2020 ECF: Tampa Bay Lightning vs. New York Islanders | TBL leads 3-2 (Pt.2)

[Konk]

I agree with a lot of what you said, but the whole "they want it more" is a really silly thing everyone brings up way too often. Every player is a pro, and it's the freaking Cup. There's blood, sweat, injuries, like 50 times a game guys try to block shots with their bodies. If a team looks like they don't want it, it's because the other team is imposing their will. Washington looked like they didn't want to play because we smothered them during that series and crushed their will to live. They wanted it, we just broke them.

I think you're needlessly hyper-focusing on a single phrase and misunderstanding my overall message. You're falsely equating the phrase "they want it more" with "the other team didn't want it" and that wasn't what I said nor was it my intent.

I'm not at all saying the Islanders are not trying hard, quite the contrary. They are obviously putting in the effort, however, they are being outworked and outmatched for the full 60 on top of just plain old not being as good as Tampa. Tampa was far more focused and determined to score that goal in the last 20 seconds of game 2 and out-worked the Islanders for it. The Islanders were clearly over-matched and were probably just hoping to get into OT, but the Lightning weren't going to wait for the W and they took it. That's how the Lightning have approached the whole series starting from the puck drop in game 1 and combined with their overwhelming work ethic, pace, talent, and depth they are pretty much unstoppable right now. I think the players themselves know it.

None of that means the Islanders don't want it or are not trying.

 

[PRZ45MD]

Haven't seen ABB since camp, but he looked like he has a long way to go. And I'm not sure how much delevopment is left there. He's still an interesting "what if" prospect, but he's yet to prove he's gonna play in the NHL someday, let alone as an impact player.

Scarily enough, my opinion of Foote is only slightly more optimistic. The skating, at least at camp, still looked a long way off to me.

Agree on Foote. His lateral movement and foot speed needs serious work still.

 

[Merrrlin]

I gotta admit where I was wrong. I did some number crunching and the stats don't match with a point I was making.

My point of saying Boston put up a better fight isn't really true - in fact, 5v5 the Isles actually have a +50% SCF rate so far. Capitalizing on the PP has been a major contributor in this series.

Honestly, I thought it was a lot closer with Boston. The 5v5 xGF% was shocking to me. 60/40 in high danger chances too. Boston will definitely need to find some non-powerplay offence this season but I think they know that.

 

[wingnutks]

I gotta admit where I was wrong. I did some number crunching and the stats don't match with a point I was making.

My point of saying Boston put up a better fight isn't really true - in fact, 5v5 the Isles actually have a +50% SCF rate so far. Capitalizing on the PP has been a major contributor in this series.

View attachment 367434

Honestly, I thought it was a lot closer with Boston. The 5v5 xGF% was shocking to me. 60/40 in high danger chances too. Boston will definitely need to find some non-powerplay offence this season but I think they know that.

You made that chart yourself?

 

[KevFu]

There's actually a very simple reason no one respects the Islanders talent and thinks it's all Trotz.... and that reason is Doug Weight.

The perception of the Islanders was "good, young, exciting, up-and-coming team" 4-5 years ago when they finally won a playoff series. In the Doug Weight era, the Islanders UNDERACHIEVED SO BADLY that everyone's assessment of the Islanders' talent swung back to "these guys suck."

When JT left, EVERYONE picked the Islanders to finish in the bottom 3 teams of the league. One season preview said "predicting the NHL Standings from First to Islanders." So Trotz comes in and we go worst to first in GA the first year, and everyone is saying "It's Barry Trotz!"


But the 2016 team and 2020 team is pretty much the same thing! There's 13 guys from 2016 on this 2020 team. Half the differences are the healthy scratch/last two who get to play" guys (like Shane Prince vs Michael Dal Colle; or Mikahil Grabovski vs Leo Komarov). Here's the real differences:

2016: Tavares, Okposo, Strome, Nielson; Hamonic, deHaan, Hickey, Strait; Halak (44.0 point shares) 2015/16 teams averaged 100.5 points per season under Capuano
2020: Barzal, Eberle, Beauvillier, Pageau; Pelech, Pullock, Mayfield, Toews; Varly (44.2 point shares) 2019/20 teams averaged 100 points per season under Trotz (adjusted for 68 game pandemic year)

And in between, the 2017/2018 Islanders averaged 87 points under Weight.

The correct conclusion isn't that "the Islanders aren't really that good and only look good because of Trotz," it's that Doug Weight really sucked.

 

[Merrrlin]

You made that chart yourself?

Yep from NaturalStatTrick's series results data.

 

[DFC]

I gotta admit where I was wrong. I did some number crunching and the stats don't match with a point I was making.

My point of saying Boston put up a better fight isn't really true - in fact, 5v5 the Isles actually have a +50% SCF rate so far. Capitalizing on the PP has been a major contributor in this series.

