Latest / Backchecking the Bolts / Tampa Bay Lightning vs Vegas Golden Knights Preview w/ SinBin.Vegas | Canucks Recap & 84 Bets
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- Tampa Bay Lightning vs Vegas Golden Knights Preview w SinBin.Vegas Canucks Recap & 84 Bets: Coming up, I'm Backchecking the Bolts.. If I'm the commissioner, one other thing, and people really hate this idea, but here's the other thing I would do. All the games should not be equal in meaning. Every game should not be worth two points. Some games should be worth ten, some games should be worth one. And that's how you create value on some of these games. You want to make Tuesday games matter and sell more? They're worth triple. You think people are gonna show up to the Tampa Vegas game when it's worth triple in the standings? You go from eight and two to eight and five in a hurry, like All of a sudden this game matters. Welcome to Backchecking the Bolts.. Backchecking the Bolts. is your cup of coffee to get you the latest on the Tampa Bay Lightning. Join hosts Jason Linkes. and the managing editor of Raw Charge, Justin Godfrey, as they break down the Lightning's most recent games and go beyond the highlights, telling you what the box scores didn't. It's time to drop the puck. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Backchecking the Bolts.. I'm your host, Jason Linkes.. Today we are going to break down the 4-2 victory against the Vancouver Canucks. We are talking with Ken Bolke from Sinbin Vegas. He's going to preview the Golden Knights game, and we're going to talk to Justin about his 84 bets in 84 games. And as always, we end the show finding out what's going on over at Raw Charge. And now I'm going to bring over the managing editor of Rod Charge, wearing the Buccaneer Bruce. T-shirt. He is Justin Godfrey. You can read him each and every day at www.rawcharge.com. Justin, it was a good game against Vancouver, but they found themselves falling on hard times early, just like last year, falling down 2-0, but in a game that they truly controlled. Kevin Lankinen in for the Vancouver Canucks made some really good saves early on, kept the Canucks in the game. But a nice win for Tampa, and now they find themselves heading on the road, and this time not in the state of New York. They have a three-game Western road trip. They start with Vegas, then they go to Colorado on Friday, Saturday to Utah. Give me your first impression on that Vancouver win. yeah, I think you pretty much said it. It was a really, really good game by the Lightning. a little bit of unfortunate timing with the goals. They played really well in the first. Vancouver finds a way to score in one of their few. rushes down the ice, second period, you know, Vancouver doubles up the lead early on. But pretty much from that point on, the Lightning dominated the game. I think they only gave up something like seven shots in the second and third period total, after giving up seven shots in the first period. and it was pretty much, you know, all Lightning the entire way. like you said, Lankan and had a really good game, which is probably Good news for Vancouver fans because he has struggled early on. His first couple sorts, he'd actually lost the starting net, I think, for a little while, but Vancouver was on the end of a a long losing streak. Or sorry, not a long losing streak. Well, actually, yeah, a long losing streak. that kind of their long road trip. I don't think they won a game. yeah, he has both. I don't think they won a game on that road trip, which is a little unfortunate for him. Vancouver's one of those teams that's kind of going through some growing pains right now. They are a youngish team. They've made that big deal of. to trade quinn hughes to Minnesota last year. brought in some young players, you know, Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren,, Ziv Buium. And they're just, I think, kind of struggling with that transition right now. They're they're not a good team yet. You know, I don't think they're as far along as like San Jose. but they were it was a good test for the Lightning still, in my opinion. You know, it's a game you could easily look ahead. It's a kind of a trap game. You know, the Lightning are looking ahead to a big Western Coast road trip. And then you get down early, almost through no fault of your own. I mean that like I said, they played really well in the first period. And to be down at the end of it, you know, maybe in the past they kind of hang their heads a little bit, but I thought they came out. They scored on a power play, to get a two one. Kucherov scores again, two two. They kind of go from there. So it was a really solid win. Hildeby looked good, even if he wasn't tested that much on the back half of the game. But, you know, he made the saves when he needed to. Let's take a look at the Godfrey game notes. First of all The power play finally got on track. They didn't have many opportunities, but they did convert just the one. There was only three power plays in the entire game. