What went wrong?

Pulpfishin

Registered User
Apr 11, 2018
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I've digested it and gone through the agonizingly long five stages of grief and I think I've come to a conclusion as to what went wrong. There was basically two simple problems. The injuries to Hedman and Strahlman and very un-Vasy play by Vasy. It's just that simple. The #1 and #3 defensemen were gone and the goalie had the worst stretch he's had in a very long time(.856 Sv%). Everyone else played poorly too and the coach did a poor job but I believe that those are the two biggest things that led to the downfall of this team.
 

BeingTheThunder

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Jul 9, 2018
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I've digested it and gone through the agonizingly long five stages of grief and I think I've come to a conclusion as to what went wrong. There was basically two simple problems. The injuries to Hedman and Strahlman and very un-Vasy play by Vasy. It's just that simple. The #1 and #3 defensemen were gone and the goalie had the worst stretch he's had in a very long time(.856 Sv%). Everyone else played poorly too and the coach did a poor job but I believe that those are the two biggest things that led to the downfall of this team.
I agree but would put Vasi's play as the main reason. Sure, Heddy was awful too but we won without him for a month early in the season. Vasi just did not perform the way he usually does and that, to me, is the bottom line.

Throughout the season, we hung him out to dry pretty often but he was usually able to bail the boys out. However, the last three weeks of the regular season and into the postseason, Vasi turned to trash... for whatever reason.
 
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T REX

Registered User
Feb 28, 2013
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I've digested it and gone through the agonizingly long five stages of grief and I think I've come to a conclusion as to what went wrong. There was basically two simple problems. The injuries to Hedman and Strahlman and very un-Vasy play by Vasy. It's just that simple. The #1 and #3 defensemen were gone and the goalie had the worst stretch he's had in a very long time(.856 Sv%). Everyone else played poorly too and the coach did a poor job but I believe that those are the two biggest things that led to the downfall of this team.

We couldn't beat the trap. We've had trouble with it for a long time. Not everyone has the players to execute against us. CBJ did. Wash did last yr.
 
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Pulpfishin

Registered User
Apr 11, 2018
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We couldn't beat the trap. We've had trouble with it for a long time. Not everyone has the players to execute against us. CBJ did. Wash did last yr.
Everyone plays a trap to some degree. There is no possible way that Columbus and Washington threw a trap at the Lightning that they hadn't seen before hundreds of times.
 

Pulpfishin

Registered User
Apr 11, 2018
28
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I agree but would put Vasi's play as the main reason. Sure, Heddy was awful too but we won without him for a month early in the season. Vasi just did not perform the way he usually does and that, to me, is the bottom line.

Throughout the season, we hung him out to dry pretty often but he was usually able to bail the boys out. However, the last three weeks of the regular season and into the postseason, Vasi turned to trash... for whatever reason.
This is exactly correct. Without Hedman and Strahlman he was seeing some tougher shots and he was nowhere near the player he was for most of the year. It was a horrible time to go into a funk but that's what happened. He was the worst goalie in all of the playoffs with a 3.82 GAA and a .856 Sv%. Those aren't Vasy numbers and they aren't getting any team anywhere.
 
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LTIR Trickery

Plz stop pucks
Jun 27, 2007
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We couldn't beat the trap. We've had trouble with it for a long time. Not everyone has the players to execute against us. CBJ did. Wash did last yr.
This doesn't make sense when you consider the reasons for trapping and how it came about. The trap doesn't require special personnel, its the trap for a reason - you were outmatched and outgunned so you ran a neutral zone trap to make life hell for any opposing forwards. The trap came about because you *didn't* have talented enough players.
 

ccman68

Registered User
Dec 9, 2017
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They figured out how to score on Vasy. I don't really blame things on him though. Feel like when 4 games in a row they score in exactly the same way we should do some adjustments. Sadly that never happened.
 
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CupsOverCash

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Jun 16, 2009
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There was a few things going on, not just 1 or 2.

In no order:

Coaching - No adjustments made in any games and we see no changes in results. Coaching is at fault here.

Mental toughness - We showed absolutely no mental toughness. Every time some real adversity comes the team folds. Could point to coaching and to the guys we have here. (Which could point to the kind of players we look for)

Injuries - Its not really a legit excuse but our D was pretty well banged up. You could argue that we really didnt have great depth there. Good enough to be more precise.

Unprepared for Playoff game: Seemed like our guys just were not ready for the game that is the playoffs. Think they came in thinking they could keep playing the game that just won them 62 games and it would be good enough for the playoffs. The two are not the same and our players should know better. Our whole organization should know better.

