Anthony Cirelli Bouncing Back for the Lightning

Cirelli is someone that the Lightning are going to rely on more and more in the future. While he is yet to reach the status of being a perennial contender for the Selke Trophy, as many have hoped, he still has the potential to reach that level. The forward got off to a rocky start this year, but it looks like he is starting to turn a corner. If he can keep it up, then the Lightning’s chances of making the playoffs will go up considerably.

Player Overview of Cirelli

Cirelli made his debut in the 2017–18 season and has been a mainstay of the Lightning’s roster since the 2018–19 season. That very same year, he made the NHL All-Rookie Team and obtained some votes for the Calder and Selke Trophy. He is a versatile forward who can play in any situation, but he is especially renowned for his defensive play. Cirelli is the kind of forward that the Lightning have been able to trust in tight games and on the penalty kill.

His biggest moments have been in the conference finals that took place during the 2019–20 and 2020–21 seasons (both against the New York Islanders). Both series were tight and tense affairs where Cirelli’s defensive ability took center stage. In the former, he was able to show off a bit of his offensive ability, too, as he scored the game-winner and series-ending goal in Game 6. While he does not have an elite scoring touch, he can put the puck in the back of the net a decent amount over the course of a season. His issue has been consistency, as dry spells have held him back from reaching his potential on the offensive end, and he has yet to have a 20-goal season.

Rough Start for Cirelli This Season

The first few games of the 2023–24 campaign actually went well for Cirelli. He scored in the third game of the season and, after four games, had a goal and two assists. But the following weeks did not go well, as it was tough sledding for quite a while. Cirelli did not find the back of the net for the rest of the month and then some.

After his goal on Oct. 15, he did not score again until Nov. 9. He followed that 10-game goal-scoring drought with a slightly less dramatic six-game goal-scoring drought. Cirelli was not exactly playing the setup man, either, as he only had six assists in the first 20 games of the season. He was pretty much invisible in the offensive zone.

Cirelli Is Shooting the Puck More

It is pretty hard to score a goal if you never shoot the puck, and that is something that Cirelli has really struggled with this season. The Lightning forward had a seven-game stretch between Oct. 30 and Nov. 11 where he only recorded eight shots and had no more than two shots in any of those contests. Right before Cirelli regained form, he played two games in a row (on Nov. 22 and 24) where he failed to put a single shot on target. Any way you slice it, he had not been getting enough shots off. Of course, the issue is a bit deeper than him not pulling the trigger.

In the game on Nov. 22 against the Winnipeg Jets, he had three shot attempts, and all three were blocked. In the next game on Nov. 24 against the Carolina Hurricanes, he only had a single-shot attempt, and it missed the net. That is a trend that has followed him all season. It has been a combination of not shooting that puck enough and then not getting enough chances to reach the net when he does try to shoot. A player can afford to shoot more selectively if they have high accuracy or to have some shots miss the net or get blocked should they shoot more frequently, but having issues with both accuracy and frequency is quite problematic.

Thankfully, this last stretch has proven to be a bit different for Cirelli. Before the game against the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday, he had a four-game streak of putting at least three shots on goal. Additionally, in this stretch that started on Nov. 27, he has had two games in which he has had four shots. It should be no surprise that his shot attempts are up as well. He had a season-high seven shot attempts on the matchup again with the Seattle Kraken on Dec. 9. In this stretch, Cirelli has only had seven in which he has recorded at least three shot attempts and none in which he has had less than two.

Cirelli did have a four-game stretch where none of his shots were blocked and had two games in that stretch where no shots missed their mark, but the bigger takeaway is the quantity of shots and shot attempts. The ability for Cirelli to get his shots on net has come and gone throughout the year, but the quantity has always been low. These numbers over the past nine games have not been staggering by any means, but they have been consistently decent. If you put the puck on the net, good things will happen eventually.

Cirelli Is Getting Higher Quality Chances

Cirelli is not just putting up more shots, but he’s also been getting higher-quality shots. Over the past five games, he has had two high-danger shots, nine medium-danger shots, and seven low-danger shots. That is something reflected in his expected goals, a stat that measures the chance of a shot (which is unblocked) becoming a goal. It is a great way to see just how good the chances a player is creating are. The last game admittedly did not result in anything, as he had zero expected goals on the night. He did have a nice play on the penalty kill, but it was not enough to amount to anything in this specific stat.

His four games before Thursday were far and away his best stretch of the season. On Dec. 4, he had .8 expected goals. On Dec. 6 and 7, it was .4 expected goals both nights, and on Dec. 9, it was .6 expected goals. To put that into perspective, the exact number of times that Cirelli has had .4 expected goals in back-to-back games outside of that stretch this season is zero.

The closest Cirelli has come to replicating that four-game streak of .4 expected goals or more is when he had back-to-back nights of .3 expected goals in the second and third games of the season. Beyond that, he has had a few isolated games with .5 expected goals and one with .4 expected goals. That is pretty much it. The quality of chances Cirelli has created recently is so much higher than it has been throughout the season.

Cirelli is Having a Net-Front Presence

If you were to look at a heat map of where Cirelli scores, it is in the middle of the ice (between the hash marks) as well as fairly close to the goal mouth. There have been some outliers, but over this season and last, those areas have become his bread and butter. It is not a shock then that, as he has been hanging around that area more and getting a net-front presence, his goal total has been on the rise. His past four goals have all come from those general areas in front of the net and between the hash marks.

Cirelli’s first game against the Dallas Stars on Dec. 4 came after Erik Cernak fed him that puck immediately after Cirelli won a battle for positioning right by the blue paint. His second goal against the Stars came off the backhand between the hash marks. Against Pittsburgh on Dec. 6, he scored on the power play when Victor Hedman found him between the hash marks.

Lastly, on Dec. 9, when the Lightning were playing the Seattle Kraken, Cirelli had a beautiful tip-in off of a shot by Nick Perbix, and once again, it was between the hash marks. He is getting more comfortable taking control of a part of the offensive zone where he thrives. Continuing to play with confidence is key because Cirelli can be impactful on that part of the ice. The goals he has scored have not been flukes; they are the kind he has been scoring his whole career and can be replicated.

Can Cirelli Keep It Up?

The short answer is yes. Cirelli has all of the tools to be a capable force in the offensive zone. It is not unrealistic to expect someone with that ability to score 20 to 25 goals a year, and given his contract, it would seem that is the expectation from the front office. The question is not if Cirelli can continue to score but if will he continue to score. That is much harder to answer. He has had flashes, and it is easy to get excited about the player Cirelli could become, but there is no telling if he will reach that potential. He could very well be a late bloomer. At the same time, though, there needs to be some caution as to what to expect from Cirelli’s offensive output. He is still a somewhat young player, but he’s been in the league for parts of seven seasons.

This may be just what he is: an elite defensive forward who can occasionally provide a team with some goals. That is still a very valuable piece to have on a team. As it appears to become more evident that the Lightning are a team in transition, his large salary has gained the attention of many fans. For someone who is currently the fourth-highest paid forward on the payroll, he has not exactly warranted that expense thus far.

While he was crucial to the back-to-back Stanley Cup runs, his trajectory since then is not what the fandom has hoped for. With the salary cap rising and Cirelli being a player who still possesses the potential to improve, this deal could look much better in a few years. Much like the Lightning, Cirelli’s future feels much less predictable than it did a short while ago. Anything is possible, though, and Cirelli still has the talent to become the player that many have been hoping for.