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so they convert on it. I think it only took them about 55 seconds. A little bit different look. Charles Edward D'Estou was on the point as opposed to John Karlsson. everybody else kind of in their same position, but one thing I noticed on the goal itself is. Is it kind of started with Jake Gunetzel? It didn't start with Kutroff. You Gunetzel had the puck down low. He's able to feather a pass pass over to Brandon Hagel in the left circle. And then Hagel makes a really nice pass back across the grain to Kutroff. Lankinum makes a big diving glove save on the first one, but the rebound comes right to Kutroff, who puts it in the back of the net. so he had a little bit different look, and it it would have been interesting if they had some more power play opportunities, if they would have kept up with that look, or if maybe they would have switched it back to Karlsson. I know at practice on Monday, they were running some different looks out there as well. It's kind of the same one we saw in the Vancouver game. then they also had a power play rotation, at least according to the reporters that were there, that had Karlsson in the left circle, had Kucherov up kinda in the quarterback position with Guentzel pulled out high and then Hagel in Gensel's usual spot down by the net. So again, I we talked about it, you know, last episode, just maybe giving the players some different looks, some different perspective on the ice just to help out. Well, let's also talk about Kucherov. Kucherov finally got going a little bit. You saw him get put two goals in, got the first two. The first one on the power play, the second one off a face off draw win by Brayden Point where he just rifled it right from the circle. Was this the first game this year where we've sort we started to see the dominant Nikita Kucherov? Yeah, it's kind of funny. I don't think so. you know, I think only Nikity Khrushchev could put up something like seven or eight points in the first, you know, six games and be considered a little bit off. I thought he's had some really good games. He's been a little snake bit in a little bit. The Seattle game, he was really good in. You know, he was firing right off the shot you know, right off the start. And it's just kind of the puck finally started going in for him for a little bit. like I mentioned, you know, he followed up the rebound. He's probably had three or four of these opportunities off of clean face-off wins that have either been blocked or you know stopped by the goaltender. So he's had some of these looks. He's got a couple in the bag now. I think he's up to three goals. So, you know, maybe that confidence will go in and who you know is going for him now on the shots and we'll see him go take off from here and you know start putting up those multi point games. Well, let's talk about your third point. It was the Lightning defensive effort. They really locked down Vancouver. in the last two periods only allowing seven shots, Dennis Hildeby could have gone up to the three hundred level, grabbed a cup of coffee and come back and probably still not allowed a goal. There was not much action for the Vancouver Canucks after they got the Elias Peterson goal early in the second period. Tell us about the defensive effort. Yeah, it was just there, they just limited everything and then when Vancouver did have the puck in the zone, I think the Lightning ended up blocking fourteen shots in the third period. If I'm not mistaken, it was twenty-one shots overall, which would be a season high for the Lightning defense. D'Astous led the way with five block shots, you know, not something he's commonly known for. so it was good to see. That's kind of one of those games where it was also an afternoon start sty start time on a Saturday. Those games are always kind of out of rhythm. So the fact that the Lightning finished it with a good defensive effort and then Holmberg put in the fourth goal, I thought he had a really good game as well. So yeah, it's just just a Nice solid, probably as close to a 60-minute victory as we've seen from the Lightning this year. Well, on Tuesday night, the Bolts. travel to Vegas to take on the first place Golden Knights. Vegas coming in to this game with a record of eight and two, and we wanted to find out more about the Golden Knights. We are gonna talk to Ken Boehkle from Sinbin Vegas and get the latest on the Golden Knights. Ken, appreciate you joining us today. Yeah. Thanks for having me. So, Ken, normally when a team comes off of a cup run, when you don't win, they typically start off slow the next year. That's not been the Vegas Golden Knights this year. Eight and two start. Their offense has been spectacular. What has been the key to this great start? Yeah, one of the things that's always been the case for the Golden Knights. I mean, you look back through their history, ten seasons, they're Always quick starters. One year they went five and five, and we all were like, Whoa, what's going on? Fire the coach, right? Like, this is a team that typically figures it out early. I think part of that is the way that they're made. They're usually built with a lot of good puck moving defensemen. They're usually built with a lot of two-way forwards. And when you're pretty well buttoned up defensively, you have two-way forwards. You don't take a lot of penalties. You usually find ways to win games early. Also I don't know why this is typically the case, but they typically play a lot of division teams and a lot of bad teams early in the season. They're eight and two. I think you can