Columbus had a great game plan and execution - We barely got into their zone. They really had a great gameplan and we could never do anything to match it.

PK - Was atrocious. If we would have killed some of those penalties, I think we are still playing. Awful execution on PK.
 

Todd1a

Kucherov or prospect
Jun 19, 2014
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This doesn't make sense when you consider the reasons for trapping and how it came about. The trap doesn't require special personnel, its the trap for a reason - you were outmatched and outgunned so you ran a neutral zone trap to make life hell for any opposing forwards. The trap came about because you *didn't* have talented enough players.
We don’t have the forwards to play a dump and chase game period. Plus coaches got out coached badly by torts and his staff our coaches couldn’t adjust
 
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Pulpfishin

Registered User
Apr 11, 2018
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There was a few things going on, not just 1 or 2.

In no order:

Coaching - No adjustments made in any games and we see no changes in results. Coaching is at fault here..

I find this hard to believe. How many games did the Lightning win this year. How many times did they come from behind to win those games? So Cooper did enough coaching to help the team win 62 games and then quit? I am absolutely not a Cooper fan. I would have fired him after they lost to Chicago in the Finals when it was plain as day that he got out coached and couldn't even get match ups right but I'm not seeing it here. The injuries to defense made it so they couldn't get out of their own end. It wasn't some magical fore check that Torts the wizard came up with and I'm sure that Torts would be the first to tell you that.
 

CupsOverCash

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Jun 16, 2009
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I find this hard to believe. How many games did the Lightning win this year. How many times did they come from behind to win those games? So Cooper did enough coaching to help the team win 62 games and then quit? I am absolutely not a Cooper fan. I would have fired him after they lost to Chicago in the Finals when it was plain as day that he got out coached and couldn't even get match ups right but I'm not seeing it here. The injuries to defense made it so they couldn't get out of their own end. It wasn't some magical fore check that Torts the wizard came up with and I'm sure that Torts would be the first to tell you that.

I agree about the D, however we had some injuries here and there during the reg season and played fine. I know playoffs are different from regular season but still you see them play fine with injuries for quite a few games and they were fine. I can see why they didnt make a move, even though I would have liked to see it. This brings me to my next point though. The playoffs and regular season are different. We won 62 games and then couldnt even get out of our own zone. Yea the D is to blame but so is Cooper. We lost our last 6 playoff games looking exactly the same. I cant blame coaching enough for this. Injuries suck, but all teams deal with that at this time of year. Really not a legit excuse.
 
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T REX

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Feb 28, 2013
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Everyone plays a trap to some degree. There is no possible way that Columbus and Washington threw a trap at the Lightning that they hadn't seen before hundreds of times.

Sorry. But there were games where the opposing team clogged the neutral zone whether a trap 1-2-2 or a 1-4 or whatever...aggressive forechecking and take away the stretch pass...clog the middle...every team DOES NOT do this. We struggled with it. I sat here and said the blueprint on how to beat us is out there. Guess what...my horrific prophecy came true so don't tell me. I sat here and took crap all year for it. You picked the wrong guy.
 
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T REX

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Feb 28, 2013
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I find this hard to believe. How many games did the Lightning win this year. How many times did they come from behind to win those games? So Cooper did enough coaching to help the team win 62 games and then quit? I am absolutely not a Cooper fan. I would have fired him after they lost to Chicago in the Finals when it was plain as day that he got out coached and couldn't even get match ups right but I'm not seeing it here. The injuries to defense made it so they couldn't get out of their own end. It wasn't some magical fore check that Torts the wizard came up with and I'm sure that Torts would be the first to tell you that.

Since when is the regular season and the playoffs even remotely close?
 
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T REX

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Feb 28, 2013
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We don’t have the forwards to play a dump and chase game period. Plus coaches got out coached badly by torts and his staff our coaches couldn’t adjust

BINGO. People a lot smarter than anyone in here said the same on the NHL network. We ain't built for playoff hockey. Turn us into dump and chase and Cooper has no answer for it.
 
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Pulpfishin

Registered User
Apr 11, 2018
28
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Sorry. But there were games where the opposing team clogged the neutral zone whether a trap 1-2-2 or a 1-4 or whatever...aggressive forechecking and take away the stretch pass...clog the middle...every team DOES NOT do this. We struggled with it. I sat here and said the blueprint on how to beat us is out there. Guess what...my horrific prophecy came true so don't tell me. I sat here and took crap all year for it. You picked the wrong guy.
Lighten up Francis.
 

