more
difficult to take. The passions of youth I guess. It's either that
or I've developed adequate coping mechanisms for normal playoff
losses. Overtime losses....I'm not sure yet. So on Wednesday night,
after the Lightning fell a bit short on their comeback in Game One I
turned off my slightly, possibly less-than-legal video stream,
started running all of my anti-malware programs and fired up the
iTunes.
Music definitely helps sooth the angry,
well slightly-disappointed, beast. Instead of firing off a bunch of
angry comments I flipped around the play list and tried to organize
my thoughts so I could write about something three days after it
happened. Why not organize my thoughts based on an album? Everyone
loves a themed post!
I think we can all agree that the team
and the fans had themselves a rather hard night, right? So here you
go....my thoughts on Game One based on the Beatles third studio album
– A Hard Days Night.
(ed note
– I was originally going to come up with some thoughts for each
track on the album, but then I got a little wordy so I made some
cuts. Sorry all of you “Can't Buy Me Love” fans.)
If I Fell – Erik Condra
Condra's Game One experience is not one
he's going to want to remember (if he even can). It lasted 57 seconds
and he managed to dish out one hit before he was destroyed on a hit
by Casey Cizikas. The bewildered look on his face and the fact he
wasn't moving his lower body made things momentarily tense. Anytime
one of your players is laid out on the ice with a blank look on his
face you immediately think “Dirty Hit!”
In this case, it wasn't. Condra just
managed to get caught in an awkward spot when Cizikas unloaded on
him. He was also in a position where his head snapped pretty
violently when he hit the ice. Hockey is a contact sport and hits
like that happen. As of Friday it seems like Condra is doing better
but is questionable for Game 2.
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| In the dictionary this is the picture posted next to "woozy". Photo by Scott Audette NHLI/Getty |
One of the major talking points of the
game was that the hit “changed the momentum” of the game. After
all the Lightning were leading before the hit and then the wheels
came flying off after the hit. So it makes a nice tight story. I'm
sure there may be a ring of truth to it. The Lightning were
definitely controlling play up until that point. However, for me the
turning point was Thomas Greiss' stop on Alex Killorn's breakaway.
If Killorn buries the puck on that
play, the Lightning are up 2-0, the Amalie Arena is rocking and
Greiss' confidence is a little shaken. The Islanders would be forced
to play catch up and Tampa could take advantage of their
aggressiveness.
Instead, the Islanders get a reprieve
and then go down and score the equalizer and all of the momentum that
the Lightning had earned in their first five minutes of play were
washed away.
I’m Happy Just to Dance With You -
Vlad Namestnikov/Johnathan Drouin/Ondrej Palat
Well, wasn’t this a fun line to
watch? Namestnikov returned from his 4th line duties and replaced Val
Filppula on the Lightning’s “Other” Line. For most of the
night they were the best line on the ice for the Lightning. Drouin’s
creativity and vision led to the opening goal as he pivoted along the
boards and hit a streaking Palat in stride in a prime scoring area.
While his ornery streak wasn’t nearly
as evident as it had been against Detroit, Drouin continued to play
well in the offensive zone, building on the excellent play from the
first series. Defensively, ehhh. Could he have back-checked harder
on Shane Prince’s first goal? Probably. But the same could be
said for the entire line that was on the ice.
In the past, being on the ice for a
goahead goal probably would be enough to relegate him to the bench
for the remainder of the game. But out of trust or necessity, Coach
Cooper had to keep playing top line minutes. While his leash might
be a bit longer than it has been in the past, Drouin should remember
that defense is just as important as offense on a Cooper-led team.
It was nice to see three goals from
three different lines (and some help from the blueline) on the
scoresheet. Relying on one line is rarely successful in the playoffs
and if the Drouin line continues to play well together, it’ll open
up the ice for Tyler Johnson and his running mates.
Namestnikov looked rejuvenated early in
the game when he was getting shifts with Drouin and Palat. He played
with speed and confidence (kind of like earlier in the season when he
was paired with Stamkos and Kucherov) and generated a number of
chances. It was his puck handling across the blueline that led to
Drouin’s nice play on the first goal.
So it was a little shocking when I
looked at his final numbers and saw that he only had 9:43 of ice
time. I remembered that Coach Cooper had reunited the Triplets
during the 3rd period, but didn’t realize Vlad was the victim of
the line shuffling. With Drouin skating with Killorn and Filppula,
Namestnikov didn’t see the ice at all in the last 15 minutes of thegame.
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| This stop on Drouin late in the game was probably Greiss' best save. Photo by Scott Audette NHLI/Getty |
I’m thinking it was more of a numbers
game then any knock on his performance or injury. Coach Cooper rolled
the top two lines for most of the comeback attempt and Vlad just
happened to be the odd man out. A quick check of Twitter and it
doesn’t look like he was hurt. Hopefully he’s back out there
again on Saturday.
And I Love Her Him – Nikita Kucherov
MY BOY NIKITA KUCHEROV! You really
can’t stop him this year. He tapped in a nice cross-ice feed from
Matt Carle to start the attempted comeback. It was his team leading
6th goal of the post season and will probably result in him playing
for another team in the not too distant future. I’m sure every
time he scores from here on out all Steve Yzerman hears is a cash
register. Between Stamkos, Hedman, Bishop and Kucherov there has to
be a point where they all can’t be signed. And what team wouldn’t
want a 30 goal scorer who is in his mid-20s? If anyone is getting an
offer sheet this summer, it will be him. Then the decision for Mr.