confidently say zero of their eight wins are against teams that will make the postseason this season. And the two losses are both teams that will make the playoffs. That's Anaheim and Minnesota. So I think, yes, they've gotten off to another great start. They're playing good hockey. They're going to be a very good team once again, but I don't know that this is naked necessarily indicative of what their entire season is going to be because we've seen this time and time and time again. And throughout the whole course of their history, sometimes they go to the cup and win it. Sometimes they end up in the first or second round. And one time they actually miss the playoffs. So just because they're eight and two, I don't think you can just pencil them in for an awesome season because we've seen it go every single different way. Well, let me talk about one aspect of the team that's Last year you had Cassidy, then you went to Tortorella.. Now Pick. He was the Henderson Silver Knights coach last year. What kind of impact has he made on this roster that a defensive minded Tortorella didn't? Yeah, I think it's a little too early to see that. Basically, mainly because he was an assistant under the first three coaches that they had. So he was a longtime assistant under Bruce Cassidy. And when they switched from Cassidy to Tortorella, They it was so late in the season that they basically kept the same system. A few different tweaks here. They asked their defensemen to get up into the rush a little bit more, but even that, like Cassidy was kind of asking for that too, and it just wasn't happening. Just being reiterated. They're kind of similar. They're going with a similar system, a similar style. The roster is very similar. There's not a lot of new players. There's not a lot of new moving pieces. It's the same goalies back there. I just think it's too early to determine whether or not Ryan Craig's doing a good job, a bad job, an incomplete job, like any of it. I just don't think we know yet because to this point, they've beaten the teams they're supposed to beat. They've lost to the teams they're supposed to l lose to, and not really much has happened in between. There hasn't been there's been a couple of injuries and they plugged in the obvious guy. The power play started off in in a weird formation that didn't work. They quickly changed that and went back to the one that has worked. So I just don't think we have enough data yet or enough information yet. To say whether or not this is working or not working. It's obviously not a failure, because they're eight and two and can't be a failure. But I don't think I'm ready to like ask for Jack Adams votes, which I do think I'll do if they're twenty and two, twenty and four, something like that. Then we can start talking about it. But at this point, I think it's still an incomplete, we just don't know. And then really, like you guys know this as well as anybody that you're not judging a coach on how they do in October. We care about April, May, and June. How he does there is what's going to be the determining factor, and we are a long way off from that. Where do you see this team as being better than last year's team? Anything? that's a good question. I don't know that I would necessarily say they're better at anything or necessarily even worse at anything. I I think maybe like so far they've been better at not falling behind. when the season ended, they were like 30th or 31st in time spent trailing last season, which is insane when you look at the fact that they ended up going to the cup final. Like and it's no team had ever even been close to that. so they're better at that. But again, it's like you played Pittsburgh off of back-to-back, you played Calgary, you played Nashville. You there's not been very good teams. Chicago was opening night. LA's a mess. So Are where they and maybe goaltending, I guess, has been better to this point than what it was last year. That was a huge struggle for most of the season last year. they're scoring more, but I don't know that that's necessarily repetitive. I don't that I don't know that that's something that's gonna be the case over the course of the entire season and then into the big games. We'll have to wait and see. they look a little faster, but again, the last games we saw were end of regular season after six months in a in a play or in a Olympics and now it's like now they had some time off. Of course they're gonna look a little bit faster. So I don't think they're all that different. I think I think if you just look at the roster, it looks fairly similar. And I think the team's fairly similar. They're very good. I want to talk about the goaltender This year it's pretty much been an even split. Do they have a true number one? Do you think one of those two will separate themselves from the other? I think they're going to spend most of the season doing something closer to a split. I think the just the like data has said to coaches and general managers that that's the way to do it. Now, obviously Tampa not necessarily the case, even though I think the data does kind of back it up even in Tampa too, sometimes. But they are Really planning on doing at like a 60-40, something close to that. That's what they're at through 10 games, six to four. But I think it's still pretty clear that right