RYAN DUNNING
Special to The Leader
It’s no secret that the Tampa Bay Lightning are the undisputed most dominant team in the NHL right now.
At 55-13-4, they sit 19 points ahead of the second place teams the Calgary Flames and the Boston Bruins.
Their goal differential sits at +93, a whole 43 goals higher than the next best differential, held by the Toronto Maple Leafs at +50.
They reached 100 points in just 63 games, only the fourth team to ever do so. They also tied for the NHL record for fastest to reach 50 wins.
So, how did they get here?
Well, the team is built to win.
With three NHL all stars, forwards Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos, and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Lightning have a secure group of elite players to build around.
The Lightning have three players in the top 10 of the league in points, their two all-star forwards as well as forward Brayden Point.
With such an electric offense, it’s no surprise how dominant their offense has been.
Vasilevskiy has been a force in net as a top three goaltender in both save percentage and wins.
The Lightning special teams are also elite, leading the league in both power play percentage at 28.5 percent and penalty kill percentage, at 85.6 percent.
Such a balanced game has resulted in a team that is near unbeatable.
But hockey can be unpredictable, so will anyone beat them in the playoffs?
Well, maybe. But it is going to be tough.
The current NHL playoff format has teams play a seven game series, in a 2-2-1-1-1 set up. This means that the higher seeded team plays two home games, then two away games, before home, away, home games if needed.
Through 72 games, they have only lost four games over a seven game stretch a single time. And of the teams that beat them during that stretch, not a single one beat the team on another occasion.
In fact, the only teams to beat Tampa Bay more than once this season are the Nashville Predators and the Minnesota Wild.
So, what’s the secret to beating them?
If you’ve seen the movie “Miracle,” you’ll remember the scene where coach Herb Brooks talks about beating the Russians by playing the same way they do.
That doesn’t work against the Lightning. It seems that the best way to beat them is to change the pace of the game, and slow it down.
They have only lost after scoring more than two goals in a game three times this season.
So, if you can slow the game down, and keep the scoring low, your chances of beating them skyrocket.
Other than that, your best chance is to pray.