Tampa Bay’s Defense
When the average hockey fan talks about defensive teams, they would generally mention teams such as the Boston, Bruins, New York Islanders, Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild or St. Louis Blues. (Most of whom allow less high danger chances per game than the Leafs).
These teams are all considered above-average defensive teams, however, the Tampa Bay Lightning are not far off and they are even better defensively than a number of these teams listed.
But in reality, when Tampa is stacked up against the most commonly discussed defensive teams, they are almost identical.
My assumption is that since they are such a skilled offensively oriented team they have not being labeled as good defensively. Just because the Tampa doesn’t play low event hockey, this doesn’t mean that they don’t suppress scoring chances at an effective level.
Another reason I can see their defense being underrated is the idea that Vasivelisky is the best goalie in the world because of his S%, when in reality his SV% is so high because of the team in front of him. If we use metrics such as GSAx which account for shot quality against, then Vasivelisky’s numbers look largely worse than you may expect.
For what reason this is the case, I don’t have the answer to it, but it sure does make sense. The notion that a skilled offensive team can not be excellent defensively is completely false.
But to further discuss this, it is important to break the team’s defensive value even further.
The first aspect to note is how good some of Tampa’s players are defensively. So we will start with the defensemen.
Tampa Bay’s Defensemen
On the defensive side of things, Tampa has some excellent shutdown players with the likes of Ryan McDonagh, Eric Cernak, and former Norris winner Victor Hedman, along with other players who are competent defensive play drivers.
With players like Mikhail Sergachev and Kevin Shattenkirk, they may not be phenomenal in their defensive end (although probably more effective than you would assume) but they are excellent at breaking up plays in the neutral zone to even prevent the opposition to even enter the defensive zone.
These players do put up very respectable defensive metrics, they would probably be on the top of the Toronto Maple Leafs blueline in terms of limiting chances against.
Relating back to the Toronto Maple Leafs again, both players play a similar mold to Travis Dermott who I broke down why he is so effective at preventing offense here. In fact, Habs writer Mitch Brown did an excellent video/number analysis of Sergachev’s ability to defend a few years ago, from which I assume Sergachev must have only improved from at this point in his career.
Overall the group of Tampa Bay’s defensemen is a very strong one, not the best in the league by any means but still above average.
But to me what drives the bus more than anything as to why the team is so effective at preventing goals against is their forward group.
Tampa Bay’s Forwards
Players including Anthony Cirelli, Alex Killorin, Yanni Gourde, Ondrej Palat, Brayden Point and the whole group as a whole are so effective at preventing offense against.
In fact, offensively I am not sure if they can beat out the Toronto Maple Leafs crop of forwards, but there is no doubt their group of forwards are superior on the defensive side of the game.
To circle back to the players, it would not be official if I did not exclaim about Anthony Cirelli legitimately deserving Sekle trophy buzz, which had finally started to emerge as a talking point.
Cirelli has been among the most impactful players at limiting chances both on the penalty kill and at even strength since he got into the league. Loserpoints from Raw Charge went into more detail on Cirelli’s defensive game last season from which I only expect he would have improved upon as he closes in on his prime.
To sum up the team as whole defensively, we can now take a look at the team-wide metrics to cover the team’s defensive game as a whole.
Overall Defensive Game
When we compared Tampa Bay’s defensive metrics compared to the rest of the league, they again show up a very good, unsurprisingly.
The first and most important aspect we should look at is the teams 5v5 defensive game.
In terms of metrics at 5v5, Tampa ranks 5th in GA/60, 3rd in CA/60 (shot attempts against per 60), and 4th in xGA/60 (expected goals against/60). These rankings are of course at the top of the league, so Tampa’s 5v5 defense rounds out to be among the elite.
Here is the visual for their defense at 5v5 (Negative is a good thing in this case and less red is good).
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Chart from Micah Blake McCurdy’s Hockeyviz
This states that Tampa’s defense at 5v5 is 8% above the league average, which is very good.
Moving on to their penalty kill, the Lightning find themselves at 8th in the league at GA/60, which is not among the elite like the other aspects of their game but nonetheless certainly above average.
So next time be sure to understand that because a team is good at offense, this does not mean they are bad at the defensive side of the game.