Tampa Bay Lightning: Top 4 areas they need to improve in

Issues with the penalty kill

For your third point, you talked about the loss of leadership on the penalty kill. Not only just the loss of leadership, however, but more specifically the loss of Anton Stralman, Ryan Callahan, and Dan Girardi. I absolutely agree that the PK could be better, it isn’t because of the loss of leadership, so I disagree once more with one of your points.

Thanks, again, to NaturalStatTrick for providing me with total PK time on ice for individual players. Without that, I wouldn’t be able to share with all of you the leaders in PK ice time among forwards from this season and last season.

Last season, Anthony Cirelli led the charge with an astounding 222:31 time on ice on the PK. Following him is Cedric Paquette (161:22), Alex Killorn (159:34), Yanni Gourde (139:52), Callahan (53:01), Steven Stamkos (49:19), Mathieu Joseph (47:46), Tyler Johnson (37:13), Adam Erne (19:34), Ondrej Palat (8:43), JT Miller (3:55), Nikita Kucherov (3:25), and Danick Martel (1:22).

The top-4 leading penalty killers for the Lightning are still on the roster. It’s important to know who the top-4 penalty-killing forwards are because, usually, team’s kill using 2 forwards and 2 defensemen on their two PK units. Thus, the top-4 forwards paints a picture as to who the regular penalty killers are.

As for defensemen, the ranking goes as follows: Ryan McDonagh (257:46), Victor Hedman (148:45), Girardi (140:12), Erik Cernak (140:09), Stralman (136:25), Braydon Coburn (75:55), Mikhail Sergachev (16:28), and Cameron Gaunce (2:13).

Girardi was the third-most used penalty-killing blueliner, but it’s important to note that Cernak, who ranked right behind him, was a mid-season addition via a call-up from AHL-affiliate Syracuse and very well could have eaten more time off of Girardi’s plate. Meanwhile, Stralman played fewer games than Cernak and still ranked favorably, so take that as you want. The fact of the matter is, of the three players that were directly mentioned, just one was considered a regular on one of the two PK units. Based on the ice-time, here’s what those units looked like last season:

Cirelli-Paquette

McDonagh-Hedman

Killorn-Gourde

Girardi-Cernak

This ultimately means that, this season, the Lightning needed to replace Girardi on the second PK unit this season, while also adding extra PKers to replace the additional minutes that both Callahan and Stralman made up.

Here’s what the PK ice time looks like this season for forwards: Cirelli (86:40), Killorn (67:43), Paquette (42:07), Palat (38:43), Gourde (29:13), Joseph (26:52), Stamkos (16:46), Johnson (5:36), Brayden Point (3:24), Gemel Smith (1:52), Carter Verhaeghe (1:39), Kucherov (1:10), Luke Witkowski (1:07), and Pat Maroon (0:46).

Palat rose above Gourde to become a regular on the PK for this season. Now, I personally don’t know how to feel about that shift, but, Palat has been much better this season than last, so the boost in ice time in all situations is deserving. Joseph has also received a boost in PK ice time this season, which helps lessen the blow of losing Callahan. However, Joseph is still young, and far less experienced than Callahan. That being said, I wouldn’t say a simple increase in ice time would help. Yet, here we are. I feel as though the Lightning are hugely under-utilizing Maroon, and he could be a nice bit of help on the PK, especially considering his experience over Joseph in the NHL. Fortunately for all Lightning fans, I’m not the one calling the shots, but I can say that it might be a decent idea to give Maroon some more time here.

As for defensemen, the list goes as follows: McDonagh (106:15), Cernak (82:16), Hedman (43:04), Luke Schenn (24:36), Kevin Shattenkirk (17:52), Jan Rutta (17:13), Coburn (16:28), and Sergachev (10:25).

Schenn is a big surprise to me here, as he comes in as the fourth-most utilized defenseman on the PK, despite playing just a handful of games. Perhaps another surprise, Shattenkirk is right there behind him, however, he is more of a regular in the NHL lineup, so he gets the nod, by me, as the #4 PK defenseman. One thing I would like to see is Coburn or Sergachev get more time, though Sergachev is more offensively-minded and is already on pace for more PK minutes this season than last. Based on ice time, here’s what the two PK units look like:

Cirelli-Killorn

McDonagh-Cernak

Paquette-Palat

Hedman-Shattenkirk

Those are two solid units, yet they still struggle. Again, a way to help the PK a bit more is to add some of the bigger and more experienced guys into the mix, such as Maroon and Coburn, as I previously stated. As a whole, however, the Lightning did not actually lose that much in terms of PK specialists, therefore you’re not entirely correct with the guys you directly mentioned.