Takeaways from the Tampa Bay Lightning’s First Round Elimination

Four long seasons.

That is how long it has been since the Tampa Bay Lightning were not playing in the Stanley Cup Final to end their season, but that run is now over after losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round.

Emotions are strong, and disappointment even stronger. While the feelings are fresh here are some takeaways from the series:

The series that got away

Compared to last year’s first round, that felt like the Lightning snatched victory from the Leafs, this year felt to be the opposite. After trading dominating wins in the opening two games, the Lightning lost the following two in overtime.

Game three was forced into overtime by Toronto scoring the equalizer in the final minute and a blown three-goal lead in the third period of Game 4 was one of the worst meltdowns in recent team history.

Even though they tightened up their defensive zone mistakes, that allowed Toronto to control the front of the net, a win in game five was followed by a closely fought 1-1 game six that went to overtime and eventually ended in a loss. With the Lightning having no answer for their overtime struggles — now 1-10 in their last 11 playoff overtime games — their season was over.

We do have to give Toronto credit; they had a game plan and they executed it. The Lightning’s job was to prevent that from happening, but when push came to shove it was the Leafs coming out on top.

Killorn put in a performance worth remembering

If this was to be Alex Killorn’s swan song in a Lightning jersey, then he definitely put in a performance worth remembering this series with three goals and five points. His two-goal effort in game four helped build the team’s three-goal lead and broke his playoff goal scoring drought going back 29 games. Additionally, as a forechecker, he and the rest of his line had an outstanding series hassling the Leafs all over the ice.

With the team facing somewhat of a light salary cap crunch this offseason, there is no guarantee Killorn will be back next year. With his two highest scoring seasons of his career coming the past two years, the veteran forward looks set to cash in, similarly to how Ondrej Palat did last year. Like Palat, the difference between what Killorn deserves and what the Lightning can offer may just be too great of a gap to bridge.

The lack of a trade deadline differentiator hurt

While the Lightning’s core has been the main driver of the team’s success the past three seasons, there have been key additions along the way that played important roles. Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, and Zach Bogosian (a February free agent signing) in 2020, David Savard in 2021, and Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul last year all played major roles in making the team the champions that they became.

This is not an indictment of Tanner Jeannot and Mikey Eyssimont, who each had memorable performances this series, but overall, it feels like we never saw the right situation to put them in to maximize their potential. Jeannot’s injury towards the end of the regular season did not help, and while he returned for the start of the series, he was scratched due to injury in the final two games.

Even if both were healthy, the Lightning looked to have been out done at their own game. The Leafs’ deadline acquisitions of Luke Schenn, Jake McCabe, and Ryan O’Reilly were just too much depth for the Lightning to contend with. Had the Leafs not made those additions, could they have rallied back in game three and four? Or been as close in Game 6? We will never know for sure, but we do know you can never have too much quality depth in the playoffs.

Overtime Achilles heel needs to be rectified

There is not much to say here. We all witnessed the team’s struggles in overtime the last three seasons. It was a factor in last year’s Stanley Cup Final loss and played a role in this year’s first round exit. This needs to be fixed going forward.