now Carter Hart's the starter and Aiden Hill's the backup. If they have a game and they have days off, it's gonna go back to Hart. He's gonna have to lose that job or Hill's gonna have to take it from him. Hill's four and I think he's in process maybe of doing that, but hasn't been overly impressive. And heart has certainly not been bad. If the playoffs were to start tomorrow, I would be shocked if it's anything but Hart every single game until he loses the job. So I don't think it's flipped off of what it was last year. And I think they're going to continue rotating because that's what you're supposed to do. And then when the playoffs come around, we don't rotate. And maybe eventually somebody will figure out that maybe not is the best option. But we're not there yet. Let's talk about the big three. You got Eichel Marner and Mark. season. This year he's off to a great start. 18 points in 10 games. Is this the year he finally does it? Yeah, I think so. It's going to come down to health. If he's healthy, if he plays 70 games, 75 somewhere there, he'll he'll almost certainly get there. I just think scoring is going up also in the league. He's on the top power play, has been on the top power play. And again, after it began the season where they were looking like going away from him kind of running everything. Now it's right back to everything goes through Eichel. So Basically, when they get a power play goal, he almost always gets a point on it. I would be surprised if he doesn't get to a hundred points this year. But again, if you look at his history, the main reason why he's never gotten to a hundred points in the past is not because he's come up short in production. It's because he doesn't play. He doesn't play 82 games all the time. He doesn't even all that play all that close to it most of the time. He obviously had the much talked about back injury that led to him coming to Vegas in the first place. He looks healthy so far. he had a long year last year going all the way to the cup final, playing in the Olympics. He played a bunch of games. So maybe over time I would expect him to not play some portion of the season. But if he's in there, I mean we're we're 10 games in, he's got 18. Like he only needs 72 more points, right? Like he's not that far or 82. He's not that far off already, which is insane to say. But like he's way ahead of the pace. I think he can even have a rough go or sit out for. One addition to your lineup is Trevor. Seven points in ten games, had a goal and a helper against Pittsburgh. I watched that game and he was pretty good out there. He was one of the better players. Tell everyone who hasn't seen Trevor Connelly play what to expect out of his game. Yeah, he's a smaller guy. He moves real well and he's been getting better and better and better at handling the puck. I think one of the things you'll notice when you get to watch him is he kind of pops. There's moments where he gets the puck and he pops, and then he's trying to make a play. Like the first couple of games up in the NHL, and this is totally normal for younger guys, he was kind of just trying to do the right thing, the simple thing. If the shot's there, take it. If the pass isn't there, drop it back out to the point or dump it in underneath. Now you're starting to see what made him a first round pick, what got him the I think he was almost a point per game, if not better, in the AHL last year as well. What makes him a highly regarded prospect, which is he gets the puck and now he's looking to make something happen. He's looking to put it to the front with a pass. He's looking to make that play. find that seam and and and hit something. And it's starting to come along. And then now I think you're seeing the speed, you're seeing a little bit more defensive commitment, because I think that's what they're drilling into him. Like, hey, you want to play every day. This is what we're going to need to be. We've seen a little bit of that. He took a puck away from Sidney Crosby and then went the other way and scored the goal last game. So he's starting to do some more of those things. And then where I think Tampa fans will notice him the most is he's the trigger man on power play. Their top power play, it was always Pavel Dorofeyev last year. They brought in Victor Olofson to do the job this year. He got hurt after a few games, and Connolly's been the one to step in. So when they score power play goals, usually it's either running through Hertl in the middle or it comes to Connelly on the other side, and he's the one that's supposed to finish the play. So he's definitely gonna be part of the the you're gonna notice him, you're gonna hear his name, and I think you'll you'll be impressed with what you've seen, at least to this point. Granted, this is a step up in competition, so We'll see. Like these are tests for him. Every time we go along, like these are tests for him. And this will be another test for him playing against much better competition because right now he's playing in a bottom six. He's on a third line. And he's playing against fairly easy competition to this point. I think it's going to get much better against Tampa. The game on Tuesday night. This is the Lightnings' first road trip outside of the state of New York. They've played the Rangers twice on the road, beat