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Is Tampa cooked?

Pure Slaughter Value said:
There are some wild takes here. There's a lot of teams that would love a perennial Hart tropy finalist, a top center who hits 40 goals, a couple of 35-40 goal wingers, a couple of 20-25 goal wingers and a somewhat deep D anchored by a 6'7" Norris winner.

If Colorado loses to Dallas we'll probably see some "Are the Av's Done?" posts as well.
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Tampas core is just clearly older than Colorados.

Hedman will be 35y, McDonagh 36y next season
 
A couple of their key guys are getting long in the tooth but I think they can still contend.

But I do think they are in the category where their contention window is on a year to year basis rather than many years ahead.
 
Fantomas said:
Tearing things down is the easier thing to do. Tampa has a good team, but something just didn't spark this time. Some key injuries didn't help.

When you build a roster, you hope for good luck in the playoffs. Everyone needs it in this league. Maybe next year they'll get it. A few roster tweaks wouldn't hurt, because certain role players were awful. But a teardown? No way.

I don't buy the BS about Vasilevsky being an "average goalie." Please. The core is still excellent.
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I don't either. He should be better but he is still among the league's best for me.

Felt the same way with Bob before his resurrection in 2023 playoffs. Guys as talented as Vasy/Bob/etc can pop off again at any point.
 
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It is pretty obvious what they are:
They are the Penguins post 2017.
Very good team, that you believe is still contending, but isn't.
Their main guys won it all, their defense is getting old, Vasi is not the same anymore (still good).

Multiple first round exits and fading out.
Same as Pens.
No cup for this core.
 
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Fantomas said:
Their goal differential was among the best in the NHL
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Yeah including when they were out of a playoff spot/ a fringe WC team. People just look at the crazy goal differential and assume a dominance that wasn’t really commensurate with their W/L record
 
They'll continue to make the post season but with Florida in the division they'll never advance past them.
 
SharksFan1992 said:
Yes. It took this core a long time to win a Cup. They won 2 at the end of their window, which has very clearly closed now. They are still making the playoffs, so a rebuild isn't necessary. They'll retool because they should still think they can contend. It's really just Florida and Carolina they have to compete with.
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The core is getting really old and the pipeline and draft capital isn't there.

They are still a playoff team but no longer a serious SC contender.
 
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Hard to say. Maybe Brandon Hagel is cursed. But if they hadn't played the Panthers in the first round I think maybe they get past round one. They're still a good team if you ask me though.

But, one thing I noticed in the series is they rely on Kucherov offensively. Even in the regular season he gets most of the points.

What Tampa needs is a few things. A solid 6/5 Centreman that can be used in all kinds of situations. I think Rasmussen should be the guy Tampa targets. Or if I'm going over my head, Dylan Larkin would be the perfect addition.
 
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I think they've become a bit too top heavy and old, which is not usually a great combo for long playoff runs. They probably need to deal one of their top end forwards to free up some money to add another top 4 dman and cut Hedman's minutes, and also get a bit more depth in their bottom 6.

You can still win with a bit of an older crew but you have to bring in some depth to do it. Take a little step back offensively to cut down on some of the wear and tear on your older players get in the regular season. The problem they have though is that you basically can't deal Hedman, Vasi, Kuch, or Point because they are probably lifer TB players (also still excellent players), which leads you to Guentzel and Bjorkstrand as your over 30 guys that are tradeable. Guentzel has the NMC and Bjorkstrand has an NTC. I don't know if I see them moving either but having 13-17 mil to bring in a dman and get some bottom 6 depth would help, and then you hope some of the younger guys can step up and help replace some lost offense.

Without some retooling they are going to have to pray they can get some league min guys that play above their paygrade (Ken Holland used to be very good at this with the older Wings teams in the early 2000s) or have some young guys develop unexpectedly.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
I think we need to wait and see what Florida does the rest of these playoffs before we can determine how much Tampa is cooked at this point.
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That's one of the "fun" parts about the playoffs being a single-elimination tournament - it only crowns an overall champion. Any of the teams they eliminate along their way to winning it all can hypothetically lay a claim of "hey, we were actually the second-best team because we lost to the eventual champion."

On that topic, that's why I take a slight (but only very slight) issue with an event such as the Olympics uses a single-elimination stage to determine the top three finishers. Losing finalist takes silver (second place) and then they have a matchup between the losing semifinalists to award the bronze (third place), or in the case of some of the combat sports, award bronze to both losing semifinalists without making them fight each other for it. But it's been that way for quite a while (and the hockey event has always had one ever since I started watching hockey), so whatever I guess. It is what it is.
 
They're on the Pitt path, couple of years away unless they get lucky. Problem is they have a great goalie, which will keep them competitive for a while.
 
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KirkAlbuquerque said:
Yes but they won 0 non-Mickey mouse cups .

Cooked.
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Cups are Cups regardless of how you win them. Just ask Dallas fans who remember how they won the Cup against the Sabres.
Given the same opportunity, no team or their fan base in the NHL would not have jumped at the chance to do what the Lighting did.
 
BLNY said:
As long as that loophole exists, it ain't cheating, mate. Sully won't be unemployed long, but I'll take Cooper over him any day.
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I’d take a sweaty towel found under a chair in a long forgotten storage unit that Badger Bob once used over Mike Sullivan, mate. Rangers will find out soon.

It’s a dumb loophole and that first one during the most idiotic formation of the league during a global crisis is whatever. I like Cooper though. It’s not his fault his GMs mortgaged the future and have a cap situation that isn’t gonna help him much outside of being super top heavy and little depth.

It’s too bad Hagel got hurt and then the league did its usual dumb shit of not suspending Tkachuk for the same shit Hagel did.
 
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