CALGARY – No changing on the fly to get matchups. In fact, not much attention paid to matchups at all. No, these aren’t Glen Sather’s Rangers. These are John Tortorella’s Lightning, and this is a team that believes in getting its best offensive players onto the ice as often as possible.
And so, Lightning-Flames that continued here with last night’s Game 3, has featured power against power, one top line against the other. Given the copy-cat nature of the sport, it might even catch on.
“We like playing our top players a lot,” Tortorella said. “Our situation is just that – based on situations. If there’s an offensive-zone faceoff, we try to get one of our top two lines on the ice then. That’s when we want Vinnie Lecavalier, Marty St. Louis, Brad Richards on the ice.
“We don’t get too involved in thinking about the matchups. We try to get our top guys as much ice time as we can and let them play.”
Tortorella, who is going with seven defensemen, generally plays three lines. It’s not unusual to see him mix his top six forwards, sometimes shifting St. Louis from Lecavalier’s line to Richards’ right side. It’s about firepower. Through the playoffs, Richards is averaging 22:58, St. Louis 22:27 and Lecavalier 19:16. St. Louis and Richards each played over 25 minutes in the opening 4-1 loss,then got nearly 23 minutes apiece in the equalizing 4-1 Game 2 victory. Calgary’s Darryl Sutter is more prone to use four lines, but he too loads time on his top forwards. Indeed, Jarome Iginla is averaging 22:39 per through the tournament.
“We’re in a situation where we do get the most ice time on the team, and in order to get where we want to be, to win the Stanley Cup, we have a responsibility to produce,” said St. Louis. “You have to be accounted for in all the offensive situations.”
St. Louis, who is a lock to win the Hart Trophy, led the NHL in scoring during the regular season. He went into last night’s match atop the playoff board, too, a point ahead of Richards and three up on Iginla. He had registered two goals and an assist in the first two games of this series, while Richards’ game-winner on Thursday was his sixth goal of the tournament.
“We have to score goals. We’ve been counted on all year and this is not the time to hide,” St. Louis said. “This is the time to step up to the plate and get it done, because how many times are you going to get to this place again?
“I’m happy our offensive guys got the goals [Thursday]. The more confidence we get offensively, I think the better we play.”
And if St. Louis thinks that, so does Tortorella.
“Offensive people want to score goals; they like scoring goals,” he said. “I think as an athlete you need to feel good about yourself and offensive people feel good about themselves when they score goals no matter how many times a coach is saying, ‘You’re playing well away from the puck and doing all of the little things.’
“This whole series, everything we talk about as a group here, it’s all a mindset. I think you need to get the offensive players into the mindset where they produce and score goals.”