How Tampa Bay Lightning Can Avoid Another Disappointing Playoff Finish

The Tampa Bay Lightning spent a lot of assets at the NHL trade deadline last month to make their lineup bigger.

We saw those moves pay off Saturday, when the second-place Lightning went on the road to take on the first-place Boston Bruins and left town with two points to narrow the gap in the Atlantic Division standings. Tampa Bay racked up 48 penalty minutes, including two fighting majors, in as rugged a game as you’ll find in the NHL regular season.

The next night, however, the Lightning went to Detroit and earned just one standings point in a shootout loss to the 31^st-place Red Wings. It’s inconsistencies like that that could wind up costing the Lightning down the stretch and into the postseason. They’re going to have to duplicate the all-around effort, including the physicality, they showed in their win at Boston to make sure they don’t produce another early playoff exit.

With CapFriendly.com estimating the Lightning’s available cap space at $8 million next season with 15 players signed, a cap crunch is coming for Tampa Bay this summer or next. Already half the Lightning’s defense corps is going to be unrestricted free agents this summer, while Mikhail Sergachev and Erik Cernak will be restricted free agents. Up front, vital two-way center Anthony Cirelli is headed to being a RFA, while forwards Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow – two deadline-day acquisitions that the Lightning spent heavily to acquire from the New Jersey Devils and San Jose Sharks, respectively – will be heading into the last year of their contracts before becoming UFAs in 2021.

The Lightning didn’t make those trades, or the signing of Pat Maroon as a UFA to a one-year deal last summer, with thoughts of a long reign in mind. They were looking at the 2020 Stanley Cup, and no one could blame them.

They went to the 2015 Stanley Cup final and came up short against the Chicago Blackhawks. They went to the conference finals the next year and in 2018, and went home empty-handed. Last season was the ultimate embarrassment for Tampa Bay, following up a NHL-record-tying 62-win regular season by being on the short end of a first-round four-game sweep by the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Tampa Bay, though, has kept most of its core intact for this season. After assessing the group for five months, general manager Julien BriseBois then supplemented with the type of players that the St. Louis Blues proved last season, and the Washington Capitals proved the year before, might not have been in the Lightning’s plans until their recent postseason failures.

Maroon, 6-foot-2, 236 pounds, came over from the Blues in the offseason. Coleman plays much bigger than his 5-foot-11, 200 pounds would indicate. Goodrow checks in at 6-2, 215 pounds. Zach Bogosian, 6-2, 200 pounds, was signed as a free agent after the Buffalo Sabres terminated his contract. It’s not a coincidence all these acquisitions have bulk and intimidation as part of their skill set.

“Every year it’s different, but when you evaluate what is needed, we’ve got a pretty solid core group of guys,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said Saturday. “But, to surround them with a little bit more meat and potatoes is what we needed. I thought Julien did a good job addressing that at the deadline, and it’s for times like this. There’s so many different ways to win hockey games, and this is one that maybe in years past we might not have pulled out. But, this group, they can do that.”

The Lightning might have a few more things going for them when the playoffs roll around. Even if they catch the Bruins for the Atlantic Division lead and/or the top seed in the Eastern Conference, they won’t be going into the postseason with as large a bullseye on their backs as they were last season after their historic regular season.

Their depth, which has helped them play well without injured captain Steven Stamkos of late, might be better suited to overcoming injuries than it was last season when the absence of defenseman Victor Hedman through the Lightning for a loop. And whether they finish second in the Atlantic and face either Toronto or Florida in the first round, or finish first in the division and take on a wild-card team, they’re unlikely to face a first-round opponent that’s a worse matchup than what Columbus was last season (the Lightning might even face this year’s less-skilled Blue Jackets team).

Coming off the win in Boston, Cooper became philosophical.

“When you look the tiger in the eye and don’t back down, everybody grows on the bench,” Cooper said.

He was talking about the Lightning defending themselves physically, but he might as well of also been talking about the organization staring down its recent disappointing postseason history. If the Lightning are going to produce a different result in this year’s playoffs, they’re going to need to consistently play the way they did against the Bruins.