Latest / Backchecking the Bolts / Lightning Deep Dive: Oilers & Flames Breakdown + Wild Preview | Kucherov Leads NHL Points Race
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- Jason Linkes: Coming up next on Back Checking the Bolts. If you're Darren Radish, I think you, you almost have to test free agency because this is going to be your one deal. I mean, you're 30 years old. You've put the time, the effort in, you've earned a big raise on your contract. I think you got to go out there and just see what people are going be offering you. Welcome to Back Checking the Bolts. Back Checking the Bolts is your cup of coffee to get you the latest on the Tampa Bay Lightning. Join host Jason Linkus 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. Welcome to back checking the bolts. Hi, I'm your host, Jason. Like us. And as always, I'm joined by the managing editor of raw charge. He is Justin Godfrey. Justin, what did you think of Calgary at Edmonton? Overall, I don't think he can play too much. You go up a four game road trip out West. You come home with seven out of eight points. Pretty successful as far as I'm concerned. I know they didn't gain any ground on Buffalo, but they also didn't lose any ground. So you got to, you got to kind of look at the positives here. That Calgary game was a little rough. were some rough moments in there. thought they had some, some issues with their defensive coverage, but overall thought they played pretty well to tell you the truth. They got goalied a little bit in the second period by Devin Cooley, I don't, don't mind that road trip. think they did exactly what they needed to do. They kind of got back to their, their rhythms a little bit, a little bit more of that, that team we saw before the break. overall, I'm going to give them a thumbs up for, for their road trip, especially over the weekend. you had mentioned that. They hadn't gained any ground on first place. Buffalo Buffalo still has 95 points. The lightning or four points behind them with 91. Does it, is it a little disheartening you think right now for Tampa knowing they, they just got seven out of eight points in a road trip and they didn't make a dent in that first place lead. don't say, think we probably look more into that than they do. They're more about what they're doing and how their process is going as opposed to what other teams are doing. Cooper's kind of instilled a philosophy over there is worry about yourself and then everything will take care of itself as it goes on. They're more concerned with how they're playing as opposed to what other teams are doing. Would they like to be first when the season's over? Of course. You want that home seed, especially throughout the Eastern Conference. But at the end, they're just looking to get into the playoffs right now. They want to make sure their game is up to their standards. Let the chips fall where they may as far as standings afterwards. Well, we had talked in the last couple episodes, just how tight the Eastern conference is right now in the Atlantic. Buffalo has 95 points. They're in first place. The lightning have 91. They're in second. The Canadians have 86 points. They're in third. And Justin, the one thing they did was increase that lead over Montreal. And they put a little bit more separation between themselves and the teams that are on the outside looking in. Yeah, we're starting to see that gap rise a little bit between second, third place, and then the wild cards, which is, is honestly more important than catching Buffalo at this moment. That being said, they, they do still have the two games in hand on Buffalo. So it's not out of the realm of possibility. They can catch them. I'm not going to write off first place just yet, but yeah, kind of getting that separation from the, the playoff mess gives them a little, ⁓ I don't want them to relax really, but just give them a little separation there. Let them focus on their game and not have to worry about every point. Justin, I want to go and talk a little bit about the Edmonton game. But before we talk about the game after the game. Now, for those of you who don't know, the lightning were victorious by a score of five to two. But Connor McDavid, the superstar for the Edmonton Oilers, basically had this to say about the lightning. They're extremely well coached. They're very well organized. They are very, very rehearsed in everything they do. It's very impressive. Obviously they've been playing together for a long time and they feel somewhat rehearsed and galvanized and we are not to that level. Is that an indictment on the coaching? Is that an indictment on where the organization is right now? Or is this just a team having a bad year and there's just frustration? think it's frustration on, on McDavid's part a little bit. They're scuffling along right now. I mean, this is a team that's been to the Stanley Cup finals two years in a row. So it's not like