Ups, downs prove valuable at the end

Rollar-coaster ride during regular season can pay off

When the Lightning woke up on Jan. 3 atop the NHL standings, the Blues were dead last.

The Lightning had won 31 of their first 39 games, while the Blues had won just 15 of their first 37. The Lightning staked themselves to 30point lead on the Blues before the season’s halfway mark.

The rest is league history: The Lightning got swept out of the playoffs in the first round, and the Blues went from the basement to lifting the Stanley Cup in triumph. That the Blues struggled for so long and didn’t hit their stride until January could make much of the marathon regular season seem pointless, though players suggest it actually shows the importance of ups, downs and adversity during the 82-game grind as a way to prepare to win playoff games.

“You’ve got to understand in the bigger picture if you’re going to have a four, five, six-game losing streak at some point, it’s no reason to hit the panic button,” said Jonathan Toews, who won the Cup as Blackhawks captain in 2010, ’13 and ’15. “You almost have to go through that so when playoffs do come around, you’re ready to turn that switch and you’ve got that energy and you’ve got that confidence that if you work, you’re going to get the results for it.”

Players who watched all four division champs bow out in the first round and the Blues grind to their first title came away with important lessons on how to approach the regular season. The Blues showed a midseason coaching change can work, a goalie can come out of nowhere and have success, and momentum can snowball positively.

“It was good at understanding that it’s a roller coaster, and the more you can stay even keel and keep staying with things and keep pushing each other to think that sometimes things will change, you’ll get a bounce and things will start to go your way,” Blues playoff MVP Ryan O’Reilly said. “It was very awful at the start. But guys ... kept working for each other, things started to change. Once that belief happened, it kind of steamrolled.”

The Lightning wound up on the flip side having not lost more than two games in a row all season and lacking the struggles to draw from when things went poorly in the playoffs. They went four and out against the Blues Jackets.

“We were good in the regular season and probably thought we’ll be all right in the playoffs because we were good in the regular season,” Vezina Trophy winning Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy said. “The regular season was great. In the playoffs, I think our tank was empty because of that and we just went straight down because of that.”

The Lightning tied the NHL record with 62 victories and finished 21 points ahead of the next-closest team. They also became the 10th Presidents’ Trophy winners in 11 tries to fall short of winning the Stanley Cup.

All of which supports the believe that standings and seeding matters little in the playoffs, where matchups take precedence. It also apparently doesn’t matter where a team is at by Thanksgiving or New Year’s Day, which used to be important markers about who will make the postseason.

“We started well and we ended bad,” said Jack Eichel, whose Sabres went on a 10-game winning streak, were first in the league at Thanksgiving and missed the playoffs. “You look at St. Louis and they did the complete opposite. It’s a long season, and a lot goes into it. Consistency is one of the most important things in this league.”

Is it, though? The Blues didn’t put together a winning streak longer than two until mid-January. They got a boost from rookie goalie Jordan Binnington, tied a franchise record with 11 consecutive victories and became the poster boys for coming together at the right time.

“It’s just something to rally behind,” Stars goaltender Ben Bishop said. “Usually that’s kind of what it comes down to. Something happens, and usually a team rallies behind it.”

The Blues are evidence that games lost early don’t spell the end. That’s how Jaccob Slavin sees the regular season now that he and the Hurricanes are trying to back up a surprise trip to the Eastern Conference finals and every other team is looking to find the Blues’ rhythm and win it all.

“Until you’re out of it, don’t give up,” Slavin said. “If you get on a roll at the right time, anything can happen.”