Pulpfishin

Registered User
Apr 11, 2018
28
17
Cooper can't figure out a way to play dump and chase and we don't have the forwards to do it even if he could? Nobody ever stacks the blue line or clogs neutral ice against the Bolts until the playoffs start and then they can't figure it out and don't have the forwards to do it even if they did. You might have to go find another team to bandwagon if you think that's true because the coach isn't going anywhere and most of the turnover of players is going to be on defense.
 

LTIR Trickery

Plz stop pucks
Jun 27, 2007
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We don’t have the forwards to play a dump and chase game period. Plus coaches got out coached badly by torts and his staff our coaches couldn’t adjust
Simply not true, we have some of the best puck possession players in the league as well as a plethora of speedy players.
 
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DFC

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Sep 26, 2013
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I'd be willing to look past Cooper if we'd seen any sort of adjustment, and also seen it fail. But Coop seemed to double and triple down on an overmatched system. It didn't even look like our system, because we didn't have the space to transition, and yet we kept trying and trying and trying.

There's plenty of fault to go around, but when a team full of all star level talent struggles to even make the games look competitive, the problem is a lot deeper than "they're not built for the playoffs." I think most coaches in the league would kill to get their hands on this roster.

It's not just that we lost. It's the way we lost. If we'd lost a tight 6 or 7 game series, I could buy injuries, maybe even lack of effort. But judging by the frustration the players showed on the ice, I just don't see how it's not deeper than that.
 

VoluntaryDom

Formerly DominicBoltsFan / Ⓐ / ✞
Oct 31, 2016
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tampa lost the front of the net on both sides of the ice, and couldnt get any consistent o zone entries. vasy faced a ton of screened and rebound shots. bray point was our only guy effectively countering the trap. only cirelli was really getting anything going in front of the net offensively. hedman and mcdonagh being bad/hurt was a major problem in terms of clearing our own crease.
 

VoluntaryDom

Formerly DominicBoltsFan / Ⓐ / ✞
Oct 31, 2016
23,285
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Tampa FL
what we need to do is use our speed to enforce OUR style on the games, the speedy transition game and then a lot of low-high cycle movement in the zone. dont let other teams force us into slow dump-and-chase hockey because we struggle with that

the problem is cooper doesnt want to enforce our style.
 

Ducati Boy

HF Original
Feb 7, 2018
1,269
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Here's a novel view from a long-time lurker: Maybe we just weren't that good after all.

Sure, we have 5 or 6 players that are elite but beyond that, look at our 2nd and 3rd liners: Palat, Miller, Gourde, Killorn, Johnson. All meh, mediocre (Cirelli, I agree is on the rise). Certainly no better than the other playoff teams, worse than many. The notion of this incredibly 'stacked' roster was nonsense. Same on D - sure a healthy Hedman and McDonagh are elite, but Coburn, Stralman, and Girardi are all well past their peaks, and Sergachev can be a train wreck. I look at the final 8 teams in these playoffs and I see deeper 3-5 D's on many, if not most, of them.

I also think that our 62 wins were tinged with a lot of good fortune. Personally, I felt like only about a dozen of those games were really 'easy'. Our record made it seem like a lot of our games were of the Canada vs. Ukraine variety when in fact the vast majority were tight.

Playoff fragility? I don't really buy it. Over the past 5 or 6 years the Bolts have won more playoff series than they lost. Versus NJ and Boston last year the Bolts looked physically and mentally stronger than their opponents, as well as more skilled. If we were as wimpy and fragile as some suggest we wouldn't have won the 9 or 10 series we have over the past half dozen years. Sure, we haven't lifted the cup (how many teams have?) but it's not like we get our butts kicked in all our playoff series.

Besides not really being as talented as most thought, our demise was due to:
1. Vasi not making big saves.
2. PK fell back into the shell reminiscent of a year ago.
3. Long time without playing a meaningful game, whereas Columbus came in full bore (Ok - that's a type of mental thing).
4. Hedman either dazed or out and Cooper's weird choice not to play Coburn but Rutta - and with Sergachev at that!
5. We played as if we were entitled to victory, as in the regular season. Like it was just going to happen for us because... Bolts.
 
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BeingTheThunder

Registered User
Jul 9, 2018
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www.beingthethunder.com
Besides not really being as talented as most thought, our demise was due to:
1. Vasi not making big saves.
2. PK fell back into the shell reminiscent of a year ago.
3. Long time without playing a meaningful game, whereas Columbus came in full bore (Ok - that's a type of mental thing).
4. Hedman either dazed or out and Cooper's weird choice not to play Coburn but Rutta - and with Sergachev at that!
5. We played as if we were entitled to victory, as in the regular season. Like it was just going to happen for us because... Bolts.
These sum up the sh*t show very nicely.
 

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