The season finally ends tonight as Edmonton and Florida compete in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. How fun is that? Meanwhile, we move on with our review of the 2023-24 Tampa Bay Lightning. As we mentioned in the Haydn Fleury review, we’re starting off with the pending unrestricted free agents. Next up we have trade deadline acquisition Anthony Duclair.
The Basics
Name: Anthony Duclair
Position: Forward
Counting Stats With Lightning: 17 Games, 8 Goals, 7 Assists,14:27 TOI
Extra Stats (5v5) With Lightning: 50.11 CF%, 48.95 SF% ,58.62 GF%, 56.13 xGF%, 57.27 HDCF%, .908 On-ice Save Percentage, 3.92 iXG
2023-24 Contract: Final season of a three-year contract that had an AAV of $3,000,000
Contract Status: Pending unrestricted free agent
The Charts:
The Review:
By some measures, Anthony Duclair was the best trade deadline acquisition during the Julien BriseBois Era. In 17 games with the Lightning, the 29-year-old forward put up eight goals and seven assists, eclipsing Nick Paul’s five goals and nine assists following the 2022 trade deadline. With Duclair’s help the Lightning went 12-5-2 down the stretch and secured their fourth straight trip to the postseason.
At the time it was an intriguing move as Mr. BriseBois saw his team struggling to keep the puck out of the net and decided to go for more offense instead of a forward that might have helped limit the chances against. Oddly enough, the decision to go all gas and no brakes did actually pay off. Offensively, in the 63 games prior to the trade deadline the Lightning were 25th in goals against, allowing 3.35/60. In the 19 games following the deadline they were 13th, allowing just 2.83/60.
Duclair, along with the white-hot end of the season pushes by Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point, helped the Lightning post the most prolific post-deadline offense as they scored 4.07/60 in their last 19 games. Duclair’s arrival allowed Coach Cooper to balance out his top two lines and they carried the Lightning to the finish line, unfortunately the offense didn’t overcome their defensive issues in the first round loss to the Florida Panthers.
The former Ranger/Coyote/Blackhawk/Blue Jacket/Senator/Panther/Shark was exactly as advertised. He brought speed and offense to the line-up while not doing much to help prevent chances against. The Bolts averaged 35.61 scoring chances/60 while he was on the ice after he was acquired. That ranked second on the team (kudos to Phil Myers for leading the way in his five games). Unfortunately, they also allowed 30.99 scoring chances against/60 when Duclair was on the ice, which was the most among Lightning players.
Part of the reason the Bolts were able to overcome those numbers is that they shot 14.66% with Duclair on the ice at 5v5. Personally the 146-goal scorer shot 25.81% in all situations, which explains his 8 goals scored against an expected goals of 4.74.
Will Duclair be back next season? At this point it’s hard to say, especially with the Steven Stamkos situation still up in the air. If Stamkos does elect to try the free agent market, signing Duclair to a short-term deal wouldn’t be the worst solution to partially filling the void. He might not be a 40-goal threat, but a full season with the Lightning would likely have him around 25-30 goals, and it would help keep the power play at the top of the league.
Previous Players Reviewed:
