The Tampa Bay Lightning finished up the 2023 calendar year by defeating the Montreal Canadiens 4-3 on New Year’s Eve, which came on the heels of a 5-1 thrashing the night before at the hands of the New York Rangers. The Lightning entered 2024 tied for third place in the Atlantic Division with the Toronto Maple Leafs, putting them in a precarious position to make the playoffs.
Despite being in playoff contention, the Lightning still have a lot of work to do in 2024 if they want to qualify for this season’s chase for the Stanley Cup. After overcoming the loss of goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy at the start of the season, the Lightning continued to play inconsistently for most of the first part of the season. This leads to a few resolutions for the team that will hopefully help them improve in 2024 and give them a chance to make a deep playoff run.
Resolution #1 – Re-Sign Steven Stamkos
On Sunday, Stamkos set the Lightning franchise record by playing in his 1038th game, surpassing the mark set by Vincent Lecavalier. Earlier in the season, the Lightning captain was disappointed that the team hadn’t engaged in meaningful contract talks ahead of training camp, with free agency looming in the summer of 2024. It was surmised that general manager Julien BriseBois wanted to see what the salary cap for the 2024-25 season would look like, in addition to finding out what the 33-year-old could still do on the ice. With those two questions now answered, keeping Stamkos on the Lightning roster for the foreseeable future should be a priority.
The cap, which is expected to rise by $4.2 million, has not increased more than $4 million season-over-season since it went up by $4.5 million from $75 million in 2017-18 to $79.5 million in 2018-19. This has been one of the main reasons why the team has salary cap issues. Even if this is not enough to sign Stamkos and keep a competitive team on the ice next season, BriseBois must make a trade to ensure that Stamkos is re-signed. He is too important to the franchise to move him or let him go in free agency.
Resolution #2 – Stop Falling Behind Early in Games
Too often this season, the Lightning have fallen behind by two goals or more early in games. Despite the New Year’s Eve comeback over the Canadiens, the 2023-24 version of the Lightning is not equipped to make big comebacks. According to Hockey Reference, the team is 5-11-5 when their opponent scores first, along with a 4-10-3 record when trailing after one period and 2-13-2 when trailing after two.
The team is built to stay close or take leads into the third period, as evidenced by their 12-1-2 record when taking the lead into the third period. Head coach Jon Cooper expressed frustration with this following the Ranger’s game: “In both games, we’ve gone behind 2-0 and, in this league, it’s hard to come back, especially against a team like Florida and the Rangers.”
The root cause of this has been inconsistent puck management and poor defensive play in front of their goaltenders. The Lightning are near the bottom of the NHL in giving up shots on goal and, consequently, goals allowed. Many hoped this would improve when Vasilevskiy returned, but that has not been the case. The former Vezina Trophy winner has a 2.94 goals-against average and a .900 save percentage, numbers that are slightly off from previous seasons. As good as the 29-year-old is, the Lightning must play better in front of him.
Resolution #3 – More Production from the Bottom Six
Nikita Kucherov will enter 2024 as the leader in points scored for the season. Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos, Brandon Hagel, and Victor Hedman are all contributing at a nice rate. However, the team needs more contributions from the rest of the roster. The most telling analytic is the expected goal differential (axDiff) stat, which measures actual goal differential minus expected goal differential. Their rating of -18 indicates that the Lightning is getting more good chances but not converting and allowing more of these chances than the league average.
With the top players contributing on the scoresheet, the rest of the roster needs to increase their production. A look at the stat offensive point shares (OPS), which measures the estimate of the number of points a player contributes to the team due to his offense, reveals some players have very low numbers in this area, including Tanner Jeannot, Conor Sheary, Luke Glendenning, Mikey Eyssimont, and Anthony Cirelli. While some of them contribute in other ways, an increase in scoring production would go a long way to helping the team reach the playoffs.
The team may have gotten a kick start on the resolution on New Year’s Eve, as the Lightning got goals from Calvin de Haan, who ended a 46-game scoring drought, and from Austin Watson, who is among the team leaders in penalty minutes with only 18 games played this season. The Lightning need to see this kind of support continue from their role players if they intend to make a deep playoff run.
Related: Andrei Vasilevskiy’s Return Reveals Deeper Issues with Lightning
Generally, I am not a big fan of the New Year’s Resolution tradition. A Forbes magazine survey found that the average resolution lasts just 3.74 months. In the case of the Lighting, any “resolution” must go a lot longer, or their long string of playoff appearances will end.