Lightning Round: Uncertainties lie ahead if the Lightning make the playoffs
If we wind the clock back one year, the Tampa Bay Lightning were sitting comfortably in a playoff spot with 90 points and a seven-point lead over the nearest wild card contender, the New York Islanders. While they hadn’t clinched a spot, they had all but wrapped one up. Not only that, they already knew that their opponent was going to be the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were in the second spot and had no chance of catching the first-place Bruins. They had actually known that for quite a while, it was just a matter of which team would end up with home-ice advantage.
This season, the Lightning are taking a different path, in fact, we’re not even sure they’re going to make the playoffs. Sure, their recent play has helped them improve the odds, but their magic number is still in the high teens (if my math is right it is 16). Moneypuck currently has them with a 99.6% chance of visiting the postseason, a far cry from the 50-ish percent they were rolling with back at the beginning of the season.
If (and hopefully when) the Bolts punch their ticket for the second season, who they would match up against in the first round is a mystery. If the season were to end today (which would be weird) they would, as the top wild card seed, be taking on the Florida Panthers, who are percentage points ahead of the Boston Bruins, but a point behind the New York Rangers.
However, with the Panthers, Rangers, and Bruins all within a point of each other, the ultimate number one seed has yet to be determined, therefore the brackets aren’t set. It would be interesting to see the Lightning end up taking on the Rangers (or Carolina, don’t count them out of the Metro title just yet) and effectively crossing divisions for the first two rounds of the playoffs.
The beauty of going that path is that it sets up the potential for a Lightning/Panthers Eastern Conference Finals, which would turbocharge the Sunshine State Rivalry. Yes, the cart is rapidly outpacing the horse at this point, but part of the fun of sports is looking way too far ahead and then having the sporting gods laugh at our plans.
Right now, the Lightning are only concerned with racking up enough points to qualify for the playoffs. They can’t afford to look ahead past their next game, much yet start scouting possible first-round opponents.In an interesting quick, they will have played their three most-likely opponents in a realitvely short time prior to the playoffs. Tampa Bay beat both New York and Florida last week and have a game against Boston this week.
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