Lightning’s slump shouldn’t be a cause for concern… yet

While the Tampa Bay Lightning remain in a comfortable playoff spot, there’s some worry growing after a few losses as of late.

The Lightning come into the new week having lost three of their past four games, and have dropped seven of their past nine as well. It hasn’t been a positive stretch for a team that is, once again, one of the top teams in the Atlantic Division. Yet, when you look at some of the teams they have lost to over the past few weeks – the Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes, Minnesota Wild – these are squads that are expected to be playing beyond the regular season.

On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Steve Peters discuss whether there should be concern over the Lightning’s recent slide.

Steve Peters: Nothing to worry about, yet. They started this season 1-7, and I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is a team I had going far in the playoffs. Now they start 1-7. Uh-oh, they’re in trouble.’ Yeah, terrible road trip recently. Vasilevskiy has given up three or more in five of his last seven starts.

I want you to go back, and I always go back into history, and I want to look at things that happened in the past. Florida finished the season last year, three regulation wins in their last 10. The year before that, they went on a stretch from March to April, 2-7-1, yet, win the Cup both seasons. I am concerned. You want to start putting wins together, but better you have that bump in the radar right now than after the playoffs start. I still believe in the Tampa Bay Lightning. I think Vasilevskiy still can shut the gate when games really matter. They need to find some secondary scoring, without a doubt, and they’ve got to get through this road trip. We talk about road trips late in the year at Seattle, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and they need to pick up points in these games. But I still believe in the Tampa Bay Lightning.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…