![]() They were not even a lock to make the playoffs around the halfway point. They are a little older, they have lost some pieces the past couple of years, they have had some injuries and none of the statistical models really seemed to like them at the start of the year. The expectations around them have also been significantly lowered and they just do not seem to have the same juice as they did in recent years. Of course you do not want to play them! They always win here!īut this year’s version of the Lightning has not seemed quite as dominant from the very start. The gap between them and the second-leading playoff win team in that stretch (the Vegas Golden Knights) is larger than the playoff win total of 20 NHL franchises during that stretch. Since the start of the 2014-15 playoffs they have won 86 playoff games, which is 32 more than any other team in the league since then. We are used to them winning, and winning big. It is admittedly a very weird thing to say about a team that is one year removed from its third-straight trip to the Stanley Cup Final and two years removed from winning back-to-back Stanley Cups. But a lot of times it usually ends up getting rocked and we all forget about them being the team you did not want to play.īut I do think there is a team in the NHL this season that could be more of the former than the latter. ![]() Sometimes that team actually does justify that narrative and goes on a crazy run through the playoffs. ![]() When the playoffs start to get closer there is always that one team at the bottom of the playoff field that is playing reasonably well, getting hot at the right time, and is preparing to go into the postseason declared as “the team you do not want to play.”
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