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This week, the Tampa Bay Lightning are rolling through Western Canada for the first time since they elected to cut ties with Steven Stamkos on July 1.
Parting ways with their longtime captain cut deep among their fans and across the hockey world. It was yet another tough but pragmatic decision made by Lightning GM Julien BriseBois to try to keep his team’s competitive window open for as long as possible.
Make no mistake: the Lightning still have some ultra-elite top-tier talent. Those players were showing their best stuff in a 4-2 road win over the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday. They could dish out more of the same when they land in Edmonton on Tuesday and Calgary on Thursday before finishing out their trip in Seattle.
The reigning Art Ross Trophy holder and last season’s Hart runner-up, Nikita Kucherov returned from a two-game absence due to an undisclosed issue with a three-point game against the Canucks.
Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet called it “The Kucherov Show.”
“He’s a special player,” said the Lightning’s Jon Cooper. “When you pull games out like this, he’s usually a big part of it.”
“He had another, kind of, Kuch night,” said Brayden Point, who was named the game’s first star after factoring in on all of Tampa’s scoring, with two goals and two assists.
It was the second-straight four-point night for the 28-year-old, who leads the Lightning with 18 goals in just 21 games played.
While there were shifts in momentum on Sunday, the Canucks and Lightning played each other pretty even at 5-on-5, and each scored twice.
The difference came on special teams. Vancouver went 0-for-3 on the power play, while Tampa Bay was 2-for-4.
The first power-play goal put the Lightning up 2-1 at 6:29 of the second, when some sublime passing concluded with a pinpoint cross-ice dish from Kucherov to Point.
Jake Guentzel picked up his first game-winner with the Lightning — and his 25th point in 25 games — when the puck bounced off his torso and past a helpless Kevin Lankinen with 3:56 left to play in the third period. That broke a 2-2 deadlock while the Canucks were killing a penalty for too many men on the ice, taken during a bad change when Tampa Bay had been pressuring hard in the offensive zone.
The Lightning overcame some challenges to take the two points out of Rogers Arena on Sunday.
First, they were fresh off a long cross-continent flight on Saturday, with a 1 p.m. local puck drop in Vancouver on Sunday — which may have led to some heavy legs in the first period.
“We lost every battle and I think we were lucky to be down just 1-0,” said Cooper. “It’s tough. We flew in here. We get in last night, get a little skate, and then we’ve got to play an afternoon game. So I’ll give them a mulligan on that first period.”
Tampa Bay was also without two important players for a significant part of the game. Anthony Cirelli, who started out centering Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul, left the game with about six minutes left in the first period after taking a hard hit from Juulsen.
Also, defenseman Erik Cernak played just one shift in the third period before leaving the game in obvious pain after taking a hit from a forechecking Aatu Raty.
Cooper didn’t have immediate updates on either player.
“It’s a tough night,” he said. “We’re on the road here for four, out west, and to lose some of these guys early on… we’ll know more tomorrow.
“I’m nervous about these,” he said. “It’s hard right after the game because we don’t really know.”
Cirelli’s absence meant that the Lightning’s top forwards played huge minutes. Brandon Hagel led the way with 23:39 despite sitting for four minutes in the first period while serving a double minor for high-sticking Quinn Hughes. Guentzel was close behind at 23:15, Kucherov played 22:43, and Point came in at 22:07.
All together, the Lightning had 7:16 of power-play time. Kucherov played every second, and the other three all cracked seven minutes.
And why not? Tampa’s power play is 8-for-18 over its last six games and has climbed to eighth in the NHL, with a success rate of 26.0 percent. That could spell trouble on Tuesday for an Oilers penalty kill that’s ranked 29th overall and for the Flames, who are 28th.
Averaging 3.92 goals scored per game, the Lightning rank second in the league, behind only the Washington Capitals. In addition to Kucherov, Point and Guentzel, Hagel is on his way to a career year at age 26 thanks to 31 points in 25 games, Victor Hedman is sitting at a point a game, and Cirelli had 24 points before his injury.
Edmonton and Calgary had better be prepared to bring their ‘A’ games this week. The Lightning continue to morph as time goes by, but their core is still among the best in the NHL and can make opponents pay.
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