Tampa Bay Lightning Film Room: Using Speed To Create Scoring
By Kyle Barber
The Tampa Bay Lightning are one of the fastest team’s in the NHL. Today in the film room, we will show you how this speed to create offense.
Welcome to the Bolts by the Bay film room, a place where we sit down and break down parts of different games and situations from your Tampa Bay Lightning while dissecting what happened to create the end result. Here, the goal is for the reader to look at the game from a different perspective and maybe help understand parts of the game better than you did previously.
Today, we will be going over how the Tampa Bay Lightning’s team speed helps them create scoring chances from all over the ice. Whether it be creating turnovers or simply creating offense off the rush, speed kills, and this team has plenty of it to burn. Combine that with the combined skill this team has, and you have a recipe for success. Let’s get started.
We start with a set of plays in the team’s game against the Toronto Maples Leafs a few weeks ago. Here, we have Lightning forward Vladislav Namestnikov with the puck after a turnover by the Toronto defense. Namestnikov quickly turns with the puck to avoid the stick check of a Maple Leafs defender and quickly notices the large gap between the two defenders, with one of them in a very bad defensive position and almost at a complete stop, which makes getting back up to speed that much tougher.
Namestnikov has the presence of mind to pick his head up and look towards center ice where a streaking Nikita Kucherov was transitioning from his defensive position and quickly began to generate speed down a vacated neutral zone. The Lightning have had some trouble with teams that have effectively clogged the neutral zone, but if you don’t, this team will make you pay.
Though the Toronto defense has closed the gap, it is still way to wide to stop the speedy Kucherov, who reached top speed before reaching the blue line and now has a clean line to the net. The only thing that can save the Leafs from giving up a fabulous scoring chance is a desperation play from one of the Toronto defenders. Well, let’s find out what happens.
Give Kucherov just the smallest bit of space and he’ll finish more times than not. Give him a tunnel? You can basically put the goal on the board everytime. The goaltender actually wasn’t in too bad of a position to make the save, but when you have a player with the skill of Kucherov, any goalie can be made a fool of.
The next play I want to show is the overtime winner from this same game. Again, Vladislav Namestnikov uses his speed to create offense, this time winning the game for his team by just flat-out skating the defender.
Namestnikov begins the play from behind the net, and immediately understands that two Toronto defenders are trapped next to the Lightning goal and there is only one defender left coming back. With the three-on-three situation in the overtime period, Namestnikov has a ton of open ice in front of him. Now, the key player in this Alex Killorn. Watch the angle he takes as we continue to go through this play and it plays a major role in what the Toronto defender does as well.
As we move further into the play, Namestnikov has cleared the Lightning blue line and is still in front of the back checking Toronto player looking to strip the puck away. Marked by the X’s above, Jason Garrison will move to the bench and the other Toronto defender is out of the play completely.
Alex Killorn has moved to a wide-angle out by the right circle, forcing the Toronto defender to shadow him as he moves across the ice. Now, the defender makes the error by moving too far away from the speedy Namestnikov, probably thinking that his teammate will be able to catch up and make the play.
Instead, the speedy Russian forward continues to pull away from the back checker and is now in the attacking zone. The Toronto defender that is circled in blue has recovered a little bit, but is now in a position where he has to pick decide what he wants to defend. The position he is in does not allow him to quickly shift direction toward Namestnikov, who has not hit his top speed, and his one option is to take away the pass and allow his goaltender to have a one-on-one opportunity with Vladdy just outside of the slot area.
As you have seen in these two examples, the Tampa Bay Lightning can effectively use their speed to create offensive chances. Whether it be on an odd man rush or speeding through the neutral zone, if the team is able to get their skating going, it is almost impossible to stop them.