It’s been just over four months since the Lightning were on the ice together. It was clear across the board on Thursday at TGH IcePlex that the coaches and players shared an equal excitement to be back.
“You just love their energy,” said coach Jon Cooper. “I think guys are looking for a little bit of structure, because they’ve been doing their own skates for two months. It’s just, it’s a cool day. Everybody’s excited.”
Even with the excitement of a new year ahead, the players still have last season’s early playoff exit in the back of their minds. Rather than setting it aside, it’s serving as a source of motivation for them as they move forward.
“Everyone in this room was disappointed in the way our season ended,” said Anthony Cirelli. “A lot of us thought about it a lot during the summer. It's not what we want to do. That’s three years in a row now losing in the first round. It’s unacceptable.”
“I think everyone was eager in the summer to get better individually, and coming into camp here as a team, we’ve just got to be a little bit better.”
Overall, the Lightning felt they were a stronger team than what showed in the playoffs. When asked about the fine line between winning a series, and losing in the first round the past two years to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, the players have been straightforward in how they see it.
“We have to learn how to score goals in overtime,” said goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy. “I think that’s the big one. I already mentioned that I think last year and the year before that, with what our record is in the playoffs in overtime, no wonder we can’t win.”
The Lightning have always had a lethal power play. They finished fifth-best in the NHL during the regular season, but that success didn’t convert into the playoffs. Over the course of the season, they tested a number of different looks to see what would stick. In the five-game, first round series against the Panthers, the Lightning power play went 2-for-18.
“For a lot of years there we kind of had it set, and it worked really well. Last year was the first year in a while where we really had to try different players in different spots," said Brayden Point. “Our numbers were good in the regular season, but I don’t know if we really could manipulate PKs maybe the way we used to. And that’s something big coming into camp, and hopefully we can sort it out.”
For years, Steven Stamkos’ one-timer was the exclamation point to the Lightning’s power play. Players often said they could run it with their eyes closed, which says a lot when a pass from Nikita Kucherov comes as quickly as it does.
“Not having Stammer on the left side is, first of all, you don’t have the one-timer, so there’s no respect on the left side,” said Kucherov. “And if you have a lefty, you care less now. So I think we need to have the right (pieces to the) puzzle on the power play to make sure it’s working.”
“During the season, you can go against the top-five teams and be bad, and then you go against the bad teams and score a few and then all of a sudden your stats are looking better and everybody forgets about the top-five teams that we didn’t score against."
“So the statistics, I don’t look at them,” Kucherov said. “I just think we’ve got to do better in the playoffs.”
The Lightning head into the new season determined to make the adjustments needed to get them beyond the first round. The addition of Jake Guentzel helped the team in a number of ways, and he led the league with 17 power-play goals last season. If you add in a full season from Oliver Bjorkstrand, the Lightning could have the boost they need.
“Even though he missed the playoffs, to have him be a part of us (last season) makes him that much more ahead,” Cooper said of Bjorkstrand.
“I told him all practice long he should just grab that stick and save it for Game 1, because everything was going in the net. You kind of forget he’s a gifted scorer, so you give him a chance, he can put it in and it was evident (Thursday) in practice."