Click Here

 
You are Here: Home > New Jersey vs. Tampa Bay: MOP Squad's 2007 NHL Playoff Preview
New Jersey vs. Tampa Bay: MOP Squad's 2007 NHL Playoff Preview
By BRIAN PIKE, MOP Squad Sports Hockey Editor
Apr 14, 2007 - 7:14:01 PM

Email this article
Printer friendly page


New Jersey Devils (2) vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (7): Eastern Conference Quarterfinals

The Goods: The fact that New Jersey finished second in the East with a 49-24-9 record was overshadowed late in the season by the truly bizarre firing of head coach Claude Julien with three games left in the regular season. He was replaced by the man who did the firing, general manager Lou Lamoriello, who also took over behind the Devils bench last season when Larry Robinson resigned as coach due to stress. Unfortunately for the Devils, Lamoriello’s been the club’s GM for 20 years, but last year is his only other coaching experience in the NHL, and the team went out in the second round to Carolina. Names like Elias, Langenbrunner, Rafalski and Gomez will once again lead the team among skaters, but the most important name is once again Martin Brodeur, who, at age 34, has had perhaps the strongest season of his illustrious career. Tampa Bay finished seventh in the East at 44-33-5. The 2004 Cup winners were rather inconsistent, looking stupendous at times and terrible at others. Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis were terrific; Lecavalier led the league in goals with 52, and both finished in the top 5 in league scoring with over 100 points. 2004 playoff MVP Brad Richards’ production was down at 70 points, but he remains a very dangerous player. Dan Boyle has very quietly had a season worthy of Norris Trophy consideration as the league’s best defensman. Tampa Bay’s questions centre around their goaltending, where neither Johan Holmqvist, the Lightning starter entering the playoffs, nor Marc Denis have been able to prove themselves as the team’s number one goalie. Tampa Bay was ninth in the league on the power play and a woeful 28th on the penalty kill during the season; New Jersey was 16th on the power play and fourth on the penalty kill.

Game One: Because of time constraints, this preview could not be completed before game one on Thursday. Your esteemed hockey editor apologizes for his tardiness. Tampa Bay’s goaltending took central stage in game one, and not in a good way, as Holmqvist gave up five goals on 24 shots, a couple of them rather weak, and it was basically dominant play by Lecavalier, St. Louis, and linemate Vaclav Prospal that made the score close. New Jersey scored on two of their three power plays; Tampa Bay, just one of six. Several media members pointed out to Lightning head coach John Tortorella just how much his top players played; Lecavalier was on the ice for 26 minutes and St. Louis played 28, both whopping numbers for forwards. Richards, Prospal and Jason Ward were on for 24 minutes, and Boyle played 29 minutes on defense. Tortorella’s retort was to point out, rightly so, that he’s going to live and die with his best players and that they’ll probably play more next game. On the other hand New Jersey’s John Madden played 23 minutes and Jay Pandolfo 21, the team’s two best defensive forwards, and Colin White, their best stay-at-home defender, played 25 to check Lecavalier and St. Louis.

The Key: Special teams. When Tampa Bay won the Cup in 2004, they had the best power play of the playoffs at 21%, and it really made a difference for them. When New Jersey won it in 2003 their penalty killing was working at 89%, good for fourth in those playoffs, and that made a big difference for them. Entering these playoffs Tampa Bay once again has a very dangerous power play while New Jersey was once again had one of the league’s best penalty kills. And in game one the Devils won in large part because of the special teams game. They scored two on the power play in just three chances, and allowed only one Lightning goal on their six power plays. Tampa Bay’s really going to have to improve their penalty kill, one of the worst units in the league during the season, while the Devils will have to continue to get goals from their power play, but the real matchup is Lightning power play vs. Devils penalty kill. The only way Tampa Bay wins this series is if their power play can score some timely goals for them. It’s a star-studded group; Richards usually plays the point with Boyle, while Lecavalier, St. Louis and either Prospal or Jason Ward play up front. If the Devils can keep the Lightning power play to one goal a game or less, they’ll win this series.

New Jersey Wins If: They continue to dominate the faceoff game. Much was made about the Lightning’s top guys playing so much, but playing a lot of minutes isn’t as hard when you’re a skill player and you have possession of the puck a lot. But to get puck possession you have to win faceoffs, and the Devils were by far the better team in that category in game one, especially against Lecavalier, who won just 11 of 31 draws. It seems like a little thing, but when a guy like John Madden wins a draw against a guy like Lecavalier he and his linemates can keep the puck away from Lecavalier and St. Louis, or at least make them chase it around a while, tiring them out a lot more than if they were carrying it around themselves. Now, the Devils weren’t a great faceoff team during the regular season; Gomez was their best faceoff man at 52.2% success rate, which is good but not great. Madden, 18 of 28 in game one, won a mediocre 49.8% during the season. Unfortunately for Tampa Bay, faceoffs have been a deficiency of Lecavalier’s game all season long; he won just 46.6%. Richards was better at 51.4%, and veteran Tim Taylor had the best rating of any player on either team during the season at 56.2%. If the Devils can continue to have their way with Lecavalier in particular in the faceoff circle, it’ll go a long way towards wearing him out and winning them the series.

Tampa Bay Wins If: Their goaltending settles down. No one is expecting Holmqvist, and maybe Denis if he gets into the series later on, to be better than Martin Brodeur at the other end. But while they don’t need them to win this series for them outright, they do need them to play well enough that they don’t lose it for them. That wasn’t the case in game one; Holmqvist was very questionable on two goals, and two goals was the difference between the teams. Holmqvist, who’s a 28-year-old NHL rookie this year, has already been announced as the starter in game two. It’s not that surprising that he’d be a bit shaky in his first NHL playoff experience. What’ll be most important is how well he bounces back. He won a Calder Cup with the American League’s Houston Aeros in 2003; how much that counts for at this level is questionable, but at least he has some kind of playoff experience in his past to draw upon. If Denis is called upon, well, his best playoff experience comes from way back when he was playing junior hockey; at 29, he came in to Tampa Bay this year expected to carry the load but instead had his most disappointing and inconsistent season. At the other end is Brodeur, charging up the ranks as one of the best goaltenders ever, the model of consistency and clutch play. It’s intimidating, but whoever ends up in Tampa Bay’s goal for the balance of the series can’t worry about him and will have to try to avoid the bad goals as much as possible and keep his team in games.

Bottom Line: Call it a gut feeling. Traditionally, since the playoffs went to this format, a seventh place team has upset a second place team every year. I already picked Anaheim to win in the West over Minnesota (and the Ducks are up two games to none as I write this), and if their goaltending settles down Tampa Bay has a good shot at this series. Lightning in seven.


Copyright 2007 - MOP Squad Sports

Top of Page