Speculation: Official bad Lightning team is bad thread

[Leonardo87]

I don't think it's necessarily a depth issue as much as it is a consistency issue through the whole top 9. We have too many guys who go through long scoring droughts and others who are completely useless unless they're scoring.

To put it on a list

The streaky ones

Namestnikov- streaky and starts floating around doing little to nothing for weeks at a time. Useless on a slump

Killorn- streaky and floats around occasionally making physical ruckus for weeks at a time. Useless in a slump unless on a PK

Filppula- streaky and starts over passing in his slumps for weeks to months at a time. Useless on a slump except for faceoffs and PK

Callahan- streaky and when he slumps he does NOTHING that is conducive to scoring. He just hits everything in sight, takes bad shots and gets easily frustrated for weeks to months at a time. Damn near useless in a slump because we already have high energy players who bust their ass.

Stamkos- streaky and when he slumps he starts over passing like Filppula for weeks at a time and to his credit, pulls out of his funks faster than his cohorts. Useless in a slump

The more consistent ones

Kucherov- floats around doing little to nothing during slumps. Useless in a slump

Palat- Plays like Palat when not scoring. However in my opinion is more useful than Callahan (sorry D2B) still useful in a slump

Johnson- floats around doing nothing and does the Callahan treatment... bad shots, turnovers and visible frustration. To say the kid is useless is an understatement. I wanted Johnson outright benched with Filppula back in October. Blame it on his injury but oh my God I've never seen a forward struggle like he did. I'd like to say this year is an anomaly for him. Useless in a slump

PS- Not even sure I can count JAM since he gets scratched so often

The Callahan, Filppula, Stamkos and Killorn combination plays together in some variation in pretty much every game. Once one of them goes cold they ALL go cold together. I said it a billion times before the trade deadline but Yzerman needs to shake this team up. We have a GREAT team but there is such little natural chemistry with the most important scorers outside of the TKO members that we go through these long scoring funks waiting 3 to 7 games for anyone to start playing worth a care.


I'm holding hope that Drouin comes back and jump starts the team.

Dude, Callahan is not useless when he is not scoring. He is one of the few on this team who does all the little things to help the team win. He is a huge reason for our PK success, he blocks shots, hits hard, and is one of the top players on the team in taking the puck away, along with the grit and toughness something this team needs. But don't be sorry it's your opinion.

No player except Bishop has been consistent this year. Even Kucherov has had his ups and downs. If Callahan had one more of those streaks, he would be pushing 50 points right now, but now he is likely going to be stuck on the 3rd line with little or no PP time, which he has for most of the season. Johnson, Palat, and Killorn, have been cemented into the top 6, so they all should be on pace for mid 50 points, they are not. Injuries or no injuries, Cally was hurt also, and playing hurt earlier in the year and has missed a few games. It sucks in the Dallas game he got hurt, was not the same and we could not see the Pallahan/johnson line really take off, so hope Coop realized that and gives them another crack.

 

[These Are The Days]

Dude, Callahan is not useless when he is not scoring. He is one of the few on this team who does all the little things to help the team win. He is a huge reason for our PK success, he blocks shots, hits hard, and is one of the top players on the team in taking the puck away, along with the grit and toughness something this team needs. But don't be sorry it's your opinion.

No player except Bishop has been consistent this year. Even Kucherov has had his ups and downs. If Callahan had one more of those streaks, he would be pushing 50 points right now, but now he is likely going to be stuck on the 3rd line with little or no PP time, which he has for most of the season. Johnson, Palat, and Killorn, have been cemented into the top 6, so they all should be on pace for mid 50 points, they are not. Injuries or no injuries, Cally was hurt also, and playing hurt earlier in the year and has missed a few games. It sucks in the Dallas game he got hurt, was not the same and we could not see the Pallahan/johnson line really take off, so hope Coop realized that and gives them another crack.

I love Cally as much as the next Lightning fan but the "snakebit" argument we used to describe scoring TWICE in something like 40 games is a testament to the fact that he has to have bounces go his way to be productive. For all the nights in November and December we would say, "Well game over" after the other team scored their 2nd goal of the night, Callahan was taking bad shots praying they'd go in only for it to start the forecheck back the other way after an easy save. The rest of his chances would go straight into the goalie's chest and stop the push or they'd sail over the net. Sure he would bust his ass and drive the forecheck but then when he would have the puck he would make ill advised passes like the rest of the team. Sure the rest of the top 6 played bad too. But the criticism of Callahan is exclusive to him because he's got around 25 points of unlucky bounces and "snakebit" floating in hockey purgatory. Meanwhile the top 6 that was playing awful still found ways to produce a goal on the rare occasion. Callahan didn't produce a goal for a month and when he finally broke the slump, he went damn near another month until his next one.