Yzerman will be – match it and lose someone else or let him go and
recoup future assets. Last year the compensation for signing away a
restricted free agent was a 1st and 3rd if the average was between
3.6 and 5.4 million or a 1st, 2nd and 3rd for between 5.4 and 7.3
I don’t see the Lightning matching at
over 3.5 million and I don’t see them letting him walk for less
than that. Even though their record with number one picks under Mr.
Yzerman has been a bit spotty, getting that kind of asset from a team
could help in the long run.
Of course, that means I’d have to buy
yet another jersey. Perhaps it’s throwback time. Lightning sleeve
Zac Bierk, maybe?
Tell Me Why – Shane Prince’s Two
Goals
I’m sure Shane Prince is a fine
individual despite the fact that I had no idea who he was until about
a week ago. And to give him credit, he had two opportunities to
score and he took advantage of them. But both of his goals were more
a result of defensive ineptitude than his individual effort.
I read a book once that explored why
people do stupid things and one of the tangents was how things like
plane crashes happen when so much of the process is automated and
redundant. The explanation – it isn’t one thing that goes wrong.
It’s usually a multitude. The plane didn’t crash because a
computer relay broke. It’s because the relay broke, the pilot was
at the end of a long day and there was bad weather on the approach.
If allowing a goal can be considered a
disaster, it’s usually the result of many things going wrong, not
just one. For instance, here is Prince’s first goal.
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| Of course, a guy named Brock should win a lot of battles |
As the clip starts, Matt Carle loses a
battle along the boards. That frees Brock Nelson to hit a wide open
Ryan Strome with the puck. Breakdown 1.
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| Hedman is playing it pretty well. The stick is just on the wrong side. |
Victor Hedman, who hustled back to
support Carle, drops to a knee to block a pass but he puts his stick
to the left and can’t bring it back in time to cover the open ice.
Breakdown 2.
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| Even in a bad position look how much net Bishop covers. Unreal. |
Ben Bishop, the long-legged mack daddy,
is usually pretty good at moving from post to post. In this case
he’s a little slow to react and can’t square up on the wide open
Prince. Breakdown 3.
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| Namestnikov is that guy on his belly. If the pass gets through it's one-on-one for the Islanders |
Vlad Namestnikov comes zooming into the
play 5 seconds too late to cover Prince. If you watch the top of the
screen during the replay, you’ll see Vlad dive after the puck. It's
actually a nice hustle play as he deflects the puck from getting to
Prince in open ice. Unfortunately, it goes straight to an Islander
and it takes the Russian awhile to get back on his skates and chase
down the play. Sometimes good hustle leads to bad luck. Breakdown 4.
If just one of those breakdowns don’t
happen, there is a good chance Prince doesn’t score. There was a
central theme to all of the goals that the Lightning surrendered –
being outworked. That is something that didn’t happen in round one
and can’t happen in the rest of this series if they want to
advance.
Things We Said Today – Ben Bishop
“I felt good. Just one of those
nights where it wasn't really hitting me.” That's what Bishop had
to say to the Tampa Bay Times following the game. Nice to know the
Vezina-finalist has a complicated philosophy when it comes to
goaltending.
Of the four goals that Bishop gave up
in his half-hour of action, two of them were ones we're used to
seeing him stop. The first goal, a wrister from Travis Harmonic
seemed innocent enough. Bishop was square to him and there was only
a minimal screen in front of him. It hit him yet trickled behind him
and into the net.
The fourth goal, a power play goal by
Jonathan Tavares, seemed similar. The Islanders captain just put the
puck on net and somehow it made it up and over Bishop's shoulder.
Which, seeing how he is a long individual, was not a good goal to let
him.
The good news is that we've been down
this road before. Remember that Bishop got lit up a couple of times
against the Rangers last year and both times he bounced back. It is
a reminder, however, how much the 2015-16 Lightning rely on their big
netminder. He's managed to bail them out time and time again when
they've forgotten how to play defense (see Shane Prince's two goals).
And when he's been merely mortal, they've struggled.
Coach Cooper isn't about to panic.
“Bish is Bish. The kid bounces back”. If he isn't concerned, why
should we? Right?
You Can't Do That – Johnathan
Marchessault
At the 8 minute mark of the second
period, and the Lightning down 3-1, Marchessault was beat along the
boards by Jonathan Tavares. Marchessault, in his first game of the
playoffs, got his stick around the Islanders forward and impeded his
progress. The ref's arm went up and Marchessault skated to the Shame
Box for two minutes. Forty seconds later Tavares beat Bishop on a
wrister and the game was all but over.
The hooking call was one of four
penalties that the Lightning took as a team on Wednesday night.
Unlike the Red Wings series where a lot of the penalties were of the
bullying/roughing type, the ones against the Islanders were lazy
penalties. Marchessault and Tyler Johnson picked up hooking
penalties, Alex Killorn had a kneeing/interference/tackling penalty
while Ryan Callahan added a holding penalty.
It's indicative of the lack of pace
that they were playing with when they picked up those penalties.
Their skates aren't moving and the Islanders were basically
outworking them. It's not a surprise that all of the penalties
happened in the first two periods, once the Lightning found their
legs in the third all of that nonsense seemed to have disappeared.
Marchessault did not have his best game
in a Lightning uniform. He may get a chance to redeem himself due to
the Condra injury, but he is going to have step up his play quite a
bit.
I'll Be Back – The Tampa Bay
Lightning
No one likes losing Game One on home
ice, especially with a sub-optimal performance. It is, however, only
one game. The rust of a week-long layoff should be gone and the
Lightning should be back in the playoff groove. If they win Game 2
then they just need to split in Brooklyn to recapture the home ice
advantage. No one picked this series to be a sweep, so they just
need to get over it and move on.