the Islanders on the island. What are What is your biggest concern for the Golden Knights heading into this game? just how they start. They've fallen behind a lot against good teams. That was a huge problem last year. they just could not find ways to get leads. And this year they fell behind by three to Anaheim, they fell behind by three to Toronto, they fell behind by three to Minnesota. So it's like the three teams that have the best three offenses that they have faced, they've struggled to get off to good starts. Now, the last two games they scored in their first shot. So We'll see. I think if they can get off to a good start, they should have a pretty good shot of at least keeping the game close, not if not pushing it to overtime, winning it in regulation, something of that sort. I think they're in good shape there. But if they fall behind and now they have to try and climb their way back, it's gonna be tough against a Tampa team. And and I'm assuming Vasilevsky plays. That's one of the crazier stats I've ever seen. No Tampa goalie has ever played the Golden Knights except for Andrei Vasilevsky. Ever. They've never had another goalie play a game against the Golden Knights. That's Insane to me. I I can't believe that, but that's a true stat. Well, the one thing is Vasilevski's Is still a true number one. So many teams have some kind of a pitch count for their goalies. Vasilevskiy, unless it's a back to back, he's playing. But even that, you'd think they'd have a back-to-back at some point against Vegas. Because usually, when you travel west, you end up with a Utah Vegas, a Colorado, Vegas, Anaheim, LA, and or back to back, whatever backwards. And every single game it ends up being him. It's pretty wild. He's had he's been okay. He's there've been times in Vegas where he's not looked very good. So I think that's something to keep an eye on, too. If the Golden Knights can get a couple of quick chances, good chances early, maybe they can get him back to thinking, like, ooh, I'm not that good in this building. And that has been the case in the past. So we'll we'll see. I think it's gonna be a good game, though. I think I think this is this is a good test for both teams. I think you're gonna see a Tampa really try to really try to forecheck hard in this game. And I think you're gonna see them try to get behind the Vegas D. The Tampa Power play has been a struggle this year. up until they scored against Vancouver. They were the worst in the league. I think you're going to see Vegas try to really bottle up the neutral zone and turn that puck over and make this not a two hundred foot game, but make it a ninety foot game. If they do that, I think it's gonna be tough for Tampa. But I think that when you have guys like Hagel, Guentzel, guys who like to get below that goal line and dig, Tampa can cause issues. These are two really talented teams. And and this that's something we have not seen, right? Like we haven't seen a lot of that against Vegas to this point. They have not played heavy forecheck teams. They have not played against teams That have been able to operate underneath their goal line and and and create danger consistently. I think you're right, like the neutral zone's probably going to be one of the biggest parts of the game. If if Tampa's getting through the neutral zone and getting into the offensive zone, it's gonna be hard for the Golden Knights to defend and generate offense going the other way. So it's it's it's it's a different test, I think, for certain for the Golden Knights. This is not Anaheim. And Anaheim put up three goals against them immediately. It's much closer to Minnesota, and even Minnesota's missing some players. To to be fair though, don't worry about your power play. The Golden Knights don't really take penalties. They're they're the least penalized team in the league for the the for the past like four years. It's they they're up like thirty minutes in the first ten games. It's wild. It's like fifty minutes to or fifty-six to thirty-two or something like that. It is crazy the disparity of penalties. Yeah. Yeah, they just do not they do not take penalties. And granted, this year, they've been giving up goals fairly quickly on their penalty kills. So that kills some of the penalty time that you take. It's like they're in like the mid seventies. It's not horrible. But it hasn't been great penalty killing power play has been very good to this point. I want to talk about an article that since This isn't just a Vegas thing. This is something that we're seeing around the league right now. And I wanna just tell everyone that the Vegas Golden Knights, their sellout streak has ended. You've seen attendance issues in Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Chicago. This isn't just a Golden Knights thing, but it's an NHL thing. But Ken, I wanna ask you, and I wanna relate this to Vegas, why do you think this happened in Vegas coming off of a Stanley Cup run? I have my own thoughts and I and I reached out to you guys to tell my thoughts and my side of the story. But w what do you think the reason is? I think there's a bunch of different reasons and a lot of them are uncontrollable. A lot of them is gas is seven dollars or whatever it is right now. Like groceries are up, the it's harder to get jobs, like the economy's not in the