Why are the Tampa Bay Lightning so Good? Part 5

The final part now. Tampa has just now gotten into the playoffs to play their cross-state rival. We all know what happens, but do we know how they got there? That’s the question we all need to be asking ourselves.

Faceoff between the Panthers and Lightning. Source: litterboxcats.com (Photo by Eliot J. Schechter/NHLI via Getty Images)

Welcome to the 2021 NHL playoffs, where the playoff bracket is much different than past seasons. This year you only play teams from your division in the first 2 rounds, kinda like the past. But, in the semifinals, the teams were reseeded. So you have a probability of it being an Eastern Conference vs Eastern Conference final. Tampa would enter the playoffs as the third seed in the Central Division. Being the third seed, they would play the second team in their division. Which happened to be their cross-state rival, the Florida Panthers. The Panthers entered the series leading the season series with a 5-2-1 record against the Lightning. But this would be the very first postseason matchup between the two teams, so it could be interesting. And oh boy it did.

Besides being the lower seed in the matchup, the Lightning came in with the second-best odds to win the cup. Tampa would open up the series strong with a 5-4 win. One thing that helped them win this game was their special teams. Tampa would go ¾ on the power-play with 1 shorthanded goal. Tampa would only give up 1 power-play goal to the Panthers as well. Both Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point would have multi-goal games. 2 of the many points the two of them would get in these playoffs. Tampa would go and win Game 2 as well by a score of 3-1. This would only be one of the 2 games in this series that neither Point nor Kucherov would score a goal. This game, the Panthers decided to put in Chris Driedger as the goalie for the game instead of Sergei Bobrovsky. Tampa decided to give him a nice warm welcome for his first-ever game in the NHL playoffs. Tampa would score 2 goals in the first period and would not look back. In Game 3, Driedger was back in net. Tampa would allow 2 goals in the first period. But they would score 5 goals of their own in the second. Putting Driedger out of the game after allowing 5 goals on 22 shots. But, those would be the only goals that Tampa would score in that game. Florida would put Bobrovsky in to replace Driedger and he would save every shot the Lightning put on him. Tampa would go on to lose that game 5-6 in overtime. The Panthers would continue to have goalie troubles once the Bolts put up 5 goals on 14 shots in Game 4, once again putting Driedger in the game. Tampa would also put one past him en route to a 6-2 win. With Tampa, only one game away from the second round, Florida decided to put in rookie goalie Spencer Knight. Knight would go on to save the last 36 shots after giving up a goal 53 seconds in and on the first shot of the game by the Lightning. Tampa would lose that game 1-4. Game 6 was back in Tampa and the Lightning made sure they won that game. Andrei Vasilevskiy would shut out the Panthers and Spencer Knight, 4-0. In those 6 games, Vasilevskiy would have a 2.83 GAA with a .925 Save percentage, so some room for improvement. But luckily, he would have the chance against the Carolina Hurricanes.

So welcome to the finals of the Central Division between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Carolina Hurricanes. The Hurricanes entered the series as the highest seed in the Central, and the Lightning entered as the third seed. The Lightning would have the second-worst record against the Hurricanes in the regular season with a 4-3-1 record. And the Hurricanes were the only team besides the Panthers to score more goals than the Lightning in the regular-season series. Tampa opened up the series in PNC Arena with two 2-1 wins. All 4 goals would be scored by 4 different people on the Lightning roster. All of the goals were scored by forwards, by the way. And they were both scored in the same time frame, one in the second, one in the third. When going back to Amalie Arena, the Hurricanes would storm back (haha, get it?) with a 3-2 win in overtime. After putting in Alex Nedeljkovic for the first two games, Carolina decided to put Petr Mrazek in for Game 3. Mrazek would go on to get his 12 career NHL playoff win with Jordan Staal scoring the game-winner. Tampa would score their only 2 goals on the power-play. In Game 4, Tampa would strike back. Scoring 6 goals, including 3 power-play goals, Tampa would win 6-4. Both teams would score 4 goals in the second period, combining for 8 total goals. Good enough for tied for 3rd in the NHL record books. Back in PNC Arena for Game 5, Tampa would make sure that they would move on. Brayden Point would score the game-winning goal on the power play, 4:06 into the second period. Andrei Vasilevskiy would also make sure that they would win, giving the Bolts a 2-0 shutout win. Vasilevskiy would have 151 shots put on him while saving 142 of them. Giving him a .940 Save percentage and a 1.80 GAA.

