The Tampa Bay Lightning have ascended to the top of the Eastern Conference on the back of a solid offense and a surprisingly competent defense considering it’s comprised of three players that, if the season had played out as expected, would have been freezing in Syracuse instead of enjoying the sun and fun of Florida. Charle-Edouard D’Astous (19:07), Declan Carlile (14:09), and Max Crozier (15:30) are logging big minutes due to the injuries suffered earlier in the season by some blueline staples.
While injuries have woven themselves into the Lightning’s story since opening night, the real issues for the Tampa Bay defense started on November 8 when Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh were both injured against the Washington Capitals. Erik Cernak would join them in the trainer’s room following another game against the Capitals, this one on November 22. He wouldn’t make it back into the line-up until December 31. Just for fun, Emil Lilleberg made it a quartet when he was injured on December 13. At least the Capitals weren’t involved this time, as it came against the Islanders.
Despite not having four of their top blueliners for significant portions of the season, the Bolts have continued to be one of the best defensive teams in the league. Since Hedman and McDonagh were hurt, the Lightning have allowed 2.01 GA/60 which ranks seventh in the league during that time span. They’ve done it by limiting their scoring chances against. Only Carolina and Ottawa have allowed fewer than the Lightning’s 24.04 SCA/60. Of those scoring chances only 9.74 have been considered high-danger, the best number in the league.
Having Andrei Vasilevsky post a .916 and a 13.68 GSAx number in all situations during that stretch hasn’t hurt either.
Based on the injury reports, the Lightning still have a few weeks to go before the walking wounded, other than Cernak, return. McDonagh tried to come back, but re-aggravated the injury and is sitting on injured reserve and his return date is a little murky. Hedman and Lilleberg are on long-term injured reserve and are expected back sometime around the Olympic break in mid-February.
On Monday, the Lightning re-assigned Max Groshev to Syracuse. It was just a swap out as they recalled Simon Lundmark prior to their morning skate. The move gets Groshev back to playing after he was a healthy scratch and gives Lundmark a couple of days of NHL pay.
While the move doesn’t mean much in regard to the injured players right now, it does spark the conversation of what the Lightning defense will look like when everyone is healthy. If McDonagh is the first to return, there is little doubt that he’ll take his usual spot next to Cernak. That likely bumps D’Astous to a pairing with Max Crozier and Declan Carlile becomes the extra defenseman.
Carlile, who would have to clear waivers to be re-assigned to Syracuse, has been solid, if not spectacular while playing most of his minutes with Crozier. The duo has posted the type of numbers at even-strength that one expects from a third pairing as the team is slightly underwater when they are on the ice. D’Astous’ numbers with Crozier are slightly better, which could make the defense a little stronger.
The real challenge comes when Hedman and Lilleberg are back. Hedman isn’t going to be a healthy scratch. Once he’s good to go, he’s in the line-up, but what role will he play? Old school hockey wisdom would be to throw him back out in his top-pairing role with J.J. Moser and move on like nothing happened. The pairing has had had a good season, posting a 59.12% expected goal share during their 160 minutes of ice time together.
The dirt in the oil of that plan is that while Hedman has been out, the Moser/Darren Raddysh combo, in almost 200 more minutes of ice time, has been better. The Lightning have posted a 61.16% xGF and allowing just 0.67 GA/60. It would be hard to justify breaking up that combo, especially since they aren’t sacrificing offense to do so as they’ve posted a 3.7 XGF/60 together.
Prior to Hedman’s decision to have elbow surgery, he played a few games in a reduced role pairing with Max Crozier. They posted pretty decent numbers during their short time together, and Coach Cooper was able to balance his pairings out a bit. In Hedman’s first game back against the Islanders, all six of the defensemen were between 14:55 and 16:16 of ice time at 5v5. Things weren’t quite as balanced as Coach Cooper leaned on the D’Astous/Lilleberg combination a bit more.
If Hedman and McDonagh come back first it wouldn’t be a shock, especially as he plays back into game shape, to see him with a similar pairing, which would leave the defense looking like:
J.J. Moser – Darren Raddysh
Ryan McDonagh – Erik Cernak
Victor Hedman – Charle-Edouard D’Astous
Declan Carlile
Has Max Crozier played his way off of the roster? Not necessarily, and he could very well hold onto the seventh spot, but waivers could be a factor. Crozier is waivers-exempt while Carlile isn’t, and that might lead to Crozier getting the ticket to Syracuse. However, if Crozier is sent to the Crunch, that leaves the Lightning with just two right-shot defensemen (Cernak and Raddysh). While Moser, Lilleberg, and D’Astous have been okay playing on their weaker side, it’s not an ideal solution.
They might still have to risk putting Carlile through waivers when Lilleberg is healthy. Unlike Hedman, the Norwegian might not immediately work his way back into the rotation, but he’s not going to Syracuse. D’Astous (despite being waivers-exempt) isn’t going to Syracuse. That leads to Carlile being the odd-defender out.
The hypothetical rotation above is pretty tough to crack and Coach Cooper might opt to roll with it, occasionally swapping Lilleberg in for D’Astous, or going with an 11/7 line-up depending on the health of the forwards.
J.J. Moser – Darren Raddysh
Ryan McDonagh – Erik Cernak
Victor Hedman – Charle-Edouard D’Astous
Emil Lilleberg
Based on their play this season, that would be a pretty deep defensive rotation, with all three pairings being able to play in any situation. There would really be no need to shelter any of the duos and the 5v5 minutes could be distributed fairly evenly.
Of course, with the way this season is going, when one player gets healthy, another tends to get hurt, so this could all be theoretical. Still, choices will have to be made soon, and while saying that the fate of the season depends on making the right decision might be a little too melodramatic, it will have an effect on how the season plays out.