they haven't had success. And I think in one of our little writers chats over at Raw Charge, you know, were talking about it. This is any team, you know, if you look at their success over the last few years, any other team that doesn't have Connor McDavid on it, you're thinking this is a pretty good run. A couple of Western Conference finals, I two Stanley Cup finals. I think he's just getting a little frustrated. You know, he had a taste of playing under McDate or under Cooper at the Olympics. So he kind of saw how different things are done, how Cooper runs his practices. So maybe that, you know, kind of opened up his eyes a little bit. And then the way the, the lightning played against them, they were very structured against them. The lightning just don't panic, you know, it's, one of these teams are very well coached, very well disciplined for the most part. ⁓ they, when they're winning, they're, they're in their structure. So, yeah, I could see where, you know, another player may look at that and they've gotten a little taste playing under Cooper that something they want. It is definitely an indictment of their coaching. When you figure that Chris Doblock is. Basically, I don't want to say a hand pit coach for McDavid, but he was his coach in juniors, I believe. So, you know, they kind of brought Knoblock in because he was a McDavid guy. And now if, you McDavid's kind of not quite happy with the way the coaching staff's going, you got to wonder what Knoblock's future looks like now. let's talk a little bit more about that Edmonton game in depth. And first thing I noticed was if Edmonton wasn't creating offense with Connor McDavid, they weren't creating offense in this game. It was a one man show and Tampa knew it. They were able to put the hammer on them literally with that big hit in the second period in that game. Tampa had a game plan. knew exactly what they wanted to do and they did it. It was stop McDavid and just for check the hell out of Edmonton. And it was kind of, that was our game plan looking at the game, you know, beforehand when we wrote up the preview over at raw charge. is the Lightning's depth was their biggest advantage in that game. So if he can neutralize or control McDavid, which they did do a pretty good extent, you he did score a goal on deflection early on. It's just Edmonton's kind of at that spot right now where they don't have a lot of depth once you get off of that top line, just because of the injuries they've had. So the Lightning just had a really good job of sticking with their process, letting it work. They started after the goal by McDavid, they kind of came back. That being said, he had, I mean, I thought he was really good in that game. He had a couple. chances where he just danced through the defense. Vasilevsky had to make some key stops on him. But yeah, it was a really good game for the Lightning. They stuck with it. They did what they had to do and they picked up the two points. us about Kucherov. Kucherov picked up four points in the first four goals. He's now firmly in the lead for the NHL scoring race. Tell us about Kucherov's game. ⁓ It was just another one those Kucherov games. You kind of get numb to him after a little while. You kind of look up and Lightning had three goals. yeah, look, he's got points in all of them. Well, it's kind of surprising to find out that the goal he scored, ⁓ short-handed was his first career short-handed goal. ⁓ I know he doesn't kill a lot of penalties, but I figured somewhere along the lines early on, maybe he had some, some, ⁓ PK time. They actually interviewed him after the game. He doesn't talk to the press a lot, ⁓ following games, but, ⁓ he had a little smile on his face when he said, you know, he loves killing penalties and he should be out there more. ⁓ cause you see what happens, but, it just happened to be one of those, ⁓ instances where he was in the penalty box. was, it was a five on three. think that was really the kind of the key point of the game. You go up, you got to try to kill a five on three against the best penalty kill or best power play team in the league. You kill it off. ⁓ you kill off the first penalty. Kutrov comes out of the box. JJ Moser kind of sky hooks a pass down, down the length of the ice. Kutrov's behind the defense. He, ⁓ you know, scores on the one-on-one. So. That was really a kind of a backbreaking goal for the Oilers and just a real positive moment for the Lightning. They kind of the crews from there. So it was good to see. I don't know what else you can say about Petrov at this point. He's just like, he's the best playmaking forward in the game and he just keeps chalking up the points. let's move over to the Calgary game. played that last night. So the bolts had two games in less than 24 hours. Calgary actually had come into the game with two straight wins. They also had the rest advantage. They did not play Saturday night, so they were well rested