[ad_1]
-
Greg WyshynskiESPN
COLUMBUS – Ryan McDonagh in the silent Tampa Bay Lightning dressing room, where his teammates spent a few moments of quiet, frustrated contemplation before leaving for the offseason.
How could this happen? How do you get a lot of money? 128 points and 62 victories – NHL record for wins at the Columbus Blue Jackets, the last wild card in the Eastern Conference and a team that finished 30 points behind them?
How could a team that seemed destined for a Stanley Cup see it swept aside? How could a group that Vegas sportsbooks pegged as a minus-400 favorite before the series cash out in four games?
Miss a game from the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs? Want to experience a game again? Every playoff matchup is available for replay on ESPN +. Watch now »
"It's tough to pinpoint one thing," McDonagh said. "We have a lot of different strengths that we've been able to achieve in the past."
What caused this historic playoff to collapse, marking the first time in history that the league's top team was swept in the first round in a seven-game series?
Here's the anatomy of the Lightning's loss to Columbus:
Jump ahead: Game 1 mistake | Injuries (and stupidity)
One-special teams | The Wrath of Bob
They were out-coached | 'It was not our time'
The Jackets were not an 8-seed
Before opening the door to the cause of their demise, let's exalt the Columbus Blue Jackets with the praise they deserve.
This was not a No. 8 seed. This was the 13th-best team in the NHL based on points, with 98, a higher total than three Western Conference playoff teams in the Dallas Stars (93), Vegas Golden Knights (93) and Colorado Avalanche (90). They were 12th in goals per game (3.12) and 11th in goals-against per game (2.82), outpacing several playoff teams in each category. They were 12th in goals (50.87), which was better than six playoff teams.
They have been completely adapted to the rule of law, and the Vegas sportsbook projections for the series. (The Lightning were minus-400 on the money line to win the series.)
The Lightning's collapse in the first round of the NHL playoffs was epic. But this remains a loaded team in 2019-20.
From the first round all the way through the Stanley Cup Final, ESPN has you covered. Check out the full playoff picture and coverage on each team.
1 Related
But where the punditry failed to identify two trends. First, that the Blue Jackets had been a different team since a Western Canadian road trip that ended on March 24. They had a team meeting that cleared the air on some issues, and that meeting was cited by several players having gotten them on the right course. They won seven of eight games to close the regular season, giving up two or fewer goals in each victory. (That's a 6-2 home loss to the Bruins on April 2, in a critical game, which is a contender.)
The other trend is that the Jackets have made the playoffs. They went out to the Penguins in 2017, but gained experience. They won the first two games in Washington in 2018 and lost the series in six games, but gained more experience.
"The more and more playoff hockey you play, the more and more you feel comfortable in situations that you're in. It's so important that it's been a few years in a row. Hopefully, you're ready for that, "Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said.
So it was not new for the Jackets to start the series well on the road,
In Game 1, the Lightning tried to win 8-0 instead of 3-0
The Blue Jackets were a punchline after a period of Game 1 in Tampa. They were down 3-0 in the postseason, and they looked thoroughly outmatched. This is what the Lightning did during their early onset and their early onset (their first-ever goals were linked to San Jose for most in the NHL), and a wide margin (30 of their 62 wins were by three gold more goals).
What they quickly discovered in the playoffs, opponents do not tumble to the canvas after three quick punches. They are staggering around and waiting for somebody who gets them back in the fight. Which is why Ryan McDonagh's ill-advised pass, intercepted by the Blue Jackets and turned into a breakaway goal for Nick Foligno, was such a harbinger of doom.
Nick Foligno breaks out and beats Vasilevskiy to get the @BlueJacketsNHL> #StanleyCup> pic.twitter.com/chcW7yVUyE – Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 11, 2019
That pinch by Erik Cernak and that pass by McDonagh are the kind of plays you make when you think about them 82-game journey. When Josh Anderson tips off to Foligno, the Lightning has gotten into the area. And then he just smokes it past Andrei Vasilevskiy.
From that point on, the Jackets took over the game at the same time. They scored a shorthanded goal against the Lightning's exalted power-play, and a power-play goal of their own.
Jon Cooper said, "We have to win games 2-1, and not 5-4." The Lightning tried to win Game 1 by, like, 8-0. Instead, one critical mistake got the Jackets back in the fight and helped them score the first of a series of upsets.
The Hangover Game 2
Lightning center Tyler Johnson said that the team had a crisis of confidence during Game 1, getting away from making plays. That carried over to Game 2: While the Lightning had the advantage during the game in shots at 5-on-5, and played well in the first period despite giving up two goals, their expected goals for the second (42.39) and third (48.54) was indicative of their failure to carry the play. The Blue Jackets won the game, 5-1, Riley Nash and Artemi Panarin score 3:09 apart.