View attachment 367434

Honestly, I thought it was a lot closer with Boston. The 5v5 xGF% was shocking to me. 60/40 in high danger chances too. Boston will definitely need to find some non-powerplay offence this season but I think they know that.

If I'm being really honest, Boston was our easiest Opponent. Even the close games didn't feel up for grabs. Wasn't like that vs CBJ, hasnt been like that with NYI.

No disrespect to Boston. I think they're the second best team in the east. But everything they're good at, TB is better at. CBJ and NYI are trying to beat us with structure, rather than skill, and that's what we traditionally struggle against.

 

[wingnutks]

Yep from NaturalStatTrick's series results data.

Very cool. Nice work! I myself am surprise how the numbers shows the Isles are doing. Ironically, it seems as though a major reason the Bolts are winning the series is PDO.... who would have thought, have a better shooting percentage(finishing), and better goaltending... and you win games.

 

[Merrrlin]

Very cool. Nice work! I myself am surprise how the numbers shows the Isles are doing. Ironically, it seems as though a major reason the Bolts are winning the series is PDO.... who would have thought, have a better shooting percentage(finishing), and better goaltending... and you win games.

Also, capitalizing on PP chances (which I guess involves 5v4PDO). I noticed Tampa has a lower expected goals, but is outscoring the Isles 4-1.

Vasi is the best goalie they've faced yet and cracking him will be paramount to staying alive.

 

[DFC]

Very cool. Nice work! I myself am surprise how the numbers shows the Isles are doing. Ironically, it seems as though a major reason the Bolts are winning the series is PDO.... who would have thought, have a better shooting percentage(finishing), and better goaltending... and you win games.

Yeah, I think it was best illustrated with the Kucherov goal in game 2. Having a guy who can finish that chance a high percentage of the time makes a big difference. And we have a few guys who might not be as money as Kucherov, but they're probably gonna bury that too (Sergachev mainly; Point is a righty).

 

[wingnutks]

Yeah, I think it was best illustrated with the Kucherov goal in game 2. Having a guy who can finish that chance a high percentage of the time makes a big difference.

Also, one of the reasons we beat Philly. Quite a few times we would score within minutes of the Flyers scoring. Even Barzal had a snipe in that series... drove to the net and everything! Only guy we have now is Martin/Nelson

 

[The Macho King]

I gotta admit where I was wrong. I did some number crunching and the stats don't match with a point I was making.

My point of saying Boston put up a better fight isn't really true - in fact, 5v5 the Isles actually have a +50% SCF rate so far. Capitalizing on the PP has been a major contributor in this series.

View attachment 367434

Honestly, I thought it was a lot closer with Boston. The 5v5 xGF% was shocking to me. 60/40 in high danger chances too. Boston will definitely need to find some non-powerplay offence this season but I think they know that.

One of the reason I hate the HD chance stat as it currently is, is that it only factors shot placement and not things like movement and screens. Hedman's goal in game one probably wasn't "high danger", but it also absolutely was because Greiss (I think?) just didn't see it.

One thing the Islanders haven't done that Boston did do when they scored was get passes to set up quick chances from royal road passes. I can't think of a single save Vasi had to make moving side to side. Tampa has taken away the slot for cross-ice passes, and that's where the scoring comes from.

On the other side, look at Tampa's goals from just last game? Both non-breakaway goals came from quick puck movement from side to side. Tampa is always very selective with their shots - sometimes to a maddening degree - but I don't think there's a better team at creating side to side movement which allows for extremely dangerous shots (even if they don't register as HD based on location).

 

[BoltsFanPinellasPark]

High Danger Save Percentage: TB - 88.89%, NYI 77.97%

Median for the entire playoffs, all teams, all strengths is about 79%. So our goalies have been 2% points off of average (because your guys are talented finishers) and Vasy is 10% points over average.

In all seriousness, how would you divide that 10% between NYI below average finishing skill and Vasy just being great?

I think no one is mentioning it because no one respects the Islanders. Because everyone thinks we're a scrappy bunch of guys who stand in front of the net so we can pull 1-0 upsets, your goalie doesn't have to do much to have good numbers. Which is really disrespectful to both NYI and Vasy.

Thanks for digging out the stats. I am typically more engaged in sports than I have been this year. I tried to find some stats like that for my response, but gave up tbh. So again, thanks for digging them up. I think the 12% disparity you found there is a really big deal. I suppose if we looked at the stats before this series started it was probably a bit tighter than that, but still some disparity.