Heading into the Stanley Cup semifinals, the Tampa Bay Lightning would play the winner of the East Division, the New York Islanders. This would be the rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference Final. For the first time in this year’s playoffs, the Tampa Bay Lightning would be losing in a series thanks to a Game 1 loss by the score of 1-2. Tampa tried to have a late surge with a goal by Point with less than a minute to go, but it wasn’t enough. However, in Game 2, the Lightning would bounce back with a 4-2 win at home. All 4 of their goals would be scored by different people and those goals would cause Islanders starter Semyon Varlamov to be replaced by rookie Ilya Sorokin. Back on Long Island, Tampa would again get a win. Brayden Point would score the game-winning goal with 20 seconds left in the second period to guarantee a 2-1 win. In Game 4, Tampa would allow 3 straight goals in the second period and couldn’t come back. They tried to make a late-game push in the third but it was too late and lost 2-3. In Game 5, it seemed the Lightning were mad about something because they took it to the Islanders. Tampa would go on to score 8 goals with 6 different players in an 8-0 win. Tampa would once again force Varlamov off the ice after the first 3 goals on 16 shots. Both Steven Stamkos and Alex Killorn would have the only multi-goal game that game. In Game 6, the Islanders were mad. After being down 2-1, the Islanders would tie it up in the third period and would win it off of an amazing shot by Anthony Beauvillier a little over 1 minute into overtime. In Game 7, Tampa would make sure that they went to their second straight final as Andrei Vasilevskiy would once again get another shutout in the 1-0 win. Yanni Gourde would score the shorthanded game-winner early in the second period to send the Lightning to the Finals. Vasilevskiy allowed 11 goals on 182 shots that resulted in a .940 Save Percentage and a 1.57 GAA.

The only team standing in front of the Tampa Bay Lightning and back-to-back Stanley Cups was the underdog by the name of the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs defied all odds and made it into the Stanley Cup Final while being the lowest seed in the North. Little did they know what they were going into. The Lightning would welcome the Habs to their first Stanley Cup Final since 1993 with a 5-1 win. Nikita Kucherov would have yet another multi-goal game with 2 goals. Tampa would have yet another outstanding performance 2 days later with a 3-1 win. Watching that game, I believe the Habs deserved that win, but Vasilevskiy played an outstanding game, saving 42 shots. In Game 3, Tampa would go on to win 6-3, one win away from back-to-back Stanley Cups. The only one to have more than one goal that game was defenseman Tyler Johnson who had 2 back-to-back goals. Now one win away, all Tampa had to do was to win Game 4, but then puck luck hit them. I remember watching that game, Tampa hit like 10 posts that game. Including one by Nikita Kucherov that almost won the game late in the third. But that didn’t happen, so the game was sent into overtime tied at 2. A little over 4 minutes into overtime, Josh Anderson would put the game away, and let the Habs live to fight another day. Back in Tampa with a full stadium, the Lightning was determined to win. And win they did. A goal by Ross Colton 13 minutes and 27 seconds into the second was the game-winner. Vasilevskiy would have yet another shutout in the 1-0 victory and put the Lightning into the history books. Vasilevskiy would have 140 shots face him in the Finals, and he would save 133 of those. Giving him a .950 Save percentage and a 1.40 GAA, his best in these playoffs.

As I said in part 1, I believe, Tampa had 5 players instead of 2 as the leaders for points, with Nikita Kucherov leading the way by 9 points. Andrei Vasilevskiy had a total of 1.90 GAA and a .937 Save percentage with 5 shutouts, 4 of which were in series-clinching scenarios. Tampa scored first 18 times in the 23 games they played in the 2021 Playoffs, giving them a 16-2 record when they did that. Meaning that every time they won, they scored first, and every time they didn’t, they lost. Tampa was also 0-4 in overtime. So your best options for beating the 2021 Tampa Bay Lightning in the playoffs would be to score first and/or send them to overtime. Tampa was also 14-0 in games after losing the previous one in the past 2 playoffs (including the Round Robin loss to the Flyers). Vasilevskiy also shutout the other team in the last 5 series-clinching games. So I think the reason this team was so good was their goaltending, and also just their overall team. The entire overall team made this back-to-back possible. And this team is truly a dynasty.

Stats from: hockey-reference.com, wikipedia.org