During the entire regular-season, the Lightning lost back-to-back games once, in early November when Vasilevskiy was injured. They thought they could walk into Game 2 and snap back into form. They were wrong. Blowing that three-goal lead in the Game 1 loss damaged their psyche for Game 2.
"You're feeling pretty good about yourself when you're up 3-0, and then we're gonna get wrapped up in that game." in the first five minutes, and we did not respond like we should have, "said Cooper.
Injuries (and stupidity)
In Game 3, the Lightning was one of their most important players, for very different reasons.
Nikita Kucherov, the NHL's leading scorer with 128 points and the prohibitive favorite to win the Hart Trophy as MVP league, missed Game 3 while serving a one-game suspension for boarding Defenseman Jackets Markus Nutivaara in Game 2. It was a cheap shot in a prone position, delivered out of frustration with Columbus handily ahead in the game.
Did the loss of Kucherov affect the Lightning? Absolutely. They found their offensive game in the third period and trailed by only a goal. Not having Kucherov on the ice to score or the equalizer was critical. In that sense, he is their most valuable player – glaring in his absence. Petulant, selfish plays that lead to suspensions are not exactly the stuff of MVPs. (Luckily, the Hart votes are already a regular-season award and Kucherov had a stellar one.)
One-special teams
After Game 4, Kucherov was still trying to figure out what happened to his heralded power play. "No power plays." "It's tough." I do not know what to say, "he muttered.
No one does it when it comes to the special teams disparity in this series. The Lightning had a power-play percentage of 28.1 in the regular season, which is the highest in NHL history for an 82-game season and the highest overall since the 1987-88 Calgary Flames were at 28.5 percent in an 80-game season. The Lightning had a 33.0 percent power-play percentage on the road, the highest since the NHL began tracking the stat in 1977.
Against the Blue Jackets? Their power play went 1-for-6, finally converting in Game 4. What was the role of the discipline? – Columbus had the fewest times shorthanded in the regular season.
The 2019 NHL draft is June 21-22 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Get ready with the latest prospects and mock draft.
• Mock Draft 2.0
• Top 50 draft prospects
" More coverage of the NHL draft
Meanwhile, the Blue Jackets' play power morphed into the mid-1970s Montreal Canadiens, whipping the puck around and in constant motion. They finished 5-for-10 in the series against a Lightning penalty that ended in the NHL. Allowing your opponent has 50-percent conversion rate on the power play is the stuff of which sweeps are made.
The Columbus power play produced the game-winning goal in Games 1 and 2. The game-winner in Game 4 was also technically a special teams goal, scored 6-on-5 during a penalty kick.
It can not be stressed enough: The Lightning did not play horribly at 5-on-5. The Jackets scored eight even-strength goals to Tampa's six. The bolts had an expected goals percentage of 54.86, and 54.17 percent of the scoring chances over four games. But those extra four goals with the man advantage made all the difference.
"Special teams were big in the playoffs, we did not get the bounces on the killer penalty, and they got confidence on the power play as the series went on," said Stamkos.
Suffice it to say, they really missed Hedman on both of these units.
The Columbus forecheck
Last month, we published an article called "How the Tampa Bay Lightning can be defeated," long before any of this plausible. One section of the song is particularly useful for the Blue Jackets' sweep: That a team playing an effective forechecking game could slow down an offensive juggernaut to a crawl.
The Washington Capitals proved this last season in a 1-1-3 trap that bounced the Jackets, Penguins, Lightning and Golden Knights en route to the Stanley Cup. Columbus played a 1-2-2 system against the Lightning that effectively clogged up the neutral zone. One lead forward to Tampa Bay puck-handler; two other forwards provide neutral zone support to the puck-carrier or take away passing lanes; get through them, and the Jackets Sergei Bobrovsky.
"They've been on top of the puck." They've taken away the ice. "It's not easy to get them set up often," McDonagh said. .
Easier said than done. Until the offensive circus of Game 4, the Jackets had spent the previous eight times plucking the Tampa pucks – they had 30 takeaways in the series – and forcing the Lightning to play a chip-and-chase game when entering the offensive zone.
"We got behind our identity, which is possessing pucks," said Cooper.
When the Jackets had the puck, they handled it methodically, which is another key to defeating the Lightning: Slowing down the pace. As of March 11, the Jackets were 26th in the NHL in pace of play. The Lightning were 14th.
When they were able to get through the defensive front, there was another problem: Sergei Bobrovsky finally became a goalie playoff.
The Wrath of Bob
One of the reasons the Blue Jackets had a history of success. Bobrovsky's rather horrid playoff performance history. In previous playoff games with Columbus, Bobrovsky had a 3.41 goals-against average and an .898 save percentage. Not great, Bob.
But in this postseason, he's been a revelation: a .932 save percentage and a 2.01 goals-against average. Why the improvement?
