Our Penguins Can Learn From the Lightning

With so many good teams vying for the Stanley Cup, I’ve been following the playoffs with quite a bit of interest. I’ve been particularly impressed with Colorado and Edmonton, two highly skilled teams that play with speed ‘n’ skill. And who knows? One of them may capture Lord Stanley’s coveted chalice.

There’s another team that’s grabbed my attention.

Tampa Bay.

At first blush, the Lightning looked old and slow. Reinforcing an impression I formed during the regular season when we clobbered them by scores of 6-2 and 5-1 and basically skated circles around them.

During the Bolts’ first-round match-up with Toronto? I thought, frankly, the high-powered Maple Leafs were the better team. Certainly the faster and flashier.

When the Lightning rallied from the brink to win Games 6 and 7? A case of an old lion roaring one last time.

Then the back-to-back Cup winners swept the powerhouse Florida Panthers. The Presidents’ Trophy winning Panthers. The Panthers who made kitty litter out of the rest of the league this season.

Not only did the Lightning prevail, they prevailed with ease, yielding only three goals to a team literally bursting at the seams with firepower. Thirty-goal scorers Aleksander Barkov, Anthony DuClair, Jonathan Huberdeau and Sam Reinhart to name but a few.

In the process Tampa Bay taught their callow foe a thing or two about playoff hockey. They clogged the shooting lanes. They blocked shots…77 of ‘em during the course of a four-game set. They got great goaltending from Andrei Vaslievskiy. They played gritty, grinding, opportunistic hockey.

Flashback to the 2018-19 season. The Lightning were basically this season’s Panthers. They tore through the NHL, tying the league record for 62 wins while piling up 325 goals. They played fast and loose. Catch us if you can. And they got swept in the first round by the less talented but infinitely heavier Blue Jackets.

Following that fateful series, Lightning coach Jon Cooper gathered his core players for a heart-to-heart. “We played the game your way,” he told them. “Now we’re going to play it my way.”

General Manager Julien BrisBois agreed. Out went skill players like J.T. Miller and Anton Stralman. In came heavier, character guys like Zach Bogosian, Pat Maroon and Corey Perry.

Having snagged two straight Cups and very much in the mix for a third, it’s safe to say the Lightning have learned the secrets of playoff success.

Florida coach Andrew Brunette took note.

“They’re Stanley Cup champions for a reason,” he said. “The evolution of how they were a high-flying kind of offensive team and they found a recipe of how to win and they stuck with it.”

News flash to Pens coach Mike Sullivan. It ain’t necessarily your speed-first concept of “playing the right way.” In some ways, quite the opposite. It’s about building a team that can muck and grind and compete in the dirty areas. A mix our Pens had in 2017 when we won a Cup with guys like Ian Cole, Ron Hainsey, Patric Hornqvist and Chris Kunitz. A mix we’ve gotten away from.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. The black and gold led the postseason in Corsi in 2019 and again in 2021. We were statistically dominant again this spring against the Rangers. Yet we can’t get out of the first round.

The Bruins, who are built very much like our Pens and employ a similar forechecking style under Bruce Cassidy, have exited early in five of the last six postseasons.

Clearly, some adjustments are in order.

Tribune Review columnist Mark Madden touched on what Sullivan needs to do. In a recent article, Madden noted our coach employed a conservative, trapping style in Game 3 to protect a 5-4 lead, a tactic that worked to great effect. Yet one Sully mysteriously failed to use when we held leads in subsequent games.

A rather damning oversight considering how vulnerable we were in net. But Sullivan wants to win with speed and ceaseless pressure, much as we did back in ’16.

There’s nothing wrong with being fast. In fact, it’s a good thing. And in fairness to Sully and his staff, we do so many things well, as the metrics will attest. Playing with and protecting leads isn’t one of them. We need more balance and structure, both personnel-wise and in our approach.

With so many key players up for free agency, Pens GM Ron Hextall has an opportunity to significantly reshape our lineup. Adding some much-needed functional size and physicality would be a good thing. The better to embrace a playoff-style game.

Tampa Bay employs a huge defense, with each member tipping the scales at over 200 pounds. In many ways a throwback to an earlier time and bucking current trends. Not to mention a fourth line of 30-somethings Maroon, Perry and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. You could probably time them with a sun dial. Yet they’re a highly effective group.

The Lightning are demonstrating you don’t need to be the youngest or fastest or even the most skilled to win Cups. You just need to have the right blend of players and the right system.

Can Hextall and Sullivan take a page from Tampa Bay’s book and make the necessary adjustments?