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It’s déjà vu all over again.
Another full regular season is in the books and the Detroit Red Wings find themselves in the exact same spot they did a year ago; getting ready to hit the road to face off against Steve Yzerman’s Tampa Bay Lightning.
In that 2015 series, the Lightning wrestled victory away from the Wings with a shutout win in Game 7 after trailing in the series 2-1 and 3-2. They would ride that momentum all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, eventually bowing out to the champion Blackhawks in six.
And while the circumstances are very similar to those a year ago, there are significant differences in critical areas.
Tampa Bay enters this tussle as the slight favorite, just like last season. They accumulated 97 points to Detroit’s 93, so the all-important Game 7 would be in Florida. History would suggest a similar outcome.
But the Red Wings catch a break here. A major one. The Lightning head into the 2016 postseason as one of the league’s more banged-up teams, and it’s not just a few fringe players with some nicks and bruises. It is major players with major injuries.
Steven Stamkos is the Lightning’s most dangerous offensive weapon. He paced the team with 36 goals, which was good for 7th in the NHL. (Amazingly, only 18 players tallied more than 30 goals this season. Compare that to 1985-86 when 50 skaters knocked in over 30. Yes, the league has a bit of a scoring issue.) But Stamkos won't be ringing the bell against the Red Wings. He underwent surgery last week to fix a blood clot issue; take away the top sniper from any NHL team and they are bound to struggle. The Lightning have done just that.
Slumping Tampa Bay
Over their last nine games, Tampa Bay has been unable to win two straight at any point. Each win during that stretch has been followed by a loss, or losses -- not exactly a recipe for success when entering the grind of a seven-game series.
And it's not just Stamkos that’ll be out of action for the Bolts. One of the more underrated defenseman in the league, Anton Stralman, is also on the shelf with a broken leg. Stralman logs major ice time for Tampa and leads the charge on both the power-play and penalty-killing units. His absence will assuredly be felt throughout the series.
Another encouraging sign for the Wings is that the Lightning have been brutal with the man-advantage. Their power-play sits at 28th in the league, the lowest-ranked among all playoff entrants.
The one area that the Lightning hold the decided edge is between the pipes. Ben Bishop is as imposing as it gets from the goaltender position, standing 6-foot-7, appearing almost impenetrable when you combine his height and the NHL’s comically oversized netminder uniform/equipment.
While Jimmy Howard has been solid over the season’s home stretch, he’s not a guy, especially at this point in his career, that strikes a tremendous amount of fear into the other squad. But to Howard’s credit, he has always been fairly adept at getting out of the first round (it’s the next one that gives him trouble). During the four playoff runs in which Jimmy was the one and only man in net for the Wings, he emerged victorious in the opening round. Beyond that point has obviously been a different story.
Unpredictable Playoffs
Of course this has not been a storybook-type season for the Red Wings. They ushered in a new coach, Petr Mrazek went from numero uno to forgotten man, and the marginal growth of youngsters like Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar left something to be desired.
The one saving grace for the Red Wings is that they are entering the most wide-open tournament in all of professional sports. Teams like the Capitals and Stars can rack up big point totals and earn a sparkling top seed, but once the puck drops in playoff hockey, those records and standings mean next to nothing. If the Golden State Warriors were to get popped right out of the gate, that would be the sports world’s top story for the next six months. A top team gets knocked off in the NHL and the country’s interest might last six seconds.
So while the Red Wings are given very little chance of making a real dent on this 16-team race to the Cup, stranger things have happened before.
And thankfully for them, their first opponent, the one that gave them nightmares just a year ago, is a little less scary this time around.
