Tampa Bay Lightning: Early season woes need to end
By Kyle Pereira
The Tampa Bay Lightning had a historical regular season, notching 62 wins last season, to tie an all-time record for wins in a season, previously set by the Detroit Red Wings. This season, despite seemingly getting better this offseason, they have started off rather slow.
Through three games, the Tampa Bay Lightning are 1-1-1. They started the year off with a bang, winning 5-2 over the Florida Panthers at home in Amalie Arena. Then, two days later, the Lightning faced the Panthers on the road and lost 4-3 in overtime. They traveled to take on the Carolina Hurricanes the very next night, just to lose 4-3 in regulation after opening up with a 3-1 lead.
Young defenseman Mikhail Sergachev leads the team in points with four assists, while Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov need to combine their point totals to hit four points (both have two). When your best players aren’t playing like your best players, it makes winning that much more difficult.
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New acquisition Kevin Shattenkirk has three points thus far, looking like a good signing for the Lightning, at a cheap cost. But if you look deeper, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. He has a 48.8% Corsi For percentage, which is not only poor by his standards, but even worse knowing that the Lightning are such a dominant possession team. Shattenkirk is struggling to possess the puck.
Yes, he has thrown 11 shots on goal, which leads the team, but he has not looked good in his own end thus far. Plus, Shattenkirk’s averaging over 22 minutes a game as Victor Hedman’s partner, which is a pair that really hasn’t worked thus far.
Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy needs to be better as well. He has had a fairly disappointing start to the year, with 2 starts, a 1-1-0 record, .908 save percentage and a 3.06 Goals Against Average. For the defending Vezina Trophy winner, “Big Cat” Andrei Vasilevskiy needs to play better, especially now, as the Lightning d-core works out the kinks and garners more chemistry with each other.