Lightning continue to win despite logjam of games

Mercifully, the Tampa Bay Lightning are nearing the end of a grueling stretch of the schedule where they've played every other day for nearly a month, the stretch only interrupted with the Bolts took the ice on back-to-back nights for road games at New Jersey and Detroit earlier this week.
The Lightning have two more games in this play every other day stretch - Saturday versus Colorado and Monday against the New York Rangers - before they thankfully get two days off before and after a showdown versus Toronto that will pit the two top teams in the NHL against one another.

Coming at the end of the grind, the Lightning should be at a point where the schedule dictates wins are hard to come by. The Lightning should be fatigued, looking ahead to next week when they play just twice seven days as the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
Yet, here they are, riding a five-game win streak, their longest win streak of the season, into Saturday's matchup against Colorado. The Lightning have gone 10-3-0 since starting the playing-every-other-day portion of the schedule on November 13. And that's without All-Star goaltender Andrei Vasilevkskiy or defenseman Anton Stralman seeing any action over that span.
The Lightning, in fact, have pulled away from the rest of the NHL since playing every other day. On November 12, they ranked second in the NHL standings behind Nashville by a point. Now, they occupy first place in the league and have created a bit of separation between themselves and their challengers, opening up a four-point lead over second place Toronto and a five-point lead over the Predators and Saturday's opponent Colorado.

While it may be a difficult stretch of the season, Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said, it beats the alternative of practicing.
"I think everyone in this room would rather play than practice," he said. "I think we're on a stretch with 35 games in 72 days or something like that. This is pretty much every other day. We know that. We know we have Christmas coming up and then you have a bye week, extended time without a game, so you know it's going to be cramped up somewhere. I think we're just happy, especially with the way we're playing. We want to get back out there and keep going. There's no complaints in this room about the amount of games we've played."
One key that's allowed the Lightning to continue playing some of their best hockey despite the logjam of games is the coaching staff's ability to read the team. The coaches can sense when the players are tired and need a break. They also have a good handle on what the team needs to work on and focuses solely on those aspects of their game in practice. The coaches know when they need to push and when they should back off.
"They do a good job of trying to give us as much recovery as possible," said Lightning rookie Mathieu Joseph, who's scored three goals over the last two games. "It's been good so far lately about that. We had a couple of days recently which felt good for the body. When it's time to practice, we practice. When it's time to play, we play. When they give us the day off, we take the day off. Definitely impressed with the way our team responded after a couple stretches like that. I think it helps that we play with four lines, that four lines can contribute. We know that takes some weight off some guys. If you play 22, 23, 24 minutes a night, it's tiring for a body to play every other day. I think we've been able to manage that pretty well and it definitely gets easier for some guys if you can manage the lines like that."
That's the added benefit of the depth this Lightning team has displayed this season. Not only are they able to wear other teams out at the end of games because they're fresh while the opponent is tired, but they're able to sustain a high level of play over multiple games because no one line or group of players is getting the bulk of the minutes. They're spread out evenly so nobody's overtaxed.

"In stretches like this, it definitely helps," Joseph said.
Joseph made his pro debut last season with AHL Syracuse, where playing three games in three days is a regular occurrence. He said those stretches are much more difficult to deal with, particularly when you get to the third game. Plus, there's usually long travel involved on a cramped bus.
"This is a different kind of stretch I would say because it's more of a long-term thing," Joseph said. "I think we've been adapting pretty well. We have veterans that have been doing that for a while now, so it kind of makes it easy on the team. It's no excuse to not play well. I feel like every team in the league plays a lot."
The Lightning too are finding different ways to win over this stretch, whether coming from behind from multiple goals down or grabbing early leads and extending them.
"That's what good teams do," Hedman said. "That's what we've been able to do as of late. Our record obviously shows that we're a good team, but it's still 52 games left and still a lot of work to be done. We're just excited about the team we have in this room, guys coming in from Syracuse and making an impact as well. We're very happy with the way things are right now, but there's always room for improvement. We want to keep working on our game to perfection."