going into the game. Justin, they lost four, three and overtime, but I think it was the defensive breakdowns that really were the culprit for why they lost this game. McDonough scores first, get delighted a little bit of lead. Thought they were playing pretty well up to that point. They had a power play after that. Calorie, was the only power play in the game. Yeah. The ref kind of put the whistle away. They were definitely someone's. some areas in the third period, maybe you could have seen a caller too, but that being said, the teams played a fairly clean game. mean, I don't think there were too many egregious missed calls. Calgary kills off that power play and kind of gets into their grip, they game a little bit and the Lightning had some, some defensive issues. ⁓ wasn't very clean in their own zone. Yonashii Ionsen faced a ton of, ⁓ just point blade shots. don't, can't remember a game where I've seen so many open shooters. ⁓ we mentioned it on the third goal before that. before we started recording that backland was wide open, just a little bit of no communication in the zone. So you got both defenders flooding one side, leaving the other side open, which was- Even the Morgan Froskull. The Morgan Froskull, he just walked right down Broadway. Yep. So you had those kind of defensive breakdowns. Calgary scored twice within 27 seconds, I think kind of caught the lightning on the heels a little bit. That being said, after the backland goal, I thought the lightning really turned it on. They just kind of ran into a hot gold tender. Devin Cooley had a really, really great game, especially in the second period. He had, I know there's a point blank shot from Braden point from right in the slot that he gloved the side. Radish had a big slap shot that hit a couple of bodies and Cooley kicked it out. And then there was a nice deflection that Gage Consalves had in front of the net. His weather's, I mean, he changed direction maybe 90 degrees and Cooley was able to kick the, ⁓ the glove out and make the stop. So. That being said, you know, as bad as the Lightning played defensively, and I wouldn't even say it was bad. It was just kind of poor coverage. The Lightning were still generating their chances, which is what you like to see when you talk about, when Cooper talked about process over outcome. You know, you want to see them generating those scoring chances, which they did. If you keep doing that, you're going to eventually start scoring goals again. they lost, you Johansen probably wants that overtime goal back. Brian Schroem kind of cuts in. Matt V. Gryven had a really nice move along the boards to create some space, feeds it out in front. Johansson just wasn't squirter the shooter when it came in, kind of hit his glove and trickled in. so it's just one of those would have been nice to have the two points, but we'll take the one point in and keep rolling. Well, Andre Vasileski picked up another victory on Saturday night. Johansson was in that on Sunday and Justin, it got me thinking it's time for the nurture marketing trivia question of the day. So we are going to go to the netminders and I'm going to ask you a simple question. Actually, yes. He is number three. Yes. Darren Pupa is number three. The question is named the top 10 lightning goaltenders in games played. Oh God, this is a fun one. Um, all right. So we're going to start at the top with Vasilevsky. Number one, Andre Vasilevsky has played in 588 games. Uh, Ben Bishop, number two, 227. He had Pupa third. 206. Nikolai hobby. Bullen. You are going in order. Very Casey case of this. Uh, one 92. All right. So we're at four moving our way up the leaderboard. Moving, moving our way down the charts. Uh, let's say four. Uh, let's see. I would go with John Graham. Probably out of order. John Graham is number six. 103. Uh, Dan Cloutier. Number 10 with 76. Kevin Weeks. Weeksie? Kevin Weeks is number nine. I did not think he would make it. He has 80. I'm trying to think. So you're missing number five, number seven, and number eight. Oh, was Anders Lindback there long enough? Anders Lindback is number 20 with 47. I didn't think so. Mike Smith. Yes. Mike Smith, 118, number five. So you are missing number seven and number eight. All right. Seven and number eight. Let's see. As much as I enjoyed the Zach Birk era, I know he's not on there. He is not. He's not in the top 26. It was legendary, but short career for Mr. Birk. Let's see. I want to say Dan Ellis, but I didn't feel like he was there long enough. Dan Ellis not Dan Ellis, not in the top 26 that I have in front of me. Wow. Interesting. Okay. Think of a late nineties goaltender. got him in a trade from New Jersey. Sean Burke. No, Sean Burke, by the way, is number 25 with 35 games played. The lightning traded for him. Corey Schwab. There's autographs all around here. Yes, that's very nice, very nice autograph. It's still in a frame in my sports room. So there you go. So we've Corey Schwab at 87. The last goaltender. He was born in 1978. 