All said the guy was getting paid $5.8 million to be a glorified penalty killer while the likes of Brian Boyle, J.T Brown and JAM out-produced him. Sure Callahan busted his ass out there. That's why NO ONE said a word about it. But all that blood sweat and tears didn't lead to a goal on a team that couldn't score on the Vegas strip with a fistful of $50's and everyone could see it. You yourself was quoted of saying, "Wow he's gotta do better than that. I can't make excuses."

There's a reason why the likes of J.T Brown and Paquette will never get time in the top 6. They have all the physical intangibles that win hockey games and the willingness to do them. The same can be said of Callahan but what makes him different is that guys like Brown and Paquette but lack any true offensive ability to be consistent scorers. Yet despite this, Callahan's offensive skillset (while vastly superior to theirs) is average at best when you compare it league-wide or even to the rest of the Lightning. His best abilities consists of crashing the net and scoring on rebounds. Unfortunately for Callahan, he started to get away from that and looked more like a rabid dog running aimlessly around hoping he could bite someone. I have no strong feelings one way or the other to him getting taken off the power play. Callahan was in a VERY bad place for a VERY long time and he did not hide it well. If I was his coach I would've probably pulled him off the power play too. To his credit he is playing much better as of 2016.

The one thing that remains true above all is that we go as he goes. If he pitches in offensively, we win almost every time. When Callahan is on his game, we are nearly unstoppable because guys like Stamkos and Kucherov are gonna score every night. Get Cally hot too and no one is gonna catch us. I said what I did because there's no coincidence that we went on a 9 game winning streak as soon as Callahan started producing again. On a team full of players that have similar intangibles to him, Callahan's gotta stand out by being the guy who can score. It's that ability to score that makes him a $5.8 million player in the first place instead of $1.8 million.

 

[Leonardo87]

Not making excuses for his scoring even if it is not all on him, just saying he is not useless when he is not scoring. Call this a down year if you will, but he is not alone in that. Pretty much our entire Top 6 producers from last season are all down, and by a significant amount. Whether it's injuries, team fatigue, bad luck, it has to get to the point where they need to stay hot like that 9 game winning streak, and we won those games like you said because Cally along with TKO got hot during that period and we had scoring from multiple lines. That is the key. When we are firing on all cylinders we are unstoppable.

 

[Hoek]

Just fire Lauer already. That guy was beyond terrible for us. Went from third last to best in NHL after firing him. For gods sake fire Lauer...

Supposedly he's not running our power play though, and it was bad before he came, so it's looking like it's Cooper's fault.

 

[These Are The Days]

Not making excuses for his scoring even if it is not all on him, just saying he is not useless when he is not scoring. Call this a down year if you will, but he is not alone in that. Pretty much our entire Top 6 producers from last season are all down, and by a significant amount. Whether it's injuries, team fatigue, bad luck, it has to get to the point where they need to stay hot like that 9 game winning streak, and we won those games like you said because Cally along with TKO got hot during that period and we had scoring from multiple lines. That is the key. When we are firing on all cylinders we are unstoppable.

Well I'll rephrase from "useless" to "lost in the mix" because we have a phenomenal base of players in guys like Killorn, Filppula, Brown, Paquette and Boyle to go along with Callahan. They sacrifice and bleed like no other group I have ever seen and it's truly special. Cally most of all and does it better than all of them. But like I said unlike them (except Filppula) Callahan has 50 point potential. When he struggles his intangibles get lost in a team loaded with a similar skillset. I hope he finds his way back soon and has a strong playoff.

I think the biggest problem in all this is Tyler Johnson. The kid just hasn't been right all year. Palat would open up the plays while Kucherov and Johnson would finish them. Palat has been up and down but I'd say last year was an over-achievement for him. I never thought he was a 60 point player but that remains to be seen. Kucherov plays great with everyone but sadly, he seems to be going through one of his funks. If he finishes strong, then we have a shot at the Atlantic title.

 

[Flat Ronnie]

I think the biggest problem in all this is Tyler Johnson. The kid just hasn't been right all year. Palat would open up the plays while Kucherov and Johnson would finish them. Palat has been up and down but I'd say last year was an over-achievement for him. I never thought he was a 60 point player but that remains to be seen. Kucherov plays great with everyone but sadly, he seems to be going through one of his funks. If he finishes strong, then we have a shot at the Atlantic title.

This is why I think Stammer walking is such an issue. The injury thing has long been played out with TyJo. Agreed on Palat, and Kucherov is the only one that has proven he can continuously produce without the TKO line being intact.

If all three of those guy HAVE TO play on the same line to consistently produce then that is a big problem on a team without Stamkos.