best place it's been in. Certainly in Golden Knights history, there's a legitimate argument outside of COVID where they didn't sell tickets at all. That this might be the hardest time to buy a ticket right now. That being said, there are some things that they are controlling. And one of them is they decided somewhere along the lines, may miss this year, end of last year, where they were going to take away tickets from resellers. That no longer are they going to sell tickets for a lower price to these resellers and allow them to market the tickets and resell them. And what's happened is Where the resellers normally would be taking these October games, weekday games, and selling them for half of the price of what the tickets should be. Instead, the Golden Knights still own those tickets and they're not lowering the prices. So you're seeing the get-in rate is in the sixties or seventies or sometimes even higher, despite the fact that there's only fourteen thousand people in the building. So eventually they're gonna have to parse with the fact of what is the value of a ticket. on a Tuesday night against Tampa. It's going to be pretty clear, I think, in that building that it's not going to be sold out. I don't think it's going to be all that close. and that's because the price that they're offering the tickets for is not matching up to what a Golden Knight is w fan is willing to pay for it in mid-October. So that's kind of the the challenge. And then there's a billion reasons as to why that's the case. I will make the argument that I think they've lost touch a little bit. with trying to build the fan base. They spent a long time trying to make sure that the Golden Knights fan base was something. And it went from we're an expansion team to let's ramp this up and create a true fan base. And then somewhere around COVID or after that, they decided, all right, we've got it. People love the team. Let's start taking the money as opposed to finding new people to come in. And I think that's a problem. And now cutting out the resellers and making there be affordable tickets. is another issue and you it's hard to gr grow the fan base when you're not willing to sell the tickets for a price that people are willing to pay for. It'll be interesting to see if they have to take a step back to make two two or three steps forward. I think they're in a way relearning the market. And it's an interesting approach because I think it's an approach many teams aren't willing to take right now, but maybe in the long run this could be better for the fans because the Golden Knights are going to actually truly know what their ticket is worth as opposed to when you sell it to a reseller, you sell the ticket, you're done with it. You let the reseller deal with it. They just have to be right. And there there there is an argument that they may not be right, that they may be saying, We're going to have these tickets. We don't want to price them lower than what we've already sold them to the season ticket holders for, in which case they're gonna say it's better for us to have X amount of empty seats. And I will argue that it i there's nothing more frustrating as a sports fan watching a game on TV, knowing you could have been there, but not seeing a price that's a w worth it to you. And then seeing hundreds and hundreds of empty seats. That is hard as a fan. And that makes you wonder why I am doing this. So that's one that like we'll see. I think they're that that's the argument they're making. We're willing to take a step back to maybe take some steps forward. I'm not so sure that they're gonna find ways to add value to October tickets, November, December, something like that. And they're kind of just waiting for the value to rise on its own. And I think you actually have to take the steps to make the value rise. And I I don't know that they're necessarily doing that at this point. Ken, you're the commissioner of the NHL and my co host and I have had this conversation. How many games if Ken Boehkle is replacing Gary Bettman, how many games do you make this season? people are not gonna like my answer to this. It's like in the thirties, maybe lower. Like it's a very, very small number. Yeah, I I like I'm I think I'm almost half of what you're saying. Thirty-two kind of makes some sense to me. Like one or what, thirty-one, I guess it would be one against every single team. Even that, I guess maybe you need to go a little bit more. Maybe it's two against the division teams, in which case you're pushing about forty. I think that's a huge problem we have in the league. Is it there's just no meaning. Like we can sit on here and say, This is gonna be a fun game. They're gonna play the the Lightning and the Golden Knights are gonna play It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be interesting. But then once it ends, it's not going to matter in the grand scheme of things for either of these two teams at all. And we will almost certainly completely forget about the game. The Golden Knights played Carolina in the Stanal last year. Their two games they played in the regular season were so far ago that we didn't even reference it when we got to the Stanley Cup final matchup. It was like, doesn't even matter. They're not even close to the same team. That's a problem. And to me I think you're seeing