This isn’t going to be a long, in-depth post. Quite frankly, it doesn’t need to be. In the end, the undoing of the 2024-25 Tampa Bay Lightning season was simply the fact that they weren’t good enough when they needed to be. Don’t confuse this with the notion that this wasn’t a good team. They were. Period. Full-stop. A bad team doesn’t rack up 100 points in an NHL season, even in Gary Bettman’s utopic den of parity. Quite simply, the Florida Panthers were able to rise to the occasion when it mattered and the Lightning weren’t.
The Lightning needed to play as close to a perfect series as possible to beat the Panthers, and while they played well in stretches, especially in regards to containing the Florida offense, in the end they weren’t good enough.
Much like last season, the games were fairly close for a short series. Game 1 was the only real blowout of the series (Game 4 was close until the third), and that was the result of a five-minute stretch in the second period where the Lightning gave up three goals. For the rest of the series the two teams pretty much stayed within one goal of each other until the end of the game. Moral victories don’t count in the standings, though, and Florida pretty much exposed the underlying issues that the Lightning have.
When Florida wanted to increase the pressure with their forecheck they seemed to be able to do it almost on command. It was a big problem in Game 1, and continued throughout the series at regular intervals. The Lightning rely on a methodical breakout, and Florida’s speed and pressure interrupted that process time and again. Not only does that lead to pressure in the defensive zone, it hampers their ability to get the offense going.
While the Lightning didn’t score off of the rush much in the series, they were at their most dangerous when they were able to speed through the neutral zone with possession. That allowed them entries into the zone where they could set up. Florida forced them to flip the puck out without control which stunted any chance of an offensive rush.
Of course, the number one story of the series will be the power play, or lack there of from the Bolts. It’s kind of poetic that Jake Guentzel bookended the Lightning’s scoring by recording their first goal on the power play, and their last goal on the power play. Unfortunately, they failed to connect on the other 16 opportunities in between.
If there was a turning point in the series, it was the Lightning’s inability to connect on the five-minute major at the beginning of the third period in Game 4. They had a 2-1 lead at the time, and had they been able to salvage a single goal out of that opportunity to push things to 3-1, they likely win that game and even the series at two games a piece. Instead, they floundered, the Panthers came back in that game and all but ended the series by taking a 3-1 lead.
What lessons will the Lightning learn from this loss? The worst view for Julien BriseBois to take would be to attribute the loss to Oliver Bjorkstrand’s injury and Brandon Hagel missing basically three games between a suspension and injuries. Yes, those were factors, but even if both players are healthy and playing, would it have changed the outcome? [Ed Note. As this is being written, the full list of injuries was released, and oh boy, it’s a list. We’ll tackle that next.]
Whether it’s a system or personnel change, the Lightning have to find a way to be better at getting the puck out of the zone against a heavy forecheck. Other teams make their defense look slow, and it hampers the ability for them to clear the puck with control. They were better at not getting pinned in their own zone for long periods of time than they were last season, but it still happened way too often, especially when Florida dialed up the forecheck pressure. Too many failed clears at inopportune times allowed Florida extra chances, and they are a team that will take advantage of that.
As for the offense – they just never looked comfortable in the zone. There was little space to operate and absolutely no seams through the middle of the ice. That led to them forcing a lot of shots from the perimeter, and too many of those shots went wide. In regards to unblocked shots, the series was fairly even, with the Lightning having the slight edge 156-151. However, the Lightning managed to miss the net 67 times (43%) of the time.
Tipped shots going just wide does account for a portion of that. Also, missing the net can still cause some chaotic moments for the defending team, if the shooting team is able to recover the puck and keep the flow going. The main problem was that the Bolts weren’t able to do that as Florida either regained the puck, won the puck battles, or tied the Lightning up long enough to get back into their defensive shape.
Outside of the hits, a battle the Lightning were never going to win, that aspect of the game was where Florida’s physical nature gave them the biggest edge. Tampa Bay just wasn’t able to fight through the traffic to get second chance opportunities on Sergei Bobrovsky on a consistent basis.
Bobrovsky was the other key difference in the series. He was by no means spectacular as he had a .901 SV% and 2.91 GAA, but he outplayed Andrei Vasilevskiy (.872 SV%, 3.27 GAA). Bobrovsky made the saves he had to make (0.13 GSAx) while Vasilevskiy didn’t (-2.60 GSAx). After a season where he had been really solid at stopping the high-danger chances against, Vasilevskiy struggled to a .697 SV% on those shots.
Florida also managed to take advantage of the opportunities that they were presented with. Both teams made plenty of mistakes throughout the series. It wasn’t exactly a darling representation of the game of hockey. The difference was that Florida was able to make the Lightning pay for those mistakes while Tampa Bay wasn’t able to return the favor. On those rare occasions the Lightning were able to get a free look at the net, Bobrovksy made the stop.
It really was a team-wide collapse over the ten days of games. While there were some sporadically good performances from Nick Paul and Jake Guentzel, the team as a whole wasn’t able to elevate their level of execution to where it needed to be to win a playoff series. The effort was there, the execution just wasn’t.
This is the life of a team on the downside of their peak years. They are still good, but not deep enough to overcome their flaws. Retooling on the fly is a difficult, if not near impossible, process. Salary Caps are around to limit dynasties and the Lightning are feeling those effects. Julien BriseBois will have a little more room to work with this summer, but he has to use it wisely, if not the downward trajectory will continue, and there won’t be a reason to expect anything more than a first-round exit again next season.
