Jonas Johansson is keeping the Tampa Bay Lightning ship upright

The Tampa Bay Lightning picked up a key win last night against the Carolina Hurricanes to move to 3-2-2 on the season. The Bolts are currently sitting at eight points through seven games and are firmly in the middle of the Eastern Conference standings.

As the adage goes, a team can’t win a Stanley Cup in October, but it can certainly lose it. And considering some of the gloom and doom that was possible when Andrei Vasilevskiy had back surgery, Jonas Johansson has kept Tampa afloat while waiting for The Big Cat to return.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Double J

Last night, Johannson made 32 stops to collect his second career shutout. These were not all easy stops either, as Carolina had an expected goals of 3.18 on the night. Considering Tampa only had an expected goals of 1.74, one could argue that Johansson helped the Lightning steal the two points inside Amalie Arena.

Even with the shutout, his baseline numbers this season have been in the middle of the pack. Of goalies that have played at least 150 minutes, Johansson is 19th out of 40 in goals against average (2.99) and 15th in save percentage (.917).

The deeper numbers showcase that Johansson is helping keep the ship afloat despite the fact he isn’t getting much help from his supporting cast.

There have been an expected goals of 20.84 with Johansson in net, the most of any goalie in the NHL. Some of that number is inflated by the fact that Johansson has the third most ice time to start the 2023-24 season, but even factoring in expected goals per 60 minutes, he is still facing shots at one of the highest rates in the league.

Yet the Tampa Bay Lightning as a team has been able to keep treading water because Johansson is 11th in the NHL in Goals Saved Above Average at 2.60 goals saved compared to what an “average” NHL goalie would allow.

A big reason for this is that he is 10th in the NHL in save percentage on high-danger chances, of which he has faced more high-danger chances than any other goalie in the league.

And while there are elements of his positioning that could be better, he’s been far better than originally advertised. There is a real narrative that if Johannson was a bottom-third goalie like we had feared coming into the season, the Tampa Bay Lightning could be sitting at something like 1-5-1, and there would be real panic alarms right now.

He’s not the long-term solution once Vassy comes back, but he has been a capable pilot through six starts.