93 games played, 47 wins. 31 losses and if I start reading how much time he's played it's not gonna help you What other team does he played for Trying to think here What other teams has he played for I think he played for Dallas? I'm actually gonna look it up here. Just so I have a home quiz Yes Wow, okay Yeah, Johan Holmquist played 93 games. So for everyone out there, all you have to do is email back, checking the bolts at yahoo.com with one of the names, just one that'll register you. No Zach, except for Zach. Well, even if you put Zach Bjork on there, we're going to give you credit. He was the what brother or brother, brother Lola Sebastian Bach. I've seen Sebastian Bach from Skid Row. Yeah, exactly. So, hey, you know, that's, but if you mentioned Zach Bjerke, I'm going to register you as well. But anyway, that is the nurture marketing trivia question of the day. Email back, checking the bolts at yahoo.com with just one of those names that'll register you for the Nikita Kucharoff Jersey compliments and nurture marketing. We appreciate their sponsorship. Justin, let's talk about this seven game home stand coming up. starts off with the Minnesota wild, but the wild are coming in banged up. Yeah. Little banged up. It's, it's, it's interesting. It kind of had a parallel season has the lightning and off to a slow start. Did up was extremely hot through late November, December, January. Things have cooled off a little bit. They're in that kind of division of death over there in the central where, you know, they've been chasing Colorado all year long, but they've been playing through a lot of injuries throughout the year. They've from you know, from the defense to now it's real. Kaprizov's out for, I think he's day to day. It seems like everybody on that team has missed some time. They made the big deal, you know, of course, to bring in Quinn Hughes. We talked about it the last time these two teams matched up. You know, he gives them that offensive presence from the blue line. Right now they're without Kaprizov, they're without Joel Eriksson Eck, who's been their top center for portions of the year. So it's kind of a, you know, a good time to be catching them a little bit. they did have the big win, I think an overtime win against Dallas their last time out. But yeah, it's going to be an interesting game. Minnesota is going to play hard. know, you're gonna have to keep an eye on Quinn Hughes because he's going to be out there on the ice for 28 to 30 minutes, just skating around, moving the puck all over the place. So we're going to see, it'll be a good test. Lightning kind of want a little bit of a revenge for the way they got steamrolled a bit up in Minnesota when they went to visit him. So yeah, it should be a fun game. And it's kind of a shame you go out on a four game road trip and you get exactly one day off before having to start your home stand. So. Could be some tired legs to start the game, but we'll see how they get, how they do. It's going to be a big kind of swing here over the next two weeks for them schedule wise. Well, you talk about the schedule, the lightning have a seven game home stand. They have one road trip left. play four on the road, come back to end the season back in Tampa. But Justin, this stretch of games that they have in the last 13, they play, what is it 12 teams right now in the playoffs or immediately in that race? Yeah. So three of their next four games, I think are against the Western Conference teams. And then once they're done with that, it's all Eastern Conference down the stretch. So 10 of the 13 games are going to be against the East and eight of those games are within their own division. So now you're really going to start seeing some separation, you know, as we, as we cruise to the end here, you know, it's kind of hard to believe that there's only 13 games left over the next two weeks or so, you're to see them really play some teams that are fighting. think they got to Ottawa twice. You know, that's a team that's right on the bubble right there. ⁓ they're playing Boston. You got these teams that are fighting for, for playoff spots right now. So Nashville's on the schedule. Speaking of one of those Western conference teams and they've worked their way back into a playoff spot. It's going to be go, go, go until that very last game where they take on the Rangers to close out their season. But even that could be an important game just based on standings. We've been updating everybody on the NHL scoring race after last night Nikita Kucharoff with 119 points. He is in first place, Connor McDavid with one 16 and second Nathan McKinnon, who had a three point night. He's in third with one 14 Justin after seeing Connor McDavid and Edmonton and knowing that Edmonton is not very deep right now. Everyone's going to be focusing on McDavid with dry sidle out. You have to feel