Another slow start
Lightning causing their own problems — especially penalties
The Lightning played just well enough to make it exciting.
Just well enough to make you believe this series could turn into something memorable.
Just well enough to make you want to scream about every wasted shift, foolish pass and momentum-killing penalty in the game’s first 30 minutes.
Yes, Toronto deserved to win Game 3 at Amalie Arena on Friday night. No doubt about that. A pair of empty-net goals made the 5-2 score deceptively lopsided, but the Maple Leafs were a consistent, disciplined and energized team. Which begs the question: Why weren’t the Lightning? For crying out loud, they are the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions. The core of this team has been together for a decade and has experienced every postseason scenario imaginable.
So if the Lightning could outplay Toronto for much of the second and third periods — which seemed to be the consensus in the Tampa Bay dressing room — why were they so sluggish in the first period?
“We can’t wait for them to go up by a couple of goals for us to kind of flip the switch,” said Ross Colton, who put Tampa Bay on the board with a second-period goal after they had fallen behind 2-0.
And now, for the first time since 2019, the Lightning are trailing after multiple games in a postseason series. Obviously, that’s not a good sign. The last four times the Lightning have trailed this deep into a series, they’ve lost. Which is another way of saying comebacks are not easy in the playoffs.
This also is the second time this week that the Maple Leafs have dominated the early stages with special teams. On Friday night, it began when Pat Maroon inexplicably flicked the puck into the screen to pick up a delay-of-game penalty that led to Toronto’s first goal.
Three more penalties ensured the Lightning were playing with a man down for nearly eight of the first 24 minutes.
“We can’t take five penalties in the first half of the game,” said captain Steven Stamkos. “It’s just taxing.”
Taxing is one word. Ridiculous is another.
The Lightning have taken 21 penalties in three games which — and I’m just spitballing here — is not sound strategy when facing a team that has the most effective power-play unit in the NHL.
Tampa Bay players say the constant shifting between penalty kill and power play has made it difficult for them to find a rhythm in 5-on-5 situations but Toronto has managed to overcome the issue. The Maple Leafs have outscored the Lightning 7-3 in 5-on-5 situations.
And it’s been particularly noticeable with Tampa Bay’s first line. Lightning coach Jon Cooper gave Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov a pass Friday morning when he said they had been preoccupied playing defense against the explosive Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner line during the two games in Toronto.
But that wasn’t an issue in Game 3. Because the Lightning were home, they got the last line change. So Stamkos, Kucherov and Ondrej Palat were rarely on the ice with Matthews and Marner.
Yet Stamkos and Kucherov were basically invisible for the first two periods. Between them, they had 1 shot on goal and 1 missed shot in the first 40 minutes. In the third period, they combined for 3 shots on goal and 5 other misfires or blocked shots.
Without directly saying it, Cooper cited those numbers while seeming to suggest that Stamkos and Kucherov were not aggressive enough going to the net in the first two periods.
“I don’t think Toronto changed the way they played in the third when they were having success in the first two periods,” Cooper said. “It was probably more on us.”
The upside is that the Lightning should know they are capable of playing with Toronto. The defense somewhat neutralized Marner and Matthews on Friday night, and the offense controlled the puck for almost the entire third period.
The issue now is whether Tampa Bay can avoid putting itself in the hole. The Lightning have been alternately reckless and lethargic in the early halves of two different games.
If they repeat that trend in the coming days, the Stanley Cup will be parading around some other town next month.