Flortheast Division Previews: The Tampa Bay Lightning

A lot of people look at the Tampa Bay Lightning this year, and they see only more of the same. This team didn’t making any significant offseason personnel moves aside from buying out their captain Vincent Lecavalier and ostensibly replacing him with former Detroit Red Wing forward Valtteri Filppula, and we’re talking about a team that has finished near the bottom of the league the past two seasons in the standings, in most major possession metrics, and in most defensive measures as well. With Tampa Bay moving to the “Flortheast” division, they now face more playoff-bound juggernauts in their own division and have considerably more travel to meet their nearest division opponent outside the Florida Panthers — now the Detroit Red Wings, a scant 995 miles away.

So, at first glance, the outlook is quite grim.

What’s being overlooked, however, are the changes this franchise did make. While they aren’t the traditional “blow it up” moves you might expect from a team that has performed so poorly recently, there have been significant behind-the-scenes changes that suggest the Lightning might be better in 2013-2014 than they’ve been in the recent past. The most important of these changes is the complete overhaul of the coaching staff. Jon Cooper, the new head coach, got a mini-audition at the end of last season but he’s now had a full offseason to implement his systems and evaluate and pick his players. Rick Bowness was brought in from the Vancouver Canucks to fix the defense, and George Gwozdecky was hired after being let go by the University of Denver to handle the forwards and the power play (one area that doesn’t need too much tweaking). Cooper wants to play a mix of “70s Flyers and 80s Oilers” hockey, so expect the Bolts to play more physically than they did under Boucher but also a bit more of a simplified puck possession game. Boucher required that players submit to a tedious process with specific instructions for specific situations, and he implemented complicated breakout patterns that, if not executed properly, resulted in crippling turnovers. Cooper and Bowness have instituted a renewed focus on defense, own-zone play, and zone exits. If their tactical changes work, the Lightning should improve in the areas they’ve struggled most — puck possession, and, as a result, goals against.

The Lightning, even in the past few seasons, have had no issues with turning puck possession into scoring chances and goals. They have truly elite scorers and playmakers, so the goal is to prevent more goals against and find a way to retrieve (and hold on to) more pucks and avoid costly mistakes near their own blueline. There are still a lot of questions — how will the young goaltending tandem shake out? Which rookies will make the opening night lineup, and how will that play out? Can Radko Gudas be a top-4 defenseman? Will Eric Brewer and Matt Carle have bounce-back years? But ultimately, whether or not the system changes have a major effect will decide where this team finishes.

Prior to the coaching overhaul this offseason, the defensive system under Guy Boucher was a highly structured, difficult to execute process. It goes a lot deeper than just the 1-3-1 forecheck; after teams had entered the zone, Boucher had specific requirements and instructions for how each defenceman and forward should react to where the puck and opposing players are, and where they’re going. I’ll stop short of saying he shackled the defensemen with structure, but that seems to be what happened. Oftentimes, you’d see Victor Hedman or Eric Brewer simply frozen in the defensive zone, staring at the puck, unsure of what to do. Where am I supposed to go? What’s my outlet if I get the puck here? When the game is as fast as it is in the NHL, this was crippling. A specific example is Boucher’s insistence that two defenceman chase pucks to the corner, leaving collapsing forwards to cover the slot, which when not executed properly gave away terrific scoring chances against. Boucher was also notoriously a coach that preferred his players to defend with positioning and stick play, not with their bodies, which didn’t sit well with many fans.

Rick Bowness, who ran the defence for the Vancouver Canucks most recently, wants to take some of the pressure and stress off the defenceman, and let them play own-zone defence in a more traditional and instinctual way. He and Jon Cooper have focused in on defending as a 5-man unit this offseason, so part of the plan for fixing the horrific goals against is to get the forwards back into the defensive zone quicker and to have them committed to playing defence. Valterri Filppula gave this quote: “Play defence quicker, and play offence more.” The idea is, defence isn’t fun to play. But play it right, play it hard, and you won’t have to play it much. Cooper and Bowness will also let their guys throw their bodies around, so expect to see some more physicality from Brewer, Keith Aulie, and Radko Gudas in particular.

As far as fantasy sleepers go, most of the major publications have it right — Drouin absolutely has the highest ceiling, because of his own abilities and because of the situation he could end up in.  That said, where most people have it wrong is that everyone thinks Drouin is a “sure thing” to stick in the NHL. This simply isn’t the case. The organization is loaded (I mean seriously, LOADED) with terrific forward prospects who have played for Jon Cooper in the AHL, have won a championship with him, know his system and his methods and his expectations. They’ve paid their dues and they’re creating some difficult decisions for Cooper and GM Steve Yzerman. An under-the-radar guy for fantasy would be AHL MVP Tyler Johnson. He has a really good wrist shot, great on-ice vision, and built-in chemistry with his expected two wingers (Ondrej Palat and Richard Panik, also expected to stay in the NHL). They were the top line for the Syracuse Crunch last season and they’ve played together for over a year. They could end up as the “third line” for the Lightning this year, but with Nate Thompson and Val Filppula getting the toughs, they could see some really easy minutes and they’ve got the ability to score in bunches. Johnson in particular offers some extra value in custom leagues because he’s also very good at faceoffs (59.5% won with 121 draws taken in the NHL last year).

Ben Bishop and Anders Lindback are still largely unknown as NHL starters. Their NHL games played (Bishop 55, Lindback 62) is simply not enough data to draw meaningful conclusions about either one of them. Lindback struggled with too much work early last season and ended up getting hurt, and Bishop saw a ton of rubber in his nine game stint with the Lightning at the end of last year, so expect Cooper to go 1A/1B with them this year unless one absolutely runs away with the job (which I don’t see happening). As far as “will Ben Bishop pay off” … well, he’s only being paid $2.2-million this year, so league average save percentage would be more than enough to justify the contract. League average save percentage would also be the best save percentage by a Lightning goaltender since Dwayne Roloson’s one-year wonder. Yzerman gets a lot of criticism for doing “goaltending on the cheap” without a steadying presence like Lidstrom on the backend, but did he really have another option? He wasn’t going to take on Roberto Luongo’s contract, and a Ryan Miller trade would have cost too many assets. Who was he going to go get? Instead, he’s gone for cheap, “on the verge” netminders, spread his chips around, and hopes someone breaks out. Bishop and Lindback should theoretically push each other for playing time and make each other better. But even if both fail, I don’t see another move coming, because the answer in net is 2012 1st round pick Andrei Vasilevski, who’s already AHL-ready and could make just a minor pit stop there before jumping to the NHL to tandem with whichever one of Bishop or Lindback the team re-signs.