Evaluating HC Jon Cooper’s comments, Lightning’s losing streak

Today on "Daily Faceoff Live," Tyler Yaremchuk and Mike McKenna talk about Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper’s decision on sitting star players Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point out for the third period against the Buffalo Sabres.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s talk about another team that wants to go on another long playoff run, the Tampa Bay Lightning have been to three straight Stanley Cup Finals but you wouldn’t have been able to tell by watching them this past weekend. They’ve lost five games in a row, Saturday they lost to the Buffalo Sabres and in the final 20 minutes of that game, Jon Cooper sat down his stars, Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov. There were a total of zero shifts in that third period against the Sabres.

Some people might say that was a load management type of deal like “ hey they aren’t going to win, they won’t come back, they play the next days so rest your stars.” In a way, I guess their Star players responded pretty well against Carolina on Sunday, Kucherov had four shots on goal, and Stamkos had a team-leading five hits. But that was a pretty miserable game for the Lightning, they lose 6-0 and they become the only team this season to go an entire period without a shot on goal. They got outshot 38-14, Mike, are the Lightning running out of gas or is this just a mid-season blip on the radar? 

Mike McKenna: Well it’s more than a blip on the radar if Cooper goes nuclear mode and sits down his top line. That’s not load management, that’s trying to send a message to your entire lineup. Go back and look at the goals against in the game against Buffalo, you got Brayden Point on a lazy back check for the Sabres’ third goal and then with 20 seconds left in the period, Point doesn’t give any pressure to Tage Thompson who just waltzes in and makes it 4-1. I think when you look at it as a whole, Cooper says hey we got to hold our top line accountable and hold them to the same accountability as everyone throughout the lineup. Stamkos, Point, Kucherov, they are big boys and they can handle this, they’re leaders, they know what this looks like.

The problem is the team went out and backed it up with a terrible performance against Carolina the following night. I don’t care if it’s back-to-back, after that happens with your top line you got to bring it. They’ve allowed 27 goals in their last five games and Andrei Vasilevskiy has played four of those. They haven’t won in two weeks, they allowed four powerplay goals in Carolina, and even Anthony Cirelli got chewed up last night.

I think part of this is a bit of growing pains, you’ve got Tanner Jeannot mixing into the lineup trying to find second and third-line minutes. The bottom line is they didn’t work hard enough against Buffalo and then they came out a laid an egg against Carolina. Tampa has lost five straight games and they have to bounce back. There are 20 games left and you can’t just slowly walk your way into the playoffs. 

Tyler Yaremchuk: No, and as much as the Tampa Bay Lightning has done in the past; you can’t just be the team that goes “hey we will flip the switch in game one” because that Maple Leafs’ team you’re going up against looks good. Also, another concern for the Lightning is Victor Hedman who went down hard, was slow to get up and went down the tunnel. If that team starts running into injuries you really wonder if they are capable of going on another deep playoff run.  

You can watch the full episode here…