Tampa Bay Lightning: Sellers and Contenders
In the aftermath of the trade deadline, everyone is quick to point out winners and losers. The determination of success changes based on whether you were a “buyer” or a “seller” at the trade deadline. If you were a buyer, then giving up minimal assets in order to add win-now pieces to your squad ahead of a playoff run is considered a victory. A seller, on the other hand, is judged by its ability to stockpile picks and prospects at the expense of today’s roster.
The Tampa Bay Lightning entered this season with high hopes. The team has played 43 playoff games over the past few seasons, best in the NHL, while also beginning this year as the seventh-youngest team in the league. I personally had them as a likely champion of the Eastern Conference (alongside Pittsburgh and Washington) and many others were high on them as well. After all, with two strong goaltenders in net, arguably the best defensive pairing in the NHL and a plethora of talented forwards headlined by Steven Stamkos, who recently signed an eight-year contract, what wasn’t to like?
Fate, as usual, had other plans. Stamkos is still recovering from an injury which has limited him to 17 games this season. Ryan Callahan, while not quite as integral to the team’s success, has only played in one more. Other core players such as Nikita Kucherov, Jonathan Drouin, Ondrej Palat and Anton Stralman have missed at least five games apiece. Ben Bishop, meanwhile, has not only regressed but dropped below his career average in save percentage, a year after finishing as the Vezina runner-up. Due to these unforeseen circumstances, the Lightning found themselves 10 standings points back of their mark at the same time last season.
Even before this disappointing stretch of the season, General Manager Steve Yzerman had a difficult task ahead of him. With Johnson, Palat and Drouin all due for new contracts this offseason and Bishop a pending UFA, the Lightning have been involved heavily in trade rumors since the 2016 offseason. The fact that Tampa Bay had multiple teams in between its place in the standings and a playoff spot further supported the idea of selling off assets in order to retool for the future.
By that standard, the Lightning did well to set themselves up for the future at this deadline. They picked up a 2nd round pick in this year’s draft as well as a solid defensive prospect in Erik Cernak. Furthermore, the team shed the contract of Valtteri Filppula, freeing up a valuable $5 million in cap space for next season when they need to resign those young forwards. Based on the aforementioned criteria of success for a seller, the Lightning are already one of the winners of this trade deadline.
The night after the deadline, following the Lightning’s fourth win in five games, E.J. Hradek tweeted out the following:
Some of the replies asked something to the effect of “how could the Lightning possibly be making a push for the playoffs when they just traded away three roster players?” and that is a valid question. It seems counterintuitive that a team who traded away three permanent fixtures has its sights set on success this year. But what if losing those three players doesn’t actually have a negative impact on the team?
The following two tables highlight information about the NHL players involved in Tampa Bay’s deadline trades. The first table looks at Filppula, Boyle and Byron Froese, the last of whom the Lightning received in the Boyle trade. It provides age and salary information as well as a player’s performance relative to all NHL forwards according to several metrics over the past three seasons: Corsi For % Relative to Teammates, 5v5 Points For per 60 minutes, Game Score and Pure WAR (for accessibility I will be providing information about any unfamiliar statistics at the bottom of this post). Each of the metrics is being split into a tier system according to lines (top 90 = first liner, next 90 = second liner, etc.) or “replacement level” for a forward who is not ranked in the top 360.
While there are some fluctuations in ranking by metric, the results are pretty consistent. Filppula and Boyle are ideally fourth liners who can play up in a pinch and Froese, who has played 56 games for the Maple Leafs with brutal defensive deployment, seems like an average fourth line player. Looking at this table, it doesn’t appear that the Lightning are really losing too much up front, although who they plug into the lineup to replace Filppula and Boyle will be the determining factor in whether or not Tampa’s forwards corps has been weakened.
Next, let’s take a look at the goaltenders swapped between Tampa and Los Angeles:
This table really opened my eyes. All of this data is based upon the last three years of play, all at even strength. On Save %, the former Vezina finalist barely edges out the backup/injury replacement. The other two measurements, Goals Saved Above Average (presented as a rate statistic per 2,000 shots faced) and Adjusted Fenwick Save %, both favor Budaj. With the Lightning ready to hand the reins to Andrei Vasilevskiy, Budaj has proven himself to be a very capable backup for a team hoping to make a run in the playoffs. In fact, it makes you wonder why the Kings gave up one of their better prospects in order to make this swap.
Ultimately, whether or not the Lightning make the playoffs and return to the Eastern Conference Final has much more to do with the potential return of Steven Stamkos and the continued success of players like Nikita Kucherov and Jonathan Drouin than with the players involved in these deals. But that’s exactly the point. The Lightning added prospects, draft picks and cap space all while doing virtually nothing to inhibit their chances of success this season. While Tampa didn’t do anything to address existing holes in their lineup for this year (particularly on defense, although one wonders if Mark Streit could have been an answer), it is certainly debatable whether or not Yzerman did any real damage to his current roster in the process of retooling. And that is the mark of a great deadline.
Statistic Definitions and Resources
Game Score: Aggregate statistic designed by Dom Luszczyszyn, information available here
Pure WAR: Combination of Offensive and Defensive parts of WAR model developed by DTMAboutHeart, information available here
GSAA/S: Goals Saved Above Average (information available here), turned into a rate statistic (per 2000 shots faced)
Adjusted Fenwick Save %: A goalie’s actual Fenwick Save % minus that of a league-average goaltender facing the same quantity and quality of shots (expected Fenwick Save % model from corsica.hockey), information on Adjusted Save % available here and information on Fenwick Save % available here
