The Tampa Bay Lightning represent “Team A” in the Stanley Cup Final as the Eastern Conference Champions that everyone expected.
If you look back at the last… oh… let’s say six Stanley Cup Finals, the matchups have tended to be of the following format – Team A, the one that everyone expected to be the last team standing, versus Team B, the team that nobody thought had a shot at the title entering the playoffs.
For example, in 2014, the Los Angeles Kings – Team A – defeated the New York Rangers – Team B – in five games. Everybody expected the Kings, who were one year removed from a 2012 championship, to be there, while the Rangers shocked the world with their qualification for the Final. Similarly, the St. Louis Blues (Team B) surprised the hockey world last season by going from last in the league when the calendar year turned to finding the sport’s holy grail in June. The final boss of last year’s video game of a season in St. Louis was the Boston Bruins (Team A), a team that the hockey world perennially expects to be among the last remaining combatants.
The 2015 Final between the Chicago Blackhawks and these Tampa Bay Lightning fit this mold nicely too. Chicago had won in 2010 and 2013, so no surprise there, while the Lightning, packed with young and raw talent, had risen quickly to prominence under Jon Cooper in his second full season behind the bench.
SHIFTING FROM “TEAM B” TO “TEAM A”
The Lightning were not expected to make that deep of a run at that stage, but once they had, they established themselves as long-term contenders in the NHL. They lived up to this billing twice in the subsequent years, making it back to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2016 and 2018. But they also endured missing the playoffs completely in 2017 and getting embarrassed with an opening round sweep at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets last season, which had the rumor mills churning out plenty of “Fire Jon Cooper” content.
It’s been Stanley Cup or bust for this team for six years now, so knowing that Cooper’s emotions after Anthony Cirelli’s Game 6 overtime winner on Thursday were “Exuberance and relief,” makes all the sense in the world.
This team has fallen short so many times, and has been favored so frequently in the last few years, that at some point it risked falling into a Team B category. So why now? What’s different for these 2019-2020 Tampa Bay Lightning that has made them Eastern Conference Champions for the first time since that remarkable run in 2015?
CORE IMPROVEMENT
It’s no secret that this roster is absolutely loaded with superstar talent. From Vezina-nominated Andrei Vasilevskiy in net, to Norris-nominated Victor Hedman on the blueline, to two-time 100-point scoring Nikita Kucherov up front, there is elite talent everywhere you look.
There’s a saying among NHL coaches that you need your best players to be your best players to win, and these guys have been Tampa Bay’s best players in these playoffs. You may recall that in last season’s CBJ debacle, Kucherov did not score, and was actually suspended one game for a downright reckless hit that nearly took the head off of Markus Nutivaara. Kucherov has redeemed himself by doing absolutely everything this postseason, with 26 (!!) points in 19 games, leading all playoff participants.
Meanwhile, Vasilevskiy has been outstanding with a .931 save percentage and 1.82 goals against average after an abysmal .856/3.82 line in a small four-game sample size in 2019. And Hedman… whoa… with 15 points from the blueline and some clutch goals along the way, Hedman is making a real case to finish the season as your Conn Smythe AND Norris Trophy winner.
But other guys have taken huge steps to get this team over the hump this year, most notably Brayden Point. Point emerged as a true superstar during the Lightning’s dream regular season in ’18-’19 with 41 goals and 51 assists, but then (like everyone else on the team) went quiet in the playoffs, contributing just one goal in the team’s four games. Conversely, he’s been a force this postseason, with nine goals and 16 assists. Point’s health is a question mark for the Final, as he missed two games of the last series before obviously being rushed back for Game 6, but indications are that he’ll gut it out.
The Lightning and their Final opponent from Dallas have few similarities in make-up, but one thing that sticks out as a parallel between the two organizations is the shrewd veteran additions recently made by both to bolster their respective rosters. Like Jim Nill in Dallas, BriseBois made a few moves that on paper probably should have had minimal impact, but in the end, they’re paying huge dividends collectively.
Fresh off a Stanley Cup in his hometown, Patrick Maroon signed for one year with the Lightning, bringing some needed grit to a team that
Patrick Maroon has been the perfect fit for Tampa Bay’s fourth line.
previously had none. Maroon is the quintessential fourth-liner for a playoff squad, and has shown he’s worth every penny of the bargain $900K contract that he finally signed just days before training camp. For a time, it looked like nobody wanted him, which was a bit puzzling considering his recent success.