I would say the biggest reason for the gap is all Vasy. It's not even so much that he doesn't have to work as hard cause the guys in front of him. I think it's more that the guys in front of him understand that they can skate a bit more freely and put themselves in better position. Or maybe another way to see it, the TBL can attack more and go after the puck more to clear the zone when the play isn't out in front. This is especially evident in the TBL PK. If it's something to do with NYI being below average in finishing skill, well that just makes it worse, no doubt. But even if NYI were above average, we'd still see the gap IMO. Cause I really don't see too many teams having a whole lot of finishing success against Vasy.

Check out Shots Against and Time On Ice. Vasy has stated that he gets better the more shots he faces. I am not sure if quality of shots matter. He is on the ice more than any goalie and faced the second most amount of shots (with 1 game less). I think he's just heads and shoulders above anything the Isles have faced (despite any finishing skill disparity). Varmalov is right up there with Time on Ice, but has faced far fewer shots (almost 2 games worth despite playing in one extra game). So it kind of cancels out the whole idea of not having to do too much to have good numbers no? We talk to death the imbalance in skill when it comes to the forwards or whatever, but to me the extremely underrated and under discussed part of this series is the imbalance in the net.

Who knows what to attribute that to the most, but I really think it's worth discussing how much of an impact Vasy has on the TBL to play their style of hockey. Put simply, Vasy allows the TBL D to play with a little bit more offensive mindedness in pushing back the forecheck and exiting the defensive zone. That's what I see anyways.

 

[KuchieKooRov]

Well I was wrong about the first three, Paquette, Goodrow and Coleman, but to say only a couple of those names matter beyond that is absurd. It is still almost half of your nightly starting lineup in the conference finals, how could they not matter?

How is it absurd? You don't think we know our team better than you? Come on man! You already screwed up the free agent list for crying out loud. The only names that truly matter are the 3 that have already been pointed out to you multiple times (all 3 are RFAs btw) --- Sergachev, Cernak, and Cirelli. Also Tampa has had a knack for drafting quality NHLers ever since Yzerman arrived in 2010. Some of those names you mentioned will be signed for league min. deals. The guys we will most likely lose include Maroon, Shattenkirk, Bogosian, Schenn unless they are willing to come back for league min, but if Tampa can't afford them, they will be replaced with guys waiting in the wings (AHL) like Volkov, Foote (CAL), Barre-Boulet, Stephans, Joseph, etc...

Tampa, btw, has had a good enough team to win the Cup a couple of times already, just haven't closed the deal. Tampa has also been dealing with cap issues since 2016/17. As Tampa fans, we have already had the same cap issue narrative shoved down our throats dozens of times by the national media that Tampa will have trouble keeping all of their talent locked in. So far the only big pieces we have had to part ways with were Ben Bishop (easy decision considering Vasi was ready to take over), JT Miller --- total cap casualty but it helped land Coleman, and I can't really think of any others! LOL So I think Tampa has been doing just fine dealing with the cap issues. Killorn will probably end up being the next cap casualty but it will hopefully help Tampa retain Cernak/Sergachev/Cirelli. Lets face it, guys take less to play for a quality organization!

The other thing that no one, in this thread so far, has factored in is the flat cap. Teams just will not have the extra money they had in the past. So ALL free agents will have to take less than what they were expecting. I think it is going to be hard to get Sergachev and Cirelli taking a 5-6mil contract. I just don't see it. I think Tampa would be happy to lock both up in the 4mil range on a bridge. Cernak I'm hoping we can get in the 2.5mil range. Still going to have to free up money though but Killorn's 4.7m will help.

 

[BoltsOfAnarchy]

I find it interesting how all around the league so many people seem to be harping on how the Islanders are in so much trouble with the cap (The Hockey News even had a full story posted yesterday on the topic), yet nothing is mentioned about the Lightning, who are in FAR more trouble than the Isles are. I had to look up Tampa on CapFriendly, because after reading the Hockey News article, I was thinking how could Tampa with all that elite talent not be having cap trouble and the Islanders are facing this many problems. Well, as it turns out, Tampa has...ready for this...10 players signed for next year at a total of 68 million. That means they have 12 million under the cap to sign 10-12 players. You ready for who their free agents list includes? Here goes: Coleman, Paquette, Goodrow, Maroon, Cirelli, Verhaeghe, Sergachev, Cernak, Bogosian, Shattenkirk, Schenn, Rutta and Cernak. That is literally 2/3 of their starting lineup against the Isles in this series. No wonder they are playing like their lives depend on winning the cup this year...because they are f***ed.

You should really check your homework before submitting it lol. Coleman & Goodrow each have another year after this one. Most (knowledgeable ) fans assumed that Shattenkirk would play himself into a nice new contract that some other team would get suckered into overpaying for him. He was never considered to be returning. You could say the same for Bogo, Schenn & Maroon who were all signed to cheap 1 year deals. Most lightning fans won’t miss paquette & can take or leave him, he doesn’t make that much. Yeah Cirelli, Cernak & serg get raises but none are going to be too significant. We may move one of them, or we move some salary out somewhere else like Johnson or Killorn if possible.

