Tampa Bay Lightning at the All-Star break; assessing recent moves and looking ahead

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
January 28, 2017

TAMPA, Fla. – All-Star weekend is hardly a time to relax. But it can be a time for reflection.

For three days, the focus of the league zeroes in on Los Angeles, with festivities getting underway on Friday during a gala celebration to announce the full list of the 100 Greatest Players from the first 100 years of the league.

The skills competition takes place Saturday while the actual 3-on-3 All-Star tournament takes place Sunday afternoon, with Tampa Bay Lightning players Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman participating.

So while the league is focused on the happenings taking place in Hollywood, there have been some happenings surround the Lightning in the past few days, including the trade of Nikita Nesterov to the Montreal Canadiens.

Now, with a couple of days off, let’s reflect on where the Lightning sit at the All-Star break, how they got here and what lies ahead, potentially in the form of moves to help set this team right.

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First, let’s examine the events that took place Thursday and Friday.

The trade of Nesterov was a bit sudden and a surprise as Nesterov took part in the team’s morning skate on Thursday and was off the ice early, suggesting he was scheduled to be in the lineup against the Panthers.

The return for Nesterov was not grand, but it brought some defensive help to Syracuse in the AHL and netted Tampa Bay a sixth-round draft pick. It’s not a grand return, but it was apparent in some ways that Nesterov was not in the team’s long-term plans on defense and Steve Yzerman hinted that the team considered putting Nesterov on waivers, but were fearful of losing him to another team. So they get some sort of a return for a player they potentially could have lost for nothing.

But is it any sort of a precursor to something bigger on the horizon?

Everything is kept close to the vest under Yzerman’s watch so very little information falls through the cracks. There are some signs, however, that the wheels are at least turning. Whether they actually open a door to something, only time will tell.

But it was curious that both Gabriel Dumont and Michael Bournival were placed on waivers on Friday and subsequently cleared the waiver wire on Saturday but will remain with the team and not be reassigned to Syracuse, similar to the move Tampa Bay did with Erik Condra the previous week.

While both were getting close to the 30-day/10-game threshold that would require waivers to head back to Syracuse, and this move could have been made simply to try and put them through this process now when the likelihood of them being claimed might be reduced.

But what it also does is offer the Lightning roster flexibility, meaning that if they need to open a roster spot in the event a move is made, both Dumont and Bournival can easily be reassigned to Syracuse.

So if Yzerman has a move on the near horizon, he has the ability to make it work without concern about finding room on the roster. Plus defenseman Jake Dotchin was sent back to Syracuse as well, though he did not play for the Crunch in Friday’s victory against Springfield.

Summing all that up, the Lightning potentially now have three open roster spots available at Yzerman’s disposal, should he need to utilize them.

Of course, the Lightning could certainly use some help. In contrary to some thoughts from other members of the local media, Tampa Bay cannot afford to stand pat. The season is already on life support and if there is any hope of getting off life support and back up the standings, then Tampa Bay has to deliver a jolt in to the team.

With a 22-22-6 record, Tampa Bay is nothing more than a mediocre team mired in the bottom of the standings with little chance of climbing up and over enough teams to reach the playoffs this season.

A team built on defense, an aspect that led to the team’s success the past two seasons, has allowed the second most goals in the Eastern Conference (146) and sit 22nd overall in allowing 2.86 goals per game. Last season Tampa Bay finished the season ranked fifth in the league, allowing 2.48 goals per game.

That’s a big drop off and a big reason when the Lightning entered the break 12th in the Eastern Conference standings and 23rd overall in the league. That means, despite being just six points out of a playoff position, there are currently four teams to climb over to get to one of those spots. There are also four teams sitting just one point behind the Lightning in the standings, three of them holding games in hand.

Factor in that Tampa Bay has yet to have their “bye week’’, when they will go seven days between games, watching other teams play and accumulate points as they sit idle. That’s how difficult of a task the team is facing.

It’s not impossible, but awful daunting. And there has been very little at this point to suggest that the Lightning are capable of putting together a winning streak of five-or-more games. Tampa Bay has won consecutive games once since Thanksgiving.

The defense has improved – the Lightning have allowed two or fewer goals (not counting empty net goals) seven times in the past eight games – but the wins remain elusive with a 3-3-2 record in the past eight games. That’s because the offense has dried up, with Tampa Bay scoring more than two goals twice in the past eight games while being held to one goal four times.

So these are indeed dire times for Steve Yzerman and his staff to try to salvage what is left for the final 32 games of the season. The only way to save things, it would seem, is to find a way to inject some life in to the team.

That’s the only way to get off life support. And maybe – just maybe – that process has already been put in motion.

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