Tampa Bay Lightning: Thriving despite not having Vasilevskiy

In November, the Tampa Bay Lightning placed Andrei Vasilevekiy on injured reserve with a broken foot. Despite that, they have continued to dominate.

Andrei Vasilevskiy was injured on November 15th, and in the 10 games since, the Tampa Bay Lightning have a whopping record of 8-2-0. All the games have been high-scoring affairs. In nine of those 10 games, they have scored at least four goals.

The Lightning average almost 4 goals a game (3.84), leading the league in that department and exceeding the league average of 3.04. Their team has scored 112 goals in 29 games played, 10 more than the second-best team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Their power play is 4th best in the league, with a 28.2% success rate, over 8 percent better than the league average.

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Brayden Point is tied for second in the league in goals (20), Nikita Kucherov is 4th in assists (30), and both players are top 10 in point production. (Kucherov is 3rd, Point is 5th) In every offensive category, whether it’s team stats or individual, the Tampa Bay Lightning are consistently top 5 in the league.

When a team has this kind of dominant offence, the pressure is lessened for the goaltender. With Vasilevskiy out for a while, the Lightning looked to their backup Louis Domingue. His numbers are mundane, borderline bad, as he has a .900 save percentage and a 3.14 goals against average, and yet his record is 11-4 in 15 games played.

He has managed to make the big saves when necessary and the incredible offence in front of him has bailed him out plenty as well. After the 5-4 overtime victory against the Florida Panthers, head coach Jon Cooper had this to say about the goaltender.

"“You look up and poor kid’s got two goals on him on three shots in the period. But when the game is on the line and you need the timely save, I think it was [Mike] Hoffman that had the breakaway, he stopped that. Stops a big one in overtime on [Aaron] Ekblad. Those are the saves you need to give your team a chance to win, and he is finding a way to give us those saves.”"

The point of a hockey game is to score more goals than your opponent and when your team is averaging almost 4 goals a game, it makes the goaltender’s life much easier.

In fact, last night, Tampa Bay started goaltender Eddie Pasquale. He’s 28 years old and has spent his entire career in the minors, but last night, he got the chance to make his NHL debut. Despite posting a .792 save percentage and letting in 5 goals on 24 shots, he still got his first NHL victory because the Lightning won 6-5 in the shootout.

Only in Tampa can you lose your Vezina finalist goaltender and still be #1 in the entire league.