Lightning have some concerns as playoffs approach

The Tampa Bay Lightning have been the NHL’s elite team for the better part of the past eight seasons. Since the start of the 2014-15 season no team has won more regular season games (379) or playoff games (70, which is nearly double the next closest team), while they have reached at least the Conference Final in five of the previous seven seasons, including three Stanley Cup Finals.

This season they are chasing history in trying to become the first team since the early 1980s New York Islanders to win three consecutive Stanley Cups.

For much of the season they looked like a team that was perfectly capable of doing that, even after losing some key contributors to the past two championship teams (the entire third line of Blake Coleman, Yanni Gourde, and Barclay Goodrow; Tyler Johnson).

They even found a way to go all in at the trade deadline again by adding Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul to their forward group.

On paper they are still an imposing team that has the potential to go on a run and win it all once again. But there are some concerns starting to rise to the surface as the playoffs get close.

Let’s start with the fact that over the past month-and-a-half they are only 9-10-2 overall, with only one of those wins (a 4-3 overtime win against Carolina) coming against a playoff team. Even worse, since the start of March they are just 1-9-1 against other playoff teams, continuing what has been a season-long struggle against other contenders. They have only won 15 of their 37 games against playoff teams for the season, with only nine of those wins coming in regulation. That is significantly worse than their performance over the past two years against similar opponents.

So what is happening this season, and especially lately.

Y