It’ll be hard not to pick the Lightning in your bracket this spring and they will head into the playoffs as heavy favourites. But, if the numbers stand, a Tampa Bay championship would buck at least a couple trends.
First, the Presidents’ Trophy winner has averaged more shots against than shots for twice in this era — the 2007 Buffalo Sabres and last year’s Nashville Predators. That Sabres team was all about offence and though they got to the conference final, the team lost two of its top four scorers in Daniel Briere and Chris Drury that summer.
Last year’s Predators had almost the same shot splits as the 2018-19 Lightning and were buoyed by Pekka Rinne’s Vezina season, much like Tampa Bay is enjoying from Andrei Vasilevskiy right now. Nashville was ultimately beaten by a better offensive team in Winnipeg as Rinne’s play slipped in Round 2. You might scoff and suggest that Tampa Bay is much better offensively than any other team and that advantage will trump everything else come playoff time. That might end up being true . Tampa Bay averages .28 more goals per game than any other NHL team, a difference bettered only by the 2009-10 Washington Capitals . That team had the 18th-best defence and were ejected in the first round by Jaroslav Halak and the Montreal Canadiens.
The other is that Tampa Bay would be the first Cup winner of the cap era to not make a trade around the deadline season. That’s a sign of how well put together this team is though, because looking at the depth chart, just what would they have upgraded on?
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