pretty good where Kucherov is right now in the race. Yeah. He's also got a couple of games in hand on McDavid as long as Kutrow's healthy down the stretch. think you're going to see him keep adding the points on, know, he had a, did have a point in the, in the loss last night. ⁓ I didn't think it was interesting, you know, that, that line he's been on with Cerelli and Hagel have been so dominating, especially during the, ⁓ the road trip, but, Cooper did break them up a little bit against Calgary just to kind of get him going. He bumped the Kutrow back up to play with Braden Point. which he's been on for the last couple of years, kind of been his line mate. Cooper's going to keep him fresh. He's going to keep giving them opportunities to put the points on. We know he's going to be out there at the end of the game. If there's an empty net, all things kind of point towards Kuturov maybe wrapping up another scoring race trophy. I wouldn't count McKinnon out at this point either. He's one those guys that can keep rolling. They're getting healthy over there. So, you know, maybe he's a little less focused, you know, kind of the opposite of what's happening to McDavid, you know, a little less focused on McKinnon because they have some healthy people back. So he gets started. put the points up as well, but it's going to be a fun race. It always is, you know, is it going to be enough to get him a heart nomination? We'll see. But adding another Art Ross trophy to the, old shelf isn't a bad thing. You know, a bad season at all. Finish up with what? 130-ish points, which in today's NHL is pretty darn good. you think there's a disadvantage to winning the heart being a winger as opposed to a center? And when you when you look at the history, it's predominantly centers that win the award. Yeah, I think there's that bias that centers are quote unquote more important to your team. Um, just with some of the stuff that they have to do as far as defensive responsibilities and face-offs. That being said, it is a shame if, if that's the case, cause I, like I said earlier, I think he's just the best playmaker in the game. And if he's not putting up the points, the Lightning aren't winning. So that's kind of your definition of an MVP, right? If you're doing well and your team's winning, that shows your importance. And when he's not doing well and they can't win, I think. By definition, that's pretty much what a valuable player to a team would be. Well, let's take a look at the Vesna Trophy standings. Let's take a look at the Vesna Trophy. Andre Vasileski right now is still the betting favorite, but Ilya Sorokin just picked up his seventh shutout in the one-nothing win against the Montreal Canadiens for the Islanders. I'm going to ask this again. I know we've talked about it, but If Sirokin and the Islanders make the playoffs because the expectations were basically they're going to be a bottom feeder in the Eastern conference. Is that going to elevate him over Vasileski? ⁓ don't think so. I don't think as much as like the hard trophy, the playoffs beat as much just because there's some more definable skills or stats, I should say that, you know, voters can look at when it comes to goaltending. They've what second wild card right now. So they're hanging on in there. I think if he puts up some slightly better numbers, as far as the number of shutouts, goals against and things like that, then things of that nature, you should say. And then he's going to be right up there in the voting with. That's Leske. think it is. It's still a two horse race though. don't see anybody else sneaking in at this moment. know there were some, maybe some talk about Logan Thompson or something like that, but yeah, I think it's kind of a two horse race at this point. they're going to have to figure out who to invite is the third to the award ceremony. So they're going to have to come up with somebody. I mean, you hear Swainman, you hear Logan Thompson. I'm not sure who that third person is. I think it's just going to depend on what happens honestly in the last 10 games. think it's going to push one of them above or below. mean, you still have like Philip Gustafson, maybe speaking of Minnesota earlier, you he's had a really good year. I don't think he's getting as much credit as he deserved. It should be for, you know, the years that he's, that he's having over there. He's been a Real solid rock for him in that. So, you know, maybe he gets some late views, late votes gets up to that third spot and gets to wear a nice suit and hang out wherever they're doing the awards nowadays. It's hard to believe he was on his third team before he really got a chance to play. Yeah. It just shows you sometimes you just need the opportunity. Yeah. And you know what his spot in Minnesota was, you know, kind of in question a little bit with having Jesper Wostat behind him. Wostat got off that really strong year after. Goose have signed