Speaking of bargain players that seemingly nobody wanted, Kevin Shattenkirk was bought out by the New York Rangers, then signed a one-year “prove it” contract with Tampa Bay for just $1.75 million. Talk about worth every penny, Shattenkirk has again emerged as a top-pairing defenseman that plays 17 minutes per night and has chipped in offensively with nine playoff points. He’s been a perfect complement to Hedman, and will certainly get paid more than $1.75 million next season, wherever that may be.
And let’s not forget the pre-deadline trades for Barclay Goodrow – which had people scratching their heads at the time, as it cost the Lightning a first-round draft pick – and Blake Coleman, who play together with Yanni Gourde on the third line. You’ll hear about the team’s change in style in the next section, and Goodrow and Coleman have been huge contributors to the team’s successful commitment to detail in its own zone.
MENTALITY
The biggest difference for the Lightning this postseason has been the approach they brought into the NHL’s return-to-play bubble. If you recall the historic 128-point campaign that the Lightning breezed through in 2018-2019, they encountered zero adversity. They were winning almost every night and winning big, with a +98 goal differential in total.
But their style of play – scoring their opponents to death – doesn’t always translate to playoff hockey, and that’s exactly what we saw when John Tortorella’s Blue Jackets flipped the script and defended Tampa Bay to a swift death. Coop’s Troops learned from that embarrassing ousting, and came into the bubble knowing that this could be their coach’s last stand if the team made another early exit.
This season, the Lightning faced some adversity, immediately getting punched in the mouth with a lackluster opening to the season, and hovering at an unimpressive 17-13-4 record as the Christmas holiday approached. But they endured and overcame, and it was at that point in the season when they turned it on, rattling off ten straight wins between December 23rd and January 11th. They followed that up with another eleven-game win streak starting on January 29th, but then limped into the NHL’s COVID-related pause, winning just three of their last ten.
But when the league re-started within its bubbly confines in August, there had been an obvious change in Tampa Bay’s style. They’re now visibly more committed defensively (again, Coleman and Goodrow have been a big part of this), and playing with more grit and determination than they were last year. They seem to be more interested in keeping their opponents to low numbers on the scoreboard than they are about running it up offensively –which they still do on occasion – as we saw in the closing games of the Eastern Conference Final against the Islanders.
The result, with the help of some stellar play from Vasilevskiy, has been a remarkably low team goals against average of just 1.42 per game in the playoffs, while still managing to rack up 2.25 per game themselves. Meanwhile, according to NaturalStatTrick.com, Tampa Bay has had 57.3% of the expected goals for, indicating that they’ve certainly had the better of the chances throughout the postseason, while Final opponent Dallas has managed just 49.2%.
Per NaturalStatTrick.com, the Lightning have 57.3% of expected goals for, while Dallas has just 49.2%.
Tampa Bay is a team that – after years of falling short – seems to finally understand how to win a Stanley Cup. Now all that’s left to do is actually win it.
The Dallas Stars are your Western Conference champions, because… well… it’s 2020, and of course they are! Meanwhile, the Islanders kept themselves alive with a double-overtime victory over the Lightning on Tuesday, and Sound of Hockey is here to give you the full rundown of everything that’s happening in the playoff bubble.
Lots of fun chatter on this week’s episode, as John, Andy, and Darren discuss some of the storylines associated with the Stars’ impressive run and do a postmortem on the recently departed Vegas Golden Knights. Also, more discussion about the impending goalie carousel that should start spinning in the NHL very soon.
Next, the guys discuss trades, signings, and NHL awards, before moving into Weekly One-Timers and Tweets of the Week.
The uncertainty surrounding the Seattle Kraken American Hockey League affiliate in Palm Springs received clarity Wednesday morning.
As reported by The Desert Sun, Oak View Group’s planned 10,000 seat arena project, which had been delayed indefinitely, is back on albeit in a different location. Rather than being built in downtown Palm Springs the project has been moved north of the city to a location OVG hopes will make it more accessible to the greater Coachella Valley.
The new AHL team was slated to begin play in the upcoming 2021-2022 season but that no longer will be an option as ground breaking of the arena won’t begin until 2021 with a last quarter of 2022 completion target.
Because of that delay, the Kraken will not have a dedicated AHL affiliate in 2021-2022.
“On behalf of David Bonderman and our ownership group we are excited to share this vision of a championship AHL Franchise in a spectacular arena in one of the most beautiful communities,” said Tod Leiweke, CEO of the Seattle Kraken in a press release. “This new arena will offer a great game day experience from parking to puck drop and house a state-of-the-art training center. We will engage our fans in the Valley starting with the Kraken’s launch in 2021 as we sequentially build toward the launch of our AHL franchise.”