it in other sports. The NFL does not have problems selling out because the the number of games is limited. The best example ever, and I'm a huge soccer fan, is the World Cup. The World Cup went nuts in America because we know the limit of how many games there are. It's just it we just we aren't gonna see another World Cup for four years. So you can't miss that. You can't miss that opportunity. And we're doing the exact opposite. in this league. It's like play as many games as physically possible. They're adding I think they're gonna add more before they subtract. And I and yeah, I would I would argue that now if I'm the commissioner, one other thing and people really hate this idea, but here's the other thing I would do. All the games should not be equal in meaning. They the every game should not be worth two points. Some games should be worth 10. Some games should be worth one. Like I don't know how you want to decide that. But we have to find ways to make it so that some games matter more than others. And that's how you create value on some of these games. You want to make Tuesday games matter and sell more? They're worth triple. You think people are gonna show up to the Tampa Vegas game when it's worth triple in the standings? You go from eight and two to eight and five in a hurry, like all of a sudden this game matters. Like those are the types of things that like they don't like doing that stuff. And actually, shout out to the PWHL. They They're doing some of that stuff, the women's hockey league. They're doing pick the team you play in the playoffs. They have a pretty interesting way that they're deciding who gets the first pick. Like there's a lot of that stuff that they're willing to do. And I think the NHL is gonna have to follow suit eventually because they're gonna see it. They're gonna see the pain of a sixty dollar ticket just isn't worth it to people anymore. I love the idea of being able to pick who you play in the first round of the playoffs. It's great. Absolutely the TV show. All the TV show would be so sick. When we get the all the matchups and all the GMs are sitting there and they decide and then the rivalries that are created, my God. The March Madness show is one of the best shows on TV every single year. Exactly. And we could have it twice, basically, the first and second round of the playoffs would have it, and it would be awesome. And they're they're doing it in the PWHO. Could you imagine the animosity of the team that is chosen by the number one Click Hey, we're pissed. Yeah, we're gonna really take it to You want to get a rivalry going, that'll s that'll start it right then and there. I a hundred percent. And and I'm I'm in favor of opening it completely. If Vegas wants to pick Tampa or Vegas wants to pick the New York Islanders, do it. You're the ones who's gonna have to do the travel, do it. If you decide we'd rather play arguably a better team in Anaheim 'cause it's right down the road, pick them. Like I think there's so much that goes into it. And it's maybe I'm biased in that fact that that's fodder for us to talk about. And I love that stuff, but that's definitely something that they could look into. And that's an easy switch that would make things even more interesting. Granted, the problem is not fixing the playoffs. The playoffs are the best part. So like we're trying to fix the playoffs and we need to fix the regular season. And that's a bigger problem at the moment. Yeah. Don't start it in September. Don't start it when baseball's starting the playoffs. You have football. I always think you're better off trying to be games in town and that's why I always preferred when the years when they had the strike back in the mid 2010s, it was a sprint. It was a 48 game sprint and it was great. And it was fun hockey because it every game really mattered. But Ken, tell us about Sinbin Vegas. So the website Sinbin.vegas, we don't have a dot com because dot Vegas is actually a way to surf the web and it's great. And they're actually a sponsor of mine, which is awesome. so Cindman.vegas is the website. We're doing all sorts we got all sorts of the YouTube and Twitter and I'm on TikTok now. I don't do the dances, don't relax. It's gonna be fine. But I'm on there. Yeah, I'm trying. I don't know. I'm not, but I'm trying. I like I try to do videos where interesting things happen. I break down some of what's going on in the game, some teach people some stuff. I did one on middle lane drive a little while back that I thought was pretty good. So we're on all of You can go there if you if you're interested in the golden nights ever. we we we're gonna constantly be covering it and and for those who don't know, I I'm bluntly honest. I I if it if something's happening that the Golden Knights don't like, I am not afraid to talk about it. If something happened the Golden Knights love, I am also right there to talk about it. So that that's how it goes on my side. Ken Bulky, hey, thank you very much for joining us today. Look forward to watching the game on Tuesday. That's gonna be a fun game, it'll be interesting. And I would say go bucks. I'm a Buccaneers fan. and have been my entire life. So when I get to talk to people from Tampa But boy, boy. I I'm I'm I'm on the point I think I don't even want them to win anymore. What a nightmare. Good