The Lightning are in the Eastern Conference Finals for the third time in four years, now that they’ve closed a five-game series win against the Bruins with a 3-1 victory on Sunday. That they’ve gotten this far isn’t surprising or even eye-catching, given their recent postseason success and how good they were in the regular season, when their 113 points led the East.
The Lightning are making it look so easy
It’s hard to be more dominant than Tampa Bay. The Lightning are bound for another conference final.
Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
What’s jarring about these Lightning is the magnitude of their playoff dominance so far. This rout of the Bruins followed a five-game win against the Devils in the first round that was less dramatic than some sweeps are. They’ve gotten to the conference final in a total of 10 games. That’s not all that wild — and the Golden Knights have just done the same thing in the West — but it feels like the Lightning have had a particular breeze in two 4-1 wins.
So far, these Stanley Cup Playoffs have seen the better team win every series. The result is that the conference semifinals have mostly been great, and another result will be some excellent conference finals. Every team is a contender to the fullest extent.
There aren’t any real underdogs. The Lightning are going to be convincing favorites in their next series, though, whether it’s against the Capitals or Penguins. And it’s not just because they’ll enter that series with either one or three days more rest than their opponent.
The Lightning haven’t even given their opponents a chance.
They haven’t been perfect. The Bruins and Devils both won a game off them, and they needed overtime in Game 4 against Boston to grab firm control of that series.
But they’ve been so ruthlessly efficient that their success in these first two series has never been in serious doubt. They’ve cobbled together a neat goal differential of plus-10 in 10 playoff games. They’ve given up two or fewer goals in five of them and scored at least three in all but two. Their two losses in the playoffs have been duds, but their scoring margin in the other eight games they’ve played is a hilarious 31-14.
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It helps that they always have the puck. Reasonable people can disagree about the significance of shot attempts as a measure of possession dominance, but no one will disagree that the Lightning are voracious about staying on offense. At five-on-five in the playoffs, they’ve controlled a league-best 54 percent of the shot attempts and 57 percent of the scoring attempts. Both of those are comfortably first in the NHL.
The Lightning spend a lot of time playing from ahead. It’s hard to claw back when their outrageously deep forward group plays keep-away for an entire game. (Game 5 against the Bruins was an anomaly, in that Boston actually had a slight edge in shot attempts.)
This team comes in waves on offense and has consistent stars at the back.
One of the fun things about the Lightning is that someone different could be driving the offense on any given night. Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos are what they are: world-class scorers who can turn any game on its head at less than a moment’s notice. But Brayden Point, Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn, J.T. Miller, and Ondrej Palat are all capable of hauling weight on offense, and all of them have at points in these playoffs.
All the while, Victor Hedman is an elite talent on the blue line. The 6’6 Swede still eats both minutes and forwards. Andrei Vasilevskiy is a Vezina Trophy finalist, and he’s playing like it in the playoffs. He has a .927 save percentage and 2.20 goals-against average so far, both better marks than he had in the regular season that got him nominated for that award.
The Lightning have so many contributors on offense that they’re nearly impossible to slow down for long. They have the stalwarts in their own end to win even while giving significant minutes to the slow-footed Dan Girardi and some to the also slow-footed Braydon Coburn.
They aren’t a perfect team, but they’re close enough.
If the Capitals close out the Penguins and finally make the conference finals, it’ll be enticing to think of them as a team of destiny. If the Penguins mount a comeback after winning two straight Cups, it’ll be easy to see them as zombies that can’t die. But there’s no one better in hockey right now than the Lightning. They’re well positioned to end someone’s good story.
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