When the Tampa Bay Lightning were awarded their second Stanley Cup in franchise history on Monday night, the hockey world was generally filled with acceptance. They were — by some margin — the best team on paper and were able to dominate their way through the postseason.
Despite a couple of Joonas Korpisalo-shaped hurdles, the Lightning were able to look completely in control. Rolling their way through the four rounds completely nonchalant, resembling a quiet stroll through your local park, whistling their way to the Cup.
None of their series required the full seven games and it was only in the final against the Dallas Stars that they were defeated in the first match. Throughout the restart and the playoffs, the Lightning were able to stay consistent, but were never really the main attraction. Newcomers to the upper echelon of successful hockey clubs were so much more tantalizing to the neutral fan. Whether it was the Colorado Avalanche’s ability to play some of the most entertaining hockey we’ve seen in a while, or the New York Islanders’ defense toying with their opposition — they were the shiny new toys.
The Lightning deserve this championship for how their team was built by former General Manager Steve Yzerman and current GM Julien BriseBois. Even if they weren’t the most interesting story of the postseason, their ability to come out on top after all these years holds several lessons, especially for a team like the Philadelphia Flyers.
No team can build an exact replica of another, and they might not be able to piece it together after following the blueprint, but they will no doubt come closer to a Cup if they’re able to mirror some philosophies.
Keep your core together
In this week’s 31 Thoughts blog, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman made sure to mention that the last three winners of the Stanley Cup — the Lightning, St. Louis Blues, and Washington Capitals — were all labeled as postseason failures at least once before.
All three were toying with the idea of blowing up their team, selling their stars off for futures and top prospects, but none of them did. They stuck with their top-tier talents, even if they were branded as playoff chokers.
Living through the first-round sweep at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets last season and missing the postseason entirely in 2017, their major players were never moved. Tampa’s management stuck by Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov, and countless others that have been with this team.
Although those three appear as elite talents and can be in the conversation as currently the best in their positions, the Flyers still have the core that has found them the most recent success.
Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov and Carter Hart are substantial players in their own right. This is nothing new of course, we all know that. But if the Flyers keep on this track and battle for the top spot in the Metropolitan Division consistently, the track record of past champions — and most recently with the Lightning — should demonstrate how keeping everyone together through the struggles, can be rewarding in the end.
Defensive forwards over everything
As slogans go, “defense wins championships” is one of the most diluted and lazy phrases out there. But there is obvious truth behind the three words that mimic beating a dead horse.
The Lightning had an elite defender in Hedman to carry their blue line through four rounds, but their overall ability to mute the opposition’s offense did not just come from the six or seven skaters behind the forwards, but the forwards themselves as well. Throughout all four lines, there is a sense of balance. The majority of the forwards are not dedicated to just one side of the game, but instead they hold the capability to deal with whatever comes at them, offensively or defensively.
Using Evolving Hockey’s Expected Goals Above Replacement metric, both the Flyers and Lightning have a similar makeup when it comes to their forwards. Steven Stamkos and Tyler Johnson were the only two Lightning forwards to hold a negative expected defensive contribution, while Morgan Frost, Oskar Lindblom and Joel Farabee are the three Flyers that also were a minus defensively this past regular season.
When it comes to top-tier defensive forwards, both teams hold some of the best in the league right now.
Only 53 of the 558 forwards to play at least 50 minutes at 5-on-5 this season have an expected defensive contribution of 2.0 or higher — the Lightning have three and the Flyers have two. Anthony Cirelli, Patrick Maroon, Ondrej Palat, Sean Couturier, and James van Reimsdyk were able to be some of the best forwards defensively last season. Most importantly, all five of them had the same, or much higher, impacts offensively. These aren’t the boring grinders that dream of the ‘01 New Jersey Devils, they were able to contribute greatly to their team in both ends of the ice.
Numbers aside, if the Flyers are able to tie up their loose ends and make their young players more accountable defensively, then the reality of having an extremely balanced four lines is not too far off.
Stay competent
The Lightning leaned on their stars to get the Cup, but they complimented their elite core with players that fit right in with their system and were able to have career years that ended with a championship. Raising the talent floor, if you will.
Many teams — the Vancouver Canucks to name one — are guilty of putting the cart before the horse in this aspect. Acquiring players like Jay Beagle, Tim Schaller and Antoine Roussel to play in complementary roles, when their talent haven’t even made their NHL debut yet, produced a worrisome outcome.
With the Flyers, they are in a window where they can comfortably add some capable players to the bottom of their roster. Whether there are actual openings beyond the backup goaltender position and a couple other holes, is a whole different story, but there is potential there. The blue line won’t be able to make players like Luke Schenn and Zach Bogosian look like above-average players, but making the small adjustments with newcomers that have previously been ignored, is something that can bring Philadelphia some steady success.
There’s no point going through a list of names that can do that for the Flyers, but you know the type. The recent buyout, the post-hype prospect, the veteran that had a down year — there are many potential options for this team to sustain the same level of competitiveness as they did during the 2019-20 season.
As Tampa’s own post-hardcore band Underoath stated in their 2006 album Define The Great Line, “There Could Be Nothing After This,” but some comparison between one club’s success and the current state of a franchise that hasn’t seen a championship in 45 years, is warranted.
The Flyers have an opportunity next season if they’re able to follow the same rough blueprint that the Lightning were able to find success with. It’s not perfect, considering there are some talent gaps between the two teams, but it’s not like they can get worse in the long-term.
If Tampa — a team previously praised as the next dynasty — can get through some of the postseason failures that they have endured, then the Flyers can improve after the year that they have had.
