As the season closes, Lightning feel the sting of missing out of the playoffs

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
April 9, 2017

TAMPA, Fla. – The curtain came down for the final time on the 2016-17 Lightning season on Sunday.

There will be no curtain calls, no encore acts. The show ended four acts short of the final.

But the final game of the season offered one more chance to put on a show and offer a tease to what the next production might look like in the Fall while wondering what a rewritten script might have looked like this season.

Brayden Point capped off a sensational rookie season with two goals and an assist to help Tampa Bay close things out with a 4-2 victory against the Buffalo Sabres at Amalie Arena.

Victor Hedman wound up with a goal and two points to finish with a career high 72 points, second among defenseman, while leading all defenseman in assists with 56, third overall among all skaters.

But what could have been.

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Three points. That’s how many fewer points the Lightning finished with this season compared to last year. And last year, the 94 points Tampa Bay finished with this season would have qualified for the playoffs in both conferences.

And yet, despite finishing the season on a 20-6-4 since Feb. 2 until the end of the season, Tampa Bay fell one point short of reaching the playoffs and were eliminated from postseason contention on Saturday.

There is a bitter sting associated with that fact, yet a sense of accomplishment at the same time.

”It’s hard to digest right now because it’s been less than 24 hours since we’ve known that we weren’t going to play after (Sunday),’’ head coach Jon Cooper said. “All I can say is there was a time in early February where we were not relevant at all. This team found a way to make themselves relevant through game 81.’’

The packed house for the season finale on Sunday – and no, there were not many Buffalo fans in the house – showed how much the late run showed what this team was capable of accomplishing when on their game. An inconsistent opening four months of the season proved too much to overcome in the end, yet offers hope for the start of next season.

”Just to watch the crowd support at a five o’clock game on a Sunday afternoon on a beautiful day while The Masters is going on,’’ Cooper said. “The place is jam packed and nobody left and everybody stayed till the very end. There’s a love affair between the team and our fans. I was just proud to be standing there behind the bench. The players, they made the team relevant during the last two and a half months of the season, but, in saying that, come five months from now everybody’s 0-0-0. But, there’s a lot of fight in that group and you’ve got to say a lot of that group will be back here next year and it’s great to be a part of that.’’

But there is a genuine sting that will reside inside and burn for a full off-season before Tampa Bay gets back together again in September.

”Not getting enough in the first half of the season, we put ourselves in this position and we were behind for most of the year,’’ Hedman said. “This is a tough league to make the playoffs, especially when we put ourselves in a position like that so that has to be a lesson learned for us.

“You are going to see a hungry, motivated team going in to next year.’’

The Lightning have become a team used to resting players on the final day of the regular season and preparing for the playoffs, not going through the motions of a meaningless affair only to prepare the next day to pack things up and call it a year.

”It’s been a while since I’ve been in this spot,’’ defenseman Anton Stralman said. “I missed the playoffs my first four years and it’s definitely not something I want to do again. I hope everybody realizes that this is not what you want and everybody prepares for a run next year.’’

Pain can prove to be effective motivator. So even as positive as the Lightning season ended, all the experienced gained by the likes of Andrei Vasilevskiy – who knows he’s the No. 1 and played like it – or Adam Erne, Jake Dotchin and Point.

The feeling the Lightning will leave the building with following Monday’s exit meetings will linger and stick with the players throughout the summer, through every weight lifted, every lap around the track, bike ride through the mountains or pickle ball struck.

”Anytime you face adversity, and lots of guys in here got great experience playing up in the big league here and you saw some guys really excel, so I think those are great things,’’ said defenseman Braydon Coburn, who scored his second career shorthanded goal in the victory. “But also when you don’t do well, it’s always a motivator when you finish on the outside you want to get back in there and it makes you a little bit more hungry.’’

By the time training camp rolls around, the Lightning figure to be starving.’’

Postgame notes:. RW Gabriel Dumont was placed on waivers for the purpose of assigning him to Syracuse ahead of the AHL playoffs. The Crunch officially clinched a playoff spot on Sunday. … Before the game Tampa Bay reassigned LW Joel Vermin and RW Michael Bournival to Syracuse as RW J.T. Brown returned to the lineup after missing the previous two games. … D Victor Hedman recorded his 300th career point with an assist on Brayden Point’s second-period goal. … Hedman finished fourth overall in the league in assists behind only Connor McDavid, Nicklas Backstrom and Ryan Getzlaf.

My three stars:
1.Lightning C Brayden Point – Two goals, including the game winner, assist, plus-3

2.Sabres G Linus Ullmark – Stopped 34 shots, including stopping six shots from Jonathan Drouin

3.Lightning D Victor Hedman – Goal, assist, plus-1

Jon Cooper postgame reaction

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