What Can We Learn – Tampa Bay Lightning
5 years ago
The conference finals are almost set with the Tampa Bay Lightning meeting the Washington Capitals and the Vegas Golden Knights taking on the Winnipeg Jets or the Nashville Predators.
Generally, we look back at the Stanley Cup winner and dissect how they got there and how they won the ultimate prize. To some degree, it can be a fool’s errands due to the luck needed to hoist the cup. The matchups, injuries, puck bounces and one overtime winner can change the course of who advances in each round. So, if you look at one team and say ‘let’s follow that’, you may be chasing something that isn’t entirely true.
With that, it’s worth exploring how the four teams that got to the Conference Finals built their teams and what sort of philosophies are practiced. It’s clear there will be a few trends, like draft prowess, but it’ll still create discussion on how to improve another teams path.
None of these are a “you should do this exactly” idea – but merely a way to see what aspects of these organizations can be used to reflect on and work towards making better decisions.
Note: Yes, this is CanucksArmy and thus there will be some projections onto the local team but the intention is not to criticize the Canucks.
Let’s start with the first team to get there, the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Drafting Best Player Available
Might as well start with the obvious one.
The statement of drafting the best player available is an overused cliche that gets thrown around like it’s some sort of simple solution. Teams will determine that a player is, in fact, the best player available at that spot and then that player has hiccups in his development and then falls off the map. Also, there is pressure to ensure that you are building your prospect pool with a team building view in mind. Can’t just take all forwards and then ignore the blueline.
There are also mitigating factors like drafting players who might be more NHL ready, or focusing on a specific skill (like hockey IQ), that may indirectly affect taking a player that is not the ‘best player available’.
With Tampa Bay in mind, they do follow this mantra a little closer than some other organizations.
Saima with Raw Charge transcribed an interview with Director of Amateur Scouting, Al Murray. The first answer stuck out:
Al Murray: You know, I tell everybody this every year and I keep my draft lists. One day I’ll put them on eBay or whatever so everybody can believe me. We go by our list. The best player that we feel is going to be the best NHL player is the guy we take. We’re not worried about positioning. We just continue to try to get the best prospects.
Their track record reinforces this thought process. They haven’t been shy in drafting Russian players, despite the remainder of the NHL showing apprehension. Their late round picks are skilled players that have fallen down the perceived draft boards. Not every one of those players works out to be NHL players, like Comets forward Cam Darcy, but they have been able to extract Cedric Paquette, Ondrej Palat, Nikita Nesterov, Anthony Cirelli, Jake Dotchin, and Brayden Point from the mid-third and later. Each of those players had different circumstances but have been NHL players.
Their draft record is not flawless at all but the ability to add that talent from those parts of the draft are a large reason why they are where they are. It also helps them keep this window open longer.
An overriding theme to their forward prospects in speed and skill and it shows in their play style and down in Syracuse.
Size Doesn’t Matter
A couple of weeks ago, I did a quick article just comparing the height and weight of all the playoff teams from this season. The final conclusion was that size does matter but you shouldn’t go out of your way to target it. With the final four almost set, we will have two of the largest teams left (Washington and Nashville/Winnipeg) and then two of the smaller teams (Tampa Bay and Vegas) left. Luck played into who ended up here but it reinforces that it’s more about how you play.
The Lightning are the shortest and lightest team to have qualified for the playoffs but you wouldn’t know that by watching them play. They hound the puck, the finish their checks, and they aren’t afraid to go to the dirty areas.
They overcome those size differences by the style of play that they have. Maybe that in part has to do with their later round picks and free agents signings (like Tyler Johnson and Yanni Gourde) wanting to prove people wrong, or their pre-existing skill sets but there is little doubt that it is a mantra from the coaching staff.
They haven’t been perfect in regards to finding players with this in mind, as they did let someone like Jonathan Marchessault go, but the idea that you can overcome size with speed, skill, and play style seems to be working out well for them.
Stars Matter
Another team that qualified for the final four doesn’t have the same star power as the other teams but there is little doubt that the Lightning has some serious star talent that can shift the series. Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos struggled to score in the early parts of the Bruins series but are still 1st and 3rd in team scoring. Victor Hedman has been a minute muncher on the backend and Andrei Vasilevski has been good throughout.