Originally, Oak View was going to work with the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians on tribal land in Palm Springs for the arena location.
Groundbreaking was scheduled for this past February but the project was inexplicably delayed – a simple “extenuating circumstances” was the only reason offered by the tribe.
That delay put the project in jeopardy and forced the Kraken, along with OVG, to scramble for options.
“After more than a year of good faith negotiations we were unable to finalize an agreement with the Agua Caliente tribal leaders for OVG to lease, develop and operate the privately funded arena,” said Tim Leiweke, CEO of Oak View Group via a statement.
The Kraken, who are set to play in the 2021-2022 NHL season, will need to have minor league players. Without a dedicated affiliate they will look to lend, or share, an affiliation with an existing AHL team.
Sharing prospects is not a unique situation as the Vegas Golden Knights had players join the independently owned Chicago Wolves in their inaugural season to play alongside prospects of the St. Louis Blues. Chicago became the sole affiliate of the Golden Knights the next year as the Blues reached an agreement with the San Antonio Rampage.
This summer, Vegas bought the Rampage and moved the franchise to Henderson, Nevada and berthed the Henderson Silver Knights who are now the Vegas affiliate.
Just 12 of the AHL’s 31 teams are independently owned and it would reason that it will be one of those 12 teams that Seattle looks to for housing its prospects for the 2021-2022 season. Vegas had 13 players in Chicago for its first season in 2017-2018, three of which were picked up in the expansion draft, two via trade, and the eight remaining were free agent signings.
No details as to a time line for selecting a team, or teams, to share players with was given. Kraken general manager Ron Francis and assistant GM Ricky Olczyk will be tasked with exploring options for their players.
The new Palm Springs Arena is privately funded and a partnership between OVG and the H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation. Initially, OVG, received 2,500 season ticket deposits and says that they will honor the deposits as well as offer refunds to anyone who wishes one. The arena will be a 300,000 square-foot project used for hockey and other community activities as well as the AHL team’s practice facility.
Raise your hand if you picked the Dallas Stars as your Western Conference champions at the beginning of the 2019-2020 season.
[Scans room. Sees no hands raised.]
Ok, now raise your hand if you had the Dallas Stars as your Western Conference champions at the beginning of the playoffs.
[Scans room. Sees no hands raised.]
Ok, now raise your hand if you ever once envisioned Anton Khudobin as the catalyst to bringing a team – any team at all – over the hump and into a Stanley Cup Final.
[Scans room. Sees no hands raised.]
There you have it. Scientific proof that nobody saw this coming.
Now, in the interest of fairness, perhaps the collective dismissal of the Stars by the hockey universe was a bit hasty, especially considering that this is a team that did actually win a playoff round in 2018-2019, and pushed the eventual Cup-winning Blues to a seventh game in the second round.
But – and again, this is in the interest of fairness – the core of this team has not been altered in years (by “core” I obviously mean Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin), and since the two-headed monster was born in 2013-2014, Dallas had never gotten beyond the aforementioned second round. This core missed the playoffs completely three times in seven seasons with that two-headed monster leading the way. Heck, this core was referred to as “f***ing horses**t” by team CEO, Jim Lites, to close out the 2018 calendar year.
So why are the Dallas Stars suddenly so great? What’s different this year?
**Editor’s Note: NHLtoSeattle is aware that literally everything in the world is different in 2020, but we’re talking specifically about the Dallas Stars here.**
Well, a lot is different, actually, as apparently there is now more to the Dallas Stars than just Benn, Seguin and Alex Radulov.
Who knew?
VETERAN DEPTH
GM Jim Nill made a series of shrewd moves over the past two seasons to bring in veterans Andrew Cogliano, Blake Comeau, Corey Perry, and – most notably – Joe Pavelski, a consummate playoff performer who has predictably been a beast in this postseason with nine goals and five assists.
Joe Pavelski continues to be an impactful playoff performer with nine goals this postseason.
The problem with this team for the better part of a decade was that it was glaringly top heavy. Central Division fans may remember watching Ken Hitchcock send Seguin, Benn, and Radulov out to get their goals – which they did often get – only to have zero secondary or tertiary attack to support them night after night.
