The Tape Room: Tampa Bay Lightning Dominance on Defense
Mike, get to the tape. Let’s dive into the tape. Mike with a yogger like salute. Roll the tape. With a shot. Two goals for Mike. Look at him go. Tape the tape. Let’s diggity dive right into the tape. All right. Well, diggity diving is what the Tampa Bay Lightning have been doing, buddy. Cuz they started off the season not so good and then all a sudden now they seem like the cream of the crop in the Eastern Conference. And it was kind of like, how did they change this narrative so quickly? I I we just got these numbers that are kind of crazy, too. I want to park a couple things because there’s a lot. It’s it’s not just one thing that’s all a sudden turn their season around. In the last seven games, you’ve had Gensel, Cucherov, Hegel, and Radish. All four of those players combined for 50 points. So like that’s your offense like that. Brandon Hegel was on one of the best runs we’ve seen in in quite some time and what he’s been doing. So there’s that. I want to park that. But then we got to look at who’s been out of the lineup, especially on the back end because this is where it gets real challenging for me because you’re missing Victor Hedman, Ryan Mcdana, Eric Shernack. A combined 2631 in games played in the regular season plus another 450 in the playoffs. Six Stanley Cups, one Nor Trophy, one Con Smite. That’s a lot on the back end. B, you played with some of these guys. Like you can’t expect to get better when these guys are out. No. And Ryan Mcdana is just a human eraser in the defensive zone. He gobbles up everything. He’s an unbelievable hockey player. We get to play with him in New York. Victor Hedmond’s the same way. And then he adds 60 to 80 points a year offensively. And by the way, both those guys play over 20 minutes. And Victor’s closer to 30. So yeah, that that’s your captain and an assistant captain are both out. There’s some leadership there. Churn’s proven to be this just heartbeat kind of guy, right? He he he can get involved offensively, but he cleans people out. He plays a physical brand. That’s three really important big strong defenseman that they’re missing. No. And you would think, all right, well, who’s going to get it done? Well, let’s take a look at this list of players that are getting it done on the back end cuz it is very impressive. These are the games played for these players. So, we talked about I think Ryan McDonald’s got like,00 games. All of these guys combined are 796. So, JJ Moer, more opportunity. Take advantage of it. Darren Radish, love this story. Six years in the American Hockey League and he’s got a bomb of a shot. he’s taken on. That’s like their their top pair. That’s their top pair. That’s their top pair. Played over 23 minutes. And I’ll be frank with you, I’m I’m still learning about some of these other guys. I didn’t know who they were, but I’ve been pretty impressed. And and Littleberg, he’s been sort of a thorn in everyone’s side. He plays a hard brand of hockey. Steven Santi, you got to give him a lot of credit. He came up and played with the New Jersey Devils organization for a while and was in the NHL early in his career and then had to go to the American Hockey League. He’s in Syracuse as a home in Syracuse right now. he got called up and he he played phenomenal. He he looked like one of the best players on the ice in that Tampa New York Rangers game. So, I want to talk on the back side of this these clips, the John Cooper effect as well, but these guys are playing well connected. So, we’re going to get to the clips here and there it’s this isn’t all like showing everything that those that Decor is doing, but it’s a connected group. I mean, these are some of the looks when you’re playing against them that you have to you have to see here. So, the puck is actually going to be I’ll just put a little arrow. It’s down here on Vinnie Troek’s stick. Okay, look what you’re looking at or dealing with if you’re the New York Rangers here. Like, where’s his out? So, there you’ve got a guy on the strong strong side of the wall. So, if you want to try to uh throw it back down and get it around to the guy behind the net, he’s going to pinch that off. You’ve got a guy closing up top on you here. You’re not going to blindly look behind yourself to Adam Fox. Like, you got no plays right here. So, and and what’s interesting, if we can keep it here, is we stop it here. It’s not an ideal looking picture if you’re Tampa in most cases because because they’re too much in a line straight line, but this player understands that these guys are going to do their job. He’s going to the puck carrier and his eyes are almost looking in this area because he’s checking him. You’re not going to let Will Coulie get to the net here, right? You’re not going to let a Ranger get on the inside of you here. So, that’s why it looks like this. And there’s they’re almost daring the Rangers to throw something in the middle because they always have their safety net. They can get to these spots on the ice because number one, they compete. Number two, they win every single battle. And number three, they all can skate really, really fast. And they can roll this forward. So you’re not going to beat us in 50/50 puck battles cuz that’s what we do. We win those. But we’re also going to outnumber you all over the ice in every situation. So even if you do win the odd one, you’re not going to be able to do anything with it. This is another look right here. Again, I don’t know if it’s an ideal situation. I And we’re all I’m good with the puck watching here, but just in that straight line, like there’s not enough layers here. Yeah. But this is the thing. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You just have to have guys that are understanding responsibilities, understanding where there’s some weakness and availability. And you’re going to look right here. This is Dominic James. Dominic James who has first year pro. First year pro. You said 16 games all this year in the National Hockey League. Not even skipping a beat. He’s understanding where the shot opportunity is coming from. It’s right here. Well, all right. Let’s make a play here. It’s time now to make a play because you’re going to get a good opportunity for the Rangers. Pop. No problem. Out of play. Like they they just they don’t have you you’re not getting looks. You’re not getting multiple looks. You’re barely getting possession. They’re on things really quickly. And how about this pinch off here. So you come in here, you’re the New York Rangers. All this is telling if if you get this puck, just chip it by and then it’s just going to be a quick retrieval and up ice. So you got nothing. You don’t really have any support either. How many times are we going to see one, two, three around? Yeah. What do you There’s There’s There’s no play here except give it up and then go win a puck battle, which Tampa generally wins. We roll this forward and it’s just it’s just they make it look so easy and and the way they’re connected and the D are connected and aggressive. So again, those weren’t things like necessarily on the D, but it’s it’s the forwards helping out. I mean, we always talk about it. I know I got asked this about a hundred times as a player when the backup goalie would play. G is a different mindset for you guys. Is it this and that? Well, for me a lot of times I was Marty Bdor. So it was different because I cheated to offense. All of us did because it’s Marty. So if you get an opportunity to blow the zone, I’m blowing the zone. But when there’s a backup in there, it doesn’t mean I don’t think the backup’s capable. But we just got to dot our eyes, cross our tees. We played once every three months, too. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. So you know what I mean? But like I don’t know if that’s what’s going on here, but you played for John Cooper. Yes. the buy in he’s got the connectivity all over the ice. The fact that every time I touch the puck I’ve got three Tampa Bay Lightning around me like that’s that’s envious. I I’d be every team wants that. Well, you know what’s it’s interesting? I’ll take it back to the preseason and we remember the back-to-back games against the Florida Panthers with the Tampa Bay Light. Yeah, the squirrely ones. the squirly ones a little bit of a circus and and I don’t think it’s an accident ruppper that those games played out how they played out and and the Lightning got a little slap on the wrist and there was you know you don’t want every game to be like that but the fact that John Cooper had everyone bought in recalling guys up from Syracuse then bringing those guys back up during the season when he didn’t really have to because they did the right thing he mentioned that Destu uh he he’s Charles Eduard Destu he’s a a younger player in the league He he told me a story before the game that he basically had to go and put a bubble on. He got his face ripped off in one of the exchanges in that preseason game against Florida. Puts the bubble on, comes back. He showed John Cooper something there, but he showed all his teammates something there as well cuz he was back in the mix getting after it after the whistle. That is a team. That is an absolute team. Those guys go to war for each other every single night. You see it in every single battle, every shift in the Dzone. That’s kind of the special sauce I think that John Cooper has brought to the Tampa Bay Lightning and they’re all bought in. Yeah, I it’s we know the talent. We kind of talked about some of the talent on the top and the highlight. We didn’t even play the hits, man. Like the highlights that they had. Cuchov had three assists. take over a couple goals like but this is what’s separating them from the other teams in the league because there are some teams I don’t want to say there’s teams that have Nikita Cuchovs because there’s he’s kind of one of a kind but they they’ve got a lot of really special players but what is more special that they have above everybody else what it seems like right now they’re doing that those types of things will give them a chance to win every single night and they kind of have been winning every single
The NHL Now crew take a look in the Tape Room to discuss the Tampa Bay Lightning defense.
Don’t forget to subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRsrhXtzXmzYX_fiyNHHxbw?sub_confirmation=1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NHLNetwork
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NHLNetwork/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nhlnetwork