a kind of a team friendly five year deal this summer. Yeah. I think he kind of said, Hey, you know, I'm still the number one guy here. So I'm going to just be solid all year long. He was Minnesota, nice trade ship over the summer and in Volstead. But yeah, he's been really good. Sometimes it's the right system. maturity growing up, you know, understanding what you have to do as a professional and it could take a team, you know, a player, a couple of teams to get there. So. Justin, what's going on at raw charge? What do you have planned for this week? Let's see. Well, a lot of games to cover, we're going to be sticking up on that. Um, he teased a, a headman article, uh, last time we, met, uh, that should be coming out hopefully either today or tomorrow. Uh, you know, headman's been missed the last couple of games with an illness and Lilleberg's been back in. we'll kind of take a look and see what headman's effect on the season's been. And kind of maybe delve into a little early free agency talk, you know, it's never too early to start hoping for other players, you know, the season's not over, but you know, what's. fan's favorite thing to do is play around with the lineup and see what kind of shiny new toys they can bring in. So we'll kind of dive into that. Maybe take a look at how the college playoffs are doing. Yeah, just cover hockey like we do. Justin, you talked about the free agents. Now in Tampa, we know that Darren Radish is an upcoming UFA. Who are some of the other ones out there that you're keeping an eye on? It could have been such a great free agent year. I mean, you had Let's see, Ico was going to be a free agent. McDavid was going to be a free agent. All these guys signed their deals. Yeah. Capri's off was going to be a free agent. could have been a glorious summer, but, everyone went and, you know, signed their deals. And I think like Alex took his toot and then Buffalo is probably your number one free agent right now. They had radish. I saw there was a website out there. think it was Bleacher report put out there way too early free agent list, big board. I think. Radish was like third or fourth. It's. I don't think it's a very strong class this year. So, know, Oliver Bjorkstrang is going to be a free agent for the Lightning. He hasn't panned out really like they wanted him to in Tampa. He's been all right on the power play, but he just hasn't been scoring at five on five. He's down on the fourth line now, kind of playing more of a defensive role than probably what they had planned on him. So, you know, that's going to be a hole that they have to figure out how to fill. You know, a couple of small, Perry is going to be a free agent. don't know if they bring him back or not, defensively they're, they're pretty set. So. Not a lot of holes to fill and they may go internal for some, but it's always fun to look and just see who's out there. have to wonder now if you're in a pending UFA thinking that, with the class being this small, this really is going to increase my value just cause there's not going to be that many free agents out there. Yeah. And you got the cap going up, you know, a significant portion. are kind of getting on a little bit about not having radish side right now. I if you're daring radish, I think you. You almost have to test free agency because this is going to be your one deal. I mean, you're 30 years old. You've put the time, the effort in, you've earned a big raise on your contract. I think you got to go out there and just see what people are going to be offering you. Agents and stuff aren't supposed to talk beforehand, but I'm pretty sure they have a clue what their value is on the free market. I wouldn't be surprised if he goes to July 1st before signing a deal. And he could end up, you know, staying in Tampa. ESPN's Greg Wyschitzky has always talked about people just don't like to move, right? You don't like to move your stuff. So if you can get a comparable, you know, deal with the team you're at right now, you tend to resign with them. You know, as someone who's moved a lot over the last, you know, six or seven years, it's a pain in the ass. These players have a lot more stuff than I do. And I'll tell you that. you know, they're not the ones moving it. It's still annoying, you know, but you got to watch the movers, make sure they don't break your stuff, you know, and, ⁓ you just relocating, just ordering your mail, man. Just like updating everything that you have, you know, I still have addresses on stuff that's three addresses ago. So I think if you get something comparable, you know, for the Lightning, the Lightning have a couple of ways they can attack this. They can, you know, sign them to a fair market deal. They could do kind of what they did with Gord, where they signed them to a longer term deal with the expectations that, you know, maybe they buy them out at the end that lowers the cap hit a little bit. But, you