“Experts” like you have been boasting for years how TBL is gonna be screwed with the cap, etc. But we get creative or guys are willing to take a little less. Maybe it happens again, maybe not. But your argument was lost the moment you inaccurately listed those players lol. You’re like the kid in class who begs the teacher to call on him, then gives the wrong answer lmao.

Nice one kid

 

[BoltsOfAnarchy]

How is it absurd? You don't think we know our team better than you? Come on man! You already screwed up the free agent list for crying out loud. The only names that truly matter are the 3 that have already been pointed out to you multiple times (all 3 are RFAs btw) --- Sergachev, Cernak, and Cirelli. Also Tampa has had a knack for drafting quality NHLers ever since Yzerman arrived in 2010. Some of those names you mentioned will be signed for league min. deals. The guys we will most likely lose include Maroon, Shattenkirk, Bogosian, Schenn unless they are willing to come back for league min, but if Tampa can't afford them, they will be replaced with guys waiting in the wings (AHL) like Volkov, Foote (CAL), Barre-Boulet, Stephans, Joseph, etc...

Tampa, btw, has had a good enough team to win the Cup a couple of times already, just haven't closed the deal. Tampa has also been dealing with cap issues since 2016/17. As Tampa fans, we have already had the same cap issue narrative shoved down our throats dozens of times by the national media that Tampa will have trouble keeping all of their talent locked in. So far the only big pieces we have had to part ways with were Ben Bishop (easy decision considering Vasi was ready to take over), JT Miller --- total cap casualty but it helped land Coleman, and I can't really think of any others! LOL So I think Tampa has been doing just fine dealing with the cap issues. Killorn will probably end up being the next cap casualty but it will hopefully help Tampa retain Cernak/Sergachev/Cirelli. Lets face it, guys take less to play for a quality organization!

The other thing that no one, in this thread so far, has factored in is the flat cap. Teams just will not have the extra money they had in the past. So ALL free agents will have to take less than what they were expecting. I think it is going to be hard to get Sergachev and Cirelli taking a 5-6mil contract. I just don't see it. I think Tampa would be happy to lock both up in the 4mil range on a bridge. Cernak I'm hoping we can get in the 2.5mil range. Still going to have to free up money though but Killorn's 4.7m will help.

Exactly! I love when outsiders tell us what we have or what we need to do....

[MOD]

 

[ThreeLeftSkates]

It’s like listening to Joe Biden tells us how mentally sharp he is

Man, that is a bold statement. Woman is a thing of beauty. Camera catches all the action. Tv is not what it used to be.

 

[Master P]

Stammer still in the bubble

 

[DistantThunderRep]

I gotta admit where I was wrong. I did some number crunching and the stats don't match with a point I was making.

My point of saying Boston put up a better fight isn't really true - in fact, 5v5 the Isles actually have a +50% SCF rate so far. Capitalizing on the PP has been a major contributor in this series.

View attachment 367434

Honestly, I thought it was a lot closer with Boston. The 5v5 xGF% was shocking to me. 60/40 in high danger chances too. Boston will definitely need to find some non-powerplay offence this season but I think they know that.

Boston doesn't have to worry about that, since they will get the benefit of the doubt on every call and potential suspension that gets thrown their way.

 

[DistantThunderRep]

Stammer still in the bubble

Fake news.

 

[Pure Slaughter Value]

Getting screwed by the cap is so overrated. When has it really happened where a team took a significant step backwards because they had to offload a piece or two?

 

[Hoek]

Getting screwed by the cap is so overrated. When has it really happened where a team took a significant step backwards because they had to offload a piece or two?

Well, way back when the salary cap started it cost the Lightning Nikolai Khabibulin and that defending cup team was never the same.

 

[CupsOverCash]

Well, way back when the salary cap started it cost the Lightning Nikolai Khabibulin and that defending cup team was never the same.

Damn taxes!!

 

[islesfan186]

Well, way back when the salary cap started it cost the Lightning Nikolai Khabibulin and that defending cup team was never the same.

That 2004 playoff run that Khabibulin had was ridiculous. He played like a man possessed, that whole eye/head twitch thing he had going on that postseason was so weird lol. but I don’t think he would have replicated that the following year. IMO he was a middle of the road starter who had a magical run. Similar to Ruslan Fedotenko that same year. Ridiculous playoff run that year the bolts won the cup, but cracked 20 goals and 40 points once in his whole career.
This TB sort of reminds me of the 2004 team. Stacked up front (Richards, Lecavalier, Modin, St Louis, Stillman), incredible goaltending, solid and dependable D, though this current D core is much deeper than the 2004 team

 

[KuchieKooRov]

Damn taxes!!

Haha that was good.