Teams with effective checking lines could easily run them out against that top trio, and if they were successful in shutting down the big three, then the game was all but won. Now, with these reliable veterans sprinkled through the second, third, and fourth lines, “easy to check” simply isn’t in this team’s identity anymore.
Individually, none of those acquisitions would have moved the needle enough to get this team to the promised land, but as a whole, the addition of this veteran depth has had a profound impact.
YOUNG GUNS
Fans of the Central may also remember that while there wasn’t much veteran depth in the lineup a couple of years ago, there were some decent young players that looked to be developing positively, with John Klingberg already standing out on the blueline. Well, fast forward, and now Miro Heiskanen has emerged as another one of the best young defensemen in the NHL, while up front, Denis Gurianov and Roope Hintz appear to be superstars in the making.
Both still just 23 years old, Gurianov and Hintz combined for 39 tallies during the regular season, and have continued contributing in the postseason. Gurianov has notched some of the biggest goals in franchise history (nine in all, plus eight assists in 21 games) to help propel this club into the Final.
You know I had to do it. The Denis Gurianov postseason scoring reel. Guy is so freakin fun to watch pic.twitter.com/VVWiDlL26m
Below, take a look at a Stars line-up from 2018-2019 (left) versus the current Stars line-up (right), according to DailyFaceoff.com. While many of the main characters are still around, it’s the supporting cast that has quietly evolved and developed, and this has made all the difference in Dallas.
“INTERIM” COACH
Meanwhile, you have a lovable “interim” head coach in Rick Bowness, who Nill has indicated will return next year, as the second-biggest no-brainer coaching hire in recent history behind Craig Berube.
The long-time journeyman benchboss has been everywhere, and comically quipped to NBC Sports recently that when his team faced Calgary in the first round, “It was one of the few teams in the league that I had never coached any of their players.” Bowness brought a 123-289-51 career record to the table at the time of his promotion in December, but turned in an impressive 20-13-5 before the NHL’s March shutdown, and is 12-8 in these playoffs.
Now at the precipice of head coaching greatness for the first time in his 30-year career, Bowness has had a positive impact on countless players over the years, and his jovial spirit certainly seems to be rubbing off on his current squad.
Ben Bishop was the big free agent splash signing three years ago, and if the Stars were going to make it to a Stanley Cup Final, it would certainly be him that would lead them there, right?
[Thick Russian accent]: “Not so fast, silly American.”
Though unorthodox in playing style, Anton Khudobin has always been an effective back-up netminder, with a solid 2.46 GAA and .919 save percentage in 218 career games played. He’s the kind of guy that every team loves to have around, because you can throw him in net on any given night – even when he isn’t expecting to play – and he’ll still give you a chance to win that’s at least close to what the starter would have provided. And heck, if the starter goes down with a significant injury, Khodobin could even take the reins for a few consecutive games and pick up some wins in the process.
That’s exactly what has happened in these playoffs, and not only has Khudobin taken the reins with Bishop on the shelf since the first round, he’s been the biggest reason that Dallas now has an opportunity to hoist hockey’s greatest prize.
Dobby has been so good that he may have finally played himself into a starting role with another franchise when his contract ends after this next series.
—-
The Stars have caught lighting in a bottle, which is ironic, because they could face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Final. Everything is going right for this team right now, as it seeks its second Cup in franchise history, from the coach to the veterans to the young players to the quirky career backup netminder, who just happens to be on fire at exactly the right time.
Maybe these guys aren’t f***ing horses***t after all.
It happened again… Darren has experienced more travel woes – this time wildfire related – and he is back to share about it in “Storytime with Darren” to start the show.
Tons of goalie talk in this episode, as John, Andy, and Darren consider the offseason implications on Seattle, especially after that landscape has dramatically changed during these playoffs. Read this article that John wrote to bring yourself up to speed.
Also, some talk about the NHL awards that have been announced, and a WHL Update from our WHL Correspondent, Andy Eide.
Segments this week include Goalie Gear Corner featuring this and this, Let’s Get Quizzical, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
It happened again… Darren has experienced more travel woes – this time wildfire related – and he is back to share about it in “Storytime with Darren” to start the show.
Tons of goalie talk in this episode, as John, Andy, and Darren consider the offseason implications on Seattle, especially after that landscape has dramatically changed during these playoffs. Read this article that John wrote to bring yourself up to speed.
Also, some talk about the NHL awards that have been announced, and a WHL Update from our WHL Correspondent, Andy Eide.
Segments this week include Goalie Gear Corner featuring this and this, Let’s Get Quizzical, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