on Jalen Daniels, but boy, what a nightmare that team's become. That w they they gave that game away. There was no Yeah, coach has to go. Coach has to go. I I think Bulls I think he knows it based on the press conference. I think he's just waiting for the hammer to drop. I just think they're not gonna do it until Baker Mayfield's they don't leave it, man. Yeah, they never and they they don't do it in the regular season. Like it's been historic. We've seen it. Documentary's great. I watched that. But yeah, I fly the Bucks flag outside of the house every week. And it's been rough. A lot of lot of a lot of jokes being thrown my way, which is sad. Which people tampa note all too well. Sorry. Well, hey, g again, Ken, thanks for joining us and would love to have you on again. Anytime you want to do it. I would like to thank Ken Boehkle for joining us from Sinbin Vegas. We hope you enjoyed the Vegas preview. Now it's time to talk to Justin. 84 bets in 84 games. Justin back on the winning track. He's now four and four on the season. Justin, who did you bet on in the Vancouver game? so I went with a little combination. you know, based on what I saw in Seattle, I did like the way the Lightning power play looked. that with a Vancouver team that has struggled killing penalties. so I did go with Nikita Kucherov, over a half a power play point, and coupled that with John Karlsson with I believe over one and a half shots, which I he almost took care of in the first 10 minutes or so, you know. he had a shot on goal right away. And then early on, I think he was credited with a shot that ended up getting changed, which is never fun when you're betting on the shot totals. but he still ended up I think with three or four on the night. And then of course Kucherov with the point. so anytime you get a nice little plus two hundred bet and it hits, you know, that kind of helps you along. And I believe I'm finally up for the year, even though I'm at that four and four record. a couple of those winners were at negative odds. So, you know, I wasn't quite getting my money back when I lost. so but I am positive for the season and the tracker is, I believe, live now. I'll have the link over at Rawlcharge.com. So you can go back and laugh at some of my bets and see how we're doing as the year progresses. Justin, any leans going into Vegas? You know, I took a look at the early line when I was writing up the preview for the Vegas game. I was kind of surprised to see it at six and a half for total goals. I like the under. Yeah, and I'm kind of enjoying the under. that's where I'm leaning early. Vegas is a little looser with the puck at home than they have been on the road. the but the Lightning, you know, haven't exactly been Lightning, up the the scoreboard on the road chances wise. so that's gonna be a look at I'm gonna probably take a look at that just a little bit deeper. I may lean towards the under. I think that's my early bet. see if it comes down. one one thing I did notice is the Lightning odds, the money's kind of coming on coming in on them. I think when it was first posted, they were at plus one hundred and they're at minus one five the last time I checked. They're the favorite. No, This is on the on the p on the money line. Vegas is still minus one ten. they're one ten closer. Yeah. So it's basically a pick Yeah, kind of a pick which I'm kinda surprised at with how good Vegas has played. I mean, they're five and one at home. some of their underlying numbers aren't as strong as they are on the road, but still, you know, Vegas is gonna be a tough team. I think right now they're the class of the West. and I think the State of the Cup route road goes through them again. So We'll see how the Lightning do. I mean, it's just gonna be this entire road trip is gonna be one big long test for the Lightning, to see how good they are. Justin, tell us what's going on at Raw Charge. so we got the preview going up going up. Our friend Mantis Toboggan, greatest name in all of Raw Charge land. He posted his look at the Atlantic on Monday. So he's got that going. Again, still need to get to the Crunch, a little bit, talk to them. They won both their games over the weekend, so they even up their season at three and three, Sam O'Reilly picked up his first goal. so we'll break that down a little bit, you know, post that video and take a look and see how one of the Lightning's top prospect got his first professional goal. Work our way into the Colorado and Utah games. So yeah, that's what we got going on. Well, you can read Justin each and every day at www.rawcharge.com. I'm Jason Lykis. Thanks for joining us today. Please hit that like and subscribe button and go Bolts.. Go Bolts.. Thank you for listening to Backchecking the Bolts.. We are free and available on all platforms, including Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon, YouTube, and Deezer. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review. You can follow Justin on Bluesky at rawcharge.com. You can follow the show on X at Tampa underscore Bolts. underscore pod, and on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at Backchecking the Bolts.. If you're interested in advertising on the show or partnering with us, you can find more information in the show notes or email Jason at backchecking the Bolts. at yahoo.com.