know, we'll see what they do. Or they just say, you know what, you know, thanks for the memories, Darren, good luck in your, your new environment. You and I've talked about this on the podcast. I think the biggest. Issue with radish. He's 30. So you have age there. So if you're going to sign them for five years, the fenceman in their mid thirties typically don't age well. They catches up to them pretty quick at some point. Now he's a power play specialist. So he's going to have a lot of value to a lot of different teams out there. If you're JBB, you have to look at the fact that, Hey, do I want to tie up my cap space in a guy who could be 34, 35 who I may have to buy out and in this market, would it shock you if someone offered him 7 million a year for five years or six years? wouldn't. Honestly, I wouldn't. mean, some of these guys looking for, you know, a top pairing defenseman, you know, right handed shot, like I said, power play specialist. I don't think seven and a half million is out of the range of possibility. I think it's too rich for the lightning's blood, especially with Kucherov coming up in, you know, in another year or so. But yeah, I would. be hard pressed to see them match that deal. You know, was kind of like a couple of years ago, like when Kilorn and know, Pilat started getting this weird money thrown at him. You know, it would have been nice to find a way to sign him. Sure. But I think Pilat's kind of a perfect example of that. know, Jersey signed him to a long-term deal. He has one or two good years, but you know, the last couple of years he's been, you know, injured a lot. He hasn't been as productive as possible. And those deals kind of come back to bite you in the end. It's nowhere the light nearer to be in three years. You know, I think. This window is really tied to Vasileski's contract. How are they playing when he's up as a free agent is going to determine a lot what they do over the next couple of years. So we'll see how they go. And you kind of take that flyer that, maybe this is just a, you know, an outlier year for Radish and you're going to have a healthy head been back to run your power play next year. So can you afford to lose them? Maybe the only time we'll tell, but yeah, we'll see how it goes. of his career production is in one year. Yeah. So you're basically if you're gonna sign them long term you're banking that hey the last 40 games That's the guy I'm getting for the next five years And one of the nice things, you know watching him play every night He we refer to him as a power play specialist, but he has been really solid on defense I think he's one of the you know, as far as the light new go He's one of the best defense of I've seen as far as playing two on ones He has that innate knowledge of when to go down. He made a great play. He was in the Edmonton game You know, it's a two on one break He goes down the block to pass, instead of just doing that, he kind of sweeps his stick behind him and ends up knocking it off of the, you know, the forwards stick who had it. So he has that really nice ability to play those two on ones. He's fairly responsible in his own zone. He's not the quickest skater in the world. So that's kind of what you worry about is, you know, as he ages and he does slow down a little bit, is he, is he too far behind? You know, is he two steps behind as opposed to one? He's got the skills that he's got wherever he goes, he's going to play. So he's going to play 20, 25 minutes. Right. So I think he's one these guys who do you sign him to a big deal? No, you're gonna get maybe two good seasons out of them. And then it's a kind of contract probably, but you know, for a team that's maybe on the edge of making the playoffs or going on a run that could be worth it to them. Well, ladies and gents, that is episode number 20 of back checking the bolts for my cohost, Justin Godfrey. Here. can check out at www.rawcharge.com. I am Jason Lankes. Thank you for joining us. Please hit that like and subscribe button. If you're watching us on YouTube or whatever podcast platform you're on, hit that like button. We greatly appreciate it. Our next podcast will be on Wednesday. We're going to recap the Minnesota wild game, the first home game in quite some time. And then we're also going to preview the rest of the home stand for Justin Godfrey. I'm Jason. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Go bolts. Go bolts. Thank you for listening to back checking the bolts. We are free and available on all platforms, including Apple, Spotify, I heart radio, Amazon, YouTube, and Deezer. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review. You can follow Justin on blue sky at raw charge.com. You can follow the show on X at Tampa underscore bolts underscore pod and on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube at back checking 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 backcheckingthebolts at yahoo.com.