After losing their way on the road, Tampa Bay Lightning found themselves, at home

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
December 4, 2017

TAMPA – For the better part of a week, the Tampa Bay Lightning looked like nomads wandering around the Northeast unable to find themselves.

Nothing like finding the path back home to rediscover who you are.

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As the Tampa Bay Lightning went about dismantling the San Jose Sharks on Saturday, the type of game played by Tampa Bay looked very familiar.

The Lightning played with speed, they delivered passes, they executed plays and they shot pucks. And more importantly, they didn’t turn pucks over.

They looked more like the team that skyrocketed to the top of the league standings by winning games in dominant fashion, particularly during a three-game sweep of California in November.

”We were talking about after that tough road trip about how we needed to get back to the way we played at the beginning of the season and I think we needed that,’’ left wing Ondrej Palat said. “We talked we can’t play the games to win 6-5 or 4-3, we have to play like it’s 2-1 or 1-1 defensively and from that we create the offense.’’

Tampa Bay did just that, putting a season-high tying 43 shots on net with a total of 71 shot attempts. The forecheck was a point of emphasis, getting pucks in deep when the opportunities called for it and not forcing plays, which generally result in turnovers that fuel the opposition counter attack.

That will be an area to keep an eye on in Tuesday’s game against the New York Islanders, who were aggressive on the forecheck the last time the two teams met on Nov. 18 and forced the Lightning in to turning over the puck.

That was sort of the first game that knocked the Lightning out of their familiar style and, for the most part, sent them off track for the better part of two weeks. That includes dropping three-of-four games on the road last week.

With some line combinations juggled around, it sort of snapped the team back in to the right kind of focus, something that was missing in recent struggles.

”You could see in the last couple of games we were not on the same page, we were not working as unit, five guys together,’’ Palat said. “When you do that, if feels like for the other team like there is seven guys, like (San Jose) was talking about how we played the game in their building.’’

Saturday’s game wasn’t quite like that. The Lightning were not buzzing the entire game like they did in San Jose. But they did utilize their team speed, got back to being tenacious on the puck and were on the attack instead of being in retreat mode.

”We played much better (Saturday) that we did at any time on the road,’’ head coach Jon Cooper said. “We did have spurts but we got away from what we are good at. If you look at those games on the road, with the exception of maybe the Buffalo game, we constantly turned the puck over. We were always chasing the puck. (Saturday) we were putting pucks behind their D, we were going after it and when we didn’t get it we didn’t get frustrated, we just did it again and did it again and eventually we felt the way we were playing it was just a matter of time for us. We didn’t fuel the other team’s offense by turning the puck over.’’

Back to more of the team identity around the ice.

”We shot pucks, we were in front of the net, we were tracking, reloading and we did some really good things,’’ Cooper said. “I think it was good to be home, you feed off the energy of the crowd, it’s familiar territory. I just really liked our effort.’’

Some of that may have come out of changing the lines around for what amounted to the first time this season, particularly in the top two lines, which had been constant for the first 23 games of the season. But with a bit too much staleness starting to set in, Cooper changed things around in the second period of Wednesday’s game at Boston, moving Tyler Johnson up to play with Steven Stamkos and Vladislav Namestnikov, switching Nikita Kucherov to play with Brayden Point and Palat while Yanni Gourde moved from second-line wing to third-line center.

”We went 20-plus games and barely changed a thing and as a coach you trying to just put the guys in the best position to succeed,’’ Cooper said. “Guys were starting to earn more ice. We went on a four-game road trip and scored four even strength goals and two of them were by defensemen, so we needed to do something. In the end, we have been together long enough where guys have played with each other, so we had to change things up and tonight it worked out.’’

With Cedric Paquette expected back from his one-game suspension, the lines are expected to be altered once again against New York on Tuesday as Paquette figures to slot in at fourth-line center between Ryan Callahan and Chris Kunitz in place of J.T. Brown. Cory Conacher, who has two goals in two games played with Tampa Bay this season, remains with the team and is expected to remain on a line with Alex Killorn and Gourde.

But no matter who is in the lineup, the team identity should remain the same. And if it continues to look like it did on Saturday against San Jose, the Lightning will look familiar to many, especially themselves.

”When we are playing well we creating a lot of shots and shots create more shots and more shots create scoring chances,’’ Killorn said. “As simple as it sounds, it’s a mindset. When you are playing with a shot-first mentality and you are not thinking about passing it, it just helps you entire game. It felt (on Saturday) like there were moments where we were all over them. You want to feel like there is almost seven guys on the ice.’’

Note: D Jake Dotchin returned to practice for the first time since being injured in that game against the Islanders on Nov. 18. Dotchin was wearing a red no-contact jersey, but Cooper said Dotchin remains on track for a possible return by the end of the week. … D Braydon Coburn missed practice and is expected to miss his second consecutive game with an undisclosed lower-body injury suffered during a knee-on-knee collision with Boston’s David Backes on Wednesday.
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