Three Observations After Four-Game Homestand

1. Special Teams

For much of the four games, the Lightning special teams have struggled, especially in Tuesday night’s loss against Edmonton. The Lightning power play went scoreless on five attempts and even gave up a shorthanded goal.

On the homestand, the Lightning power play gave up three shorthanded goals, going along with scoring just four goals on the power play in 20 attempts. Clicking at 20% over a four-game stretch is not a terrible rate, but when you allow shorthanded goals in three of the four games, that simply cannot happen.

In addition to the struggling power play, the penalty kill has had some difficulty as well. The Lighting gave up four goals while on the penalty kill over the four games, including two on the Oilers’ first two attempts on Tuesday night.

All three Edmonton goals Tuesday came from special teams, despite the Lightning outscoring them 2-0 at even strength and controlling much of the play.

2. Kucherov Point Streak

Nikita Kucherov has been absolutely on fire of late. He is currently riding the NHL’s longest active point streak at 11 games.

Over the last four games, Kucherov has nine points. He has just one game this season without a point and currently finds himself third in the NHL’s scoring race.

Kucherov’s recent hot streak has come as the Lightning have found some solid ground with their new top line. The combination of Kucherov, Brayden Point and Brandon Hagel has been absolutely dynamite of late, tallying 21 points between them over the homestand.

3. Needing Something from the Bottom Six

In addition to the Lightning top line finding their stride, the Lightning’s “second” line of Steven Stamkos, Nick Paul and Alex Killorn has been solid as well.

The truth of the matter is, the Lightning have not gotten much from their bottom two lines as far as goal scoring goes this season. The scoring has been very top heavy and could definitely use some output from somebody like Vlad Namestnikov who has even been seeing some work on the Lightning’s top power play unit.

There have been some decent chances created recently by these bottom six forwards. the chances have included two near goals that were eventually waved off by Namestnikov last Thursday against Carolina and Pat Maroon on Tuesday against Edmonton.