Lessons Golden Knights can learn from 2-time champion Lightning

The chase for the 2022 Stanley Cup is on.

The NHL offseason is underway after the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday became the second team to win back-to-back championships since the salary cap was put in place. The Lightning defeated the Montreal Canadiens, whose surprising run to the final included a six-game victory over the Golden Knights in the semifinals, in five games.

The Knights have a short offseason to address their shortcomings and find a path to the additional six victories that will get them their first Stanley Cup.

To do so, it wouldn’t hurt to look at the team that has won eight consecutive playoff series in the past two seasons while facing elimination only once. Here are three things the Knights can learn from the Lightning:

1. Have your stars be your stars

The first lesson is the simplest.

It’s a lot easier to succeed in the postseason if your best players are playing well. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy won the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP after posting his fifth straight series-clinching shutout Wednesday. He finished with a league-leading .937 save percentage in the playoffs.

Vasilevskiy’s win didn’t come without competition. Right wing Nikita Kucherov had 32 points in 23 games, tied for the fourth-most in a postseason since 1996. Center Brayden Point had 14 goals, six more than any other player in the postseason. Defenseman Victor Hedman, who won the award last year, was barely in contention despite scoring 18 points.

Meanwhile, the Knights’ list of Conn Smythe hopefuls was pretty thin by the end of their series against Montreal despite having their first two point-per-game scorers and first Vezina Trophy winner.

Captain Mark Stone had no points in the semifinals and was tied for ninth on the team in points with eight in the playoffs. Left wing Max Pacioretty was third with 11 despite missing six games, but he had a goal and two assists against the Canadiens. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury had a .904 save percentage in the series and gave up nine goals in his final three games.

Two of the only Knights still playing at an award-worthy level at the end of the postseason were defenseman Alex Pietrangelo and center William Karlsson.

“We scored goals all year,” Stone said. “Couldn’t get the job done again in the same spot. We’ll be back. We really like where this team is, and we’ll find ways to improve it.”

2. Special teams matter

The gulf between the Lightning and the Knights at five-on-five wasn’t significant.

Tampa Bay was plus-15 in 23 games. The Knights were plus-11 in 19. Those were the first- and second-best five-on-five goal differentials of the playoffs.

Where the Lightning blew the Knights away was special teams. Tampa Bay’s power play and penalty kill were major assets in their second Stanley Cup run.

The Lightning scored 22 power-play goals, allowed 10 and tallied twice short-handed. Their units were a combined plus-14. The Knights were minus-6 because of a woeful power play that went 0-for-15 against Montreal.

Stone led the team in the regular season with 17 power-play points. Kucherov had 19 power-play points in the postseason alone.

The Knights’ five-on-five game is near championship-worthy. But they need their special teams to be a weapon in the playoffs.

“There wasn’t too many rocks that weren’t overturned looking for answers (on the power play) this year,” right wing Reilly Smith said. “I feel like we tried to do a lot of different things. We just didn’t have a consistent approach that seemed to be working.”

3. Go for it

One thing that always will be remembered about this Lightning team is how far over the cap it was.

Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Dougie Hamilton said after the second round “we lost to a team that’s $18 million over the cap.” The Lightning were allowed to exceed the NHL’s $81.5 million limit by so much because of injuries, mainly Kucherov’s hip surgery that kept his $9.5 million cap hit on long-term injured reserve the entire regular season.

That relief allowed the Lightning to keep their championship core together, but owner Jeffrey Vinik still had to OK the extra spending and general manager Julien BriseBois had to get creative to use the money wisely. BriseBois ultimately added defenseman David Savard at the trade deadline to round out the roster.

Tampa Bay showed that a team willing to be aggressive and push the limits of the salary cap can get rewarded. That’s something the Knights tried to do after signing Pietrangelo last offseason.

It took the Lightning’s core many years to hoist the Cup, a stretch that included a loss in the Stanley Cup Final, two semifinal defeats and an infamous first-round sweep at the hands of Columbus.

“There’s pain,” Knights coach Pete DeBoer said. “You try to remove the emotion from it. You recognize the good things you did. You tweak, both from a coaching point of view and a personnel point of view. Make yourself better. Decide on the guys you can win with and the guys you can move on from and keep the process moving forward. I think all those things are things we’ll go through.”

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.