NHL is a Superstar LeagueWe have learned that despite all the discussion about how much parity there is in the NHL, the vast majority of teams who compete for the Stanley Cup do so with the help of two or more star (>15 GAR in single season) or superstar (>20 GAR in single season) players. Today’s NHL is about the stars, as it always has been.
It’s important to have those pillars to build around and the Lightning has that in those four. Two (Hedman and Stamkos) were acquired at the top of the draft, Kucherov was taken in the third round, and Vasilevski was earliest goalie taken (19th) since 2010.
Also noted in that post by Cam Lawrence in that series, stars are hard to come by and can either be extracted with high draft selections in the first round:
You’ve Got to Be Bad to Be GoodThis is by far the most controversial recommendation. From fans to many management teams, there is a palpable distaste for teams that build teams designed to lose. There is likely truth the importance of building a winning culture and having guys who are strong leaders in the room, especially in times where the team is facing significant adversity. However, it’s hard to avoid the reality that in today’s NHL reality, elite players are more often found in the top 5 picks in any draft than anywhere else, and it’s not even close.
You can find those stars later, like Kucherov, but that is not something to always bank on. The best way to acquire these players is at the top of the draft. It’s important to remember that only one team wins the Stanley Cup, so it’s easy to point to the 1st overall pick and then say only X number of players have won the cup. But the NHL is a superstar league and the most of the stars come from the early part of the draft.
Obviously, if your stars get shut down, you need the depth to help overcome that until those pillars can break out. But without a doubt, elite talent matters and the Lightning have that in their most important positions – #1 defenceman, #1 centre, #1 winger and goalie.
Recognizing Current Team Outlook
There are two angles to this one.
The first is the obvious one – management realized that they were close to a Stanley Cup this year and pushed all in to acquire two players, J.T. Miller and Ryan McDonagh, that can help them chase that last win of the season. It’s also important to note that both players will be around for at least two years with the organization, so the price paid is easier to digest and won’t matter if the Lightning can, in fact, win the Cup.
This is important to note as your window can be fleeting and sometimes you have to push all in to fill lineup holes and provide the depth needed to make that run. It doesn’t always work out but it does have to be done to some degree.
The other side of this idea might’ve been the more important one.
The 2016-17 iteration of the Tampa Bay Lightning couldn’t get a break from injuries and were trending towards missing the postseason after making the Eastern Conference Finals the year before. Given this and the upcoming expansion draft, their management group realized this was an opportunity to do the following things at the trading deadline:
- Move pending free agents for assets
- Get ahead of the market on the expansion draft and start to minimize the impact on them
- Give younger players a chance down the stretch
They moved out Brian Boyle, Ben Bishop, and Valtteri Filppula out to allow some of that to happen. They received Erik Cernak, some picks, and then were able to get out from under Filppula and his NMC that would’ve forced them to protect him in the expansion draft.
By understanding that they likely weren’t going to make the playoffs and if they did, they wouldn’t gone far – they were able to solve those issues accumulate some assets and take some necessary steps to fixing a future problem. GM Steve Yzerman was praised by hockey pundits for being so smart, and it’s true, as it was some smart movement to get ahead. It’s also just recognizing to seize where you are and then make moves to put yourself in the best situation going forward.
That season is the obvious example but another thing that stands out is that the Lightning had 10 selections in 2016 and 9 in 2015. Think about that for a second. A team with the star talent that they have, went to the conference finals in 2016 and still had that many picks. They moved players that no longer fit in their plan and didn’t let them reach zero value. It allowed them to then be aggressive at this deadline and add when the window as back open.
Lastly, it allowed players like Yanni Gourde to get some games in to close out the season.
The ability to realized where exactly you are and making the right moves is a very good skill to have as a management group. If you are not good at it, you end up like the Ottawa Senators.
Conclusion
Tampa Bay is good and should be good for another couple of years.
They’ve done a great job at identifying talent on the draft floor, developing them, and then inserting them into their own lineup. This includes undrafted free agents that have added to their prospect pool.
Their star talent is really good and is a huge reason why they are where they are. The ability to recognize their current outlook, where the end goal is and trusting the process is a common theme. They aren’t perfect in every aspect but they seem to do things well enough in those areas that their misses (Marchessault) are covered up by their hits (Gourde) rather quickly.
They still have to win the next eight games to secure that Stanley Cup but at the very least, they are a treat to watch almost every night.
Tomorrow, we turn our attention to the most unlikely team to make the final four this season, the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.