"But he did, in times of games when we needed a huge save, he's made them," said Tortorella.
Remember that Foligno goal in Game 1? That only matters because Bobrovsky made a huge save on Nikita Kucherov that could have made the game 4-0. Later, he stopped Steven Stamkos when the Bolts captain could have made it 4-1.
In both games in Columbus, Bobrovsky weathered every offensive The lightning had, and outplayed Andrei Vasilevskiy across the ice. Vasilevskiy finished with a .856 save percentage and a 3.82 goals-against average. Among the many unpredictable facets of this upset, the Blue Jackets are vastly superior.
"I'm thrilled for him," said Tortorella. "He's got a bit of a burr, and that's a pretty good thing for an athlete to have."
The lack of adversity
One of Cooper's Theories About the Demise of His Lightning is that they could not simply switch to the switch for the postseason after coasting for months.
"When you have the amount of things we had, it's a blessing and a curse, it's a long time. excuse, it's reality, "said Cooper after Game 4." That's how it goes: You have a historic and we had a historic playoff. "
(Well, yes, it was historic: for the first time in the NHL, a team with the most points in the season of a seven-game series.)
Cooper's argument is that the Blue Jackets rolled into the playoffs having played meaningful games over the past three weeks, and playing them well: Columbus won seven of eight games, giving up two or fewer goals in each of those victories. Meanwhile, the Lightning lost their confidence in Game 1 and had a bad stretch that cost them their season.
"We could not find our game," said Cooper, "for six days in April, we could not find it. "It's unfortunate, because it's a hell of a season."
Then again, Cooper was out-coached
On March 26th, the Lightning announced a contract with Jon Cooper, perhaps with the anticipation that his stock (and the price of it) would rise if and when the team won the Stanley Cup.
"He's the absolute best coach for our hockey team," said Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois at the time.
So … does that still apply?
Cooper is a brilliant coach. If Barry Trotz does not win Jack Adams for the post-John Tavares resurrection of the Islanders, Cooper will win for NHL history. But in this series against the Blue Jackets, Cooper was out-coached and outmaneuvered by Tortorella. The Jackets committed to their system in ways the Lightning did not. Tactically, their trumped defense Cooper's offense, and the Lightning were slow to adjust to it.
He also made some flat out mistakes, like failing to identify the psychological damage the Bolts had after Game 1; Being unable to get Vasilevskiy off for an extra attacker in a timely manner in Game 3; and failing to make a challenge on the Jackets' first goal in Game 4 for goalie interference.
"It's something that has not happened during the year that snowballed during this series," said Cooper, in an understatement.
The stars did not shine
The Blue Jackets got impact plays from impact talents. Matt Duchene had three goals and four assists. Artemi Panarin had two goals and three assists. Zach Werenski had five points, and Seth Jones had four points, both of them tallying a game-winning goal. Even Oliver Bjorkstrand's two goals were both game-winners, to go with two assists.
The Lightning … did not. Stamkos, who had 45 goals in the regular-season, had no points and was a minus-5 through three games. Point, who had 41 goals in the regular season, was scoreless through three, with a minus-2. Kucherov, who led the league with 128 points, did not score in the first two games of the series and then got himself suspended for Game 3.
All of them hit the scoresheet in Game 4 in an effort to stave off elimination. But the fact the Lightning was in a position of a product of their lack of production earlier in the series.
'It was not our time'
Kucherov sat in his stall, looking stunned, fielding questions about Game 4. "This sucks, yeah, not much to say," he said. "It's a playoff." "It's not our team, I guess."
This essay is an attempt to make the analysis of the autopsy: That the Lightning, despite all of their successes in the history of statistical analysis, is one of the most important things in the world.
"If you do not achieve the goal of winning it, it's a failure. "We were not defending a team, this entire series," said Stamkos.
So one is left wondering how, then, the Lightning can learn to win in the postseason. How to handle adversity. How to transfer what they did best in the regular season to the postseason.
Maybe it just takes time, like it did for the Blue Jackets.
"I do not know," said Cooper. "It's funny: We're expected to go this year, and we'll be in. In 2015, we're going anywhere, with the same core of players," he said. "It's tough to win in this league." "It's tough to get hold of the Stanley Cup at the end, but how many teams have gone through that?" They knocked at the door and knocked at the door. Washington, for example? They had two remarkable years and got bunked in the second round, and the year no one expected them to do anything they won the Stanley Cup. "
Changes will come for the Lightning. They have to, after a disaster of this magnitude. But given the core, and given the ages of the core, the window remains wide open to win.
Perhaps one day, while hoisting the Cup, the Lightning will think this is a formative moment for their group. Now, perhaps, they'll think of this year as it might have been, as one of the greatest regular-season teams in their history of frustrating games.
[ad_2]
Source link