Could holes on defense plague the Tampa Bay Lightning in the playoffs?

The Tampa Bay Lightning are 7-2-1 in their last 10 games and have clinched a spot for the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss the Bolts’ strengths with Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Points and Andrei Vasilevskiy as well as holes on their defense which could plague them early in the playoffs.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I think we know what the strengths are for Tampa with Andrei Vasilevskiy on his game, he’s very hard to beat and if Mikhail Sergachev comes back then that blueline will be a tough one to get through. But I want to talk about the gap between goal scorers and you look at the gap between Kucherov and the guy who is in second place, Brayden Point and when I look at this team they are on the cusp of having six 20-goal scorers, Anthony Duclair has fit in well with them too, the point of what I’m doing here is I have rattled off their strengths but I’m not sure where the weakness is as we head into playoffs?

Frank Seravalli: I think for me when I watch the Lightning their weakness is on the back end. Hedman has been fantastic and I think this is a different team without Sergachev I would be curious to see how deep into the playoffs they can get without him. That’s not a knock on some of the other pieces they have, I believe Erik Cernak is a top-four defenseman but i have concerns when you start to talk about Dumba and Raddysh and those guys you’re relying on.

Frank Seravalli: I don’t know if that makeup can go toe-to-toe with the top teams in the East. Now the thing is, one of their big strengths is Vasilevksiy, he’s 8-2-1 in his last 10 games and he gave up five goals against the Penguins which is the only blemish that stands out in weeks, he was at .930 and 8-1-1 before that and he can cover that a lot up and steal a series. But can the Lightning go through a four-round slog with this defense core?