Latest / Backchecking the Bolts / Lightning Fall in OT to Kraken 4-3 Senators & Predators Preview + Trivia
Transcript
- Jason Linkes: Coming up next on back checking the bolts to bot who was injured in their previous game. He's now out four to eight weeks. You're talking about a guy with seven goals, almost 30 points, and he plays 22 minutes a game. You're losing him at the wrong time of the season. That's a tough loss for the sense. 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 hosts, Jason Lincoln 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 back checking the bolts. Hi, I'm your host Jason Lankes. And as always, I'm joined by the managing editor of raw charge. You can see him at www.rawcharge.com. He is Justin Godfrey. Justin, you're at the arena tonight to see the game. Give us that instant reaction. Well, instant reaction. Maybe they may not let me come in the building anymore. ⁓ the light now. ⁓ congratulations. Yeah, the Lightning are now one and one in games I've attended live this year. First game was back earlier in the season when they lost to Chicago. So at least they dug a point out of this one. It was an interesting kind of game, honestly. was another slow start for the Lightning, kind of like what we saw against Minnesota. They weren't very engaged in the first period. By the time they're kind of into it, they a couple fights, know, Ulmberg. ⁓ Had a scrap, Perry almost got into another fight. By the time they got into it, they're down three one, you know, early in the second period. thought from the second period, from that third goal on from Seattle, I thought the, the Lightning were by far the better team. If you look at the numbers, it was a dominating, almost a dominating run. And even Coach Cooper alluded to it after the game. said, you know, sometimes ⁓ you can win the score, but lose the game. And that's kind of one of those, it was one of those games for the Lightning. mean. just jotted down a couple of things. had 72 % of the shot attempts. had 67 % of the shots on goal and they had a 67 % of the scoring chances as well. So most of the game was played in the Seattle zone. Couple of things that did stand out for me from a Seattle point is they limited the lightning to five high danger chances. I mean, if you look at the, you know, the heat map from the lightning, they shot from all over the place, but that front of the net area wasn't, you know, one of the places that they got a ton of chances from. So Seattle really boxed it in. They blocked, there's some disputas in this number. I've heard about three different numbers already, but from what I saw on natural stat trick, they blocked 30 shots. Seattle blocked 30 shots on the night. Lightning were over 70 shot attempts tonight, which is pretty high for them. Seattle kind of collapsed in, blocked a lot of shots, didn't allow a lot of second chances. ⁓ So, you know, they made it tough for the Lightning to score. you know, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to. I'm going ask you a quick question about the shot blocks. Is that on the defenseman or were these shot blocks all over the ice? they all over They're all over the ice. Okay. Yeah. But, but Cooper talked about it as well. He said, you know, that's kind of on the lightning as well. They weren't taking quick shots. You know, they were kind of thing. said, you know, maybe they were overthinking it a little bit. And when you do that, especially in the NHL, you give those shot blockers a chance to get out and get in front of the pucks. So the lightning weren't kind of. being instinctive, they were waiting for that perfect shot. They were looking for their lanes and cause sometimes when you do that, it just doesn't happen for them. Um, not being said from what I noticed that, know, kind of down almost an ice level, there was just a lot of, yeah, it was just a lot of traffic in front of the net. And Seattle did a really good job of getting in those lanes. So yeah, it was, it's kind of, you know, six on one hand, half a dozen on the other. Did Seattle do a good job? Yes. But the Lightning weren't quick and decisive with their shot. ⁓ opportunities either. the best shots aren't the ones that are going on that. And you see certain defensemen. The really good point defensemen. remember Sergey Gonchar, longtime Washington capital played with the penguins, played with Ottawa for a bit. He was tremendous at not every shot had to be a hard slap shot. was about getting the puck in the right spot. With headman being out of the lineup, you're having to play some other guys. bigger minutes. Do you think you missed that element a little bit with him being out? little bit. I think a little bit. He is very good at knowing when to wrist a shot on net as opposed to taking the big slap shot. Radish is getting a lot better at that as well right now. There was one play that stuck out to me. was in the third period. Charles-Edward de Stouff, who had a really good game. He had a couple of assists on the night. He gets the puck behind the Seattle net and kind of wheels out in front and Seattle just basically said, hey, You want to take a shot, take a shot from this to the side of the net. He kind of peeked over his shoulder instead of just, you know, maybe flipping a backhand on net and looking for a rebound. He kind of skated it back out to the point and wasted it. In my eyes, this was a pretty good shooting opportunity. So I think you got some younger players like this doing there, know, Lilliburg still fairly new as far as an NHL defenseman. So to your point, I do think sometimes that there's slight hesitation coming back. Maybe they're not quite as confident as just letting their shot rip. comes back to Haunum, but that being said, know, Kucherov only had one shot on that. think he had four shots blocked on the night. Um, so it was kind of a team-wide malaise today a little bit overall, not super unhappy about the game. I thought they did a lot of things really well, you know, scoring chances wise. They did give up the three goals, but you know, overall, I thought they had, they played pretty solid defensively. I think it was just one of those where Seattle got a couple of chances and they put the puck in the net. I mean, it was that simple, especially. Uh, the overtime goal is one of those couple of bad luck chances bounces for the lightning and then Montor makes a great shot. Hagel breaks his stick. Yeah. I think that was a big one. You know, that wasn't something that we noticed live on the shot. Um, but one thing our vantage for our seats, we were actually right over Montor's shoulder and you could see him holding the puck. He was waiting for Vasileci to kind of anticipate a pass and leave that post a little unprotected. You could almost see him bait him into the. Opening up a little bit, Bassey finally did it and Montor was able to slide the puck under him. It was a no look shot. mean, Montor was not looking at the net when he let that puck go. And it was just a shot that he put really put on that. was, know, it was a good move at the time. think it was a good decision. ⁓ Like he said, as far as, know, maybe not every shot that you put on that is a good shot. I don't think it was a high, high percentage shot that he put on. He was slightly behind the red line, but in overtime, there's no such thing as a bad shot. And, you know, he baited Baselaski into opening up a hole. And he put it there. So it was good. Good people on his part. Couple key moments also from the game. One, ⁓ you had Pontus Holmberg stopped on the breakaway and to Hegel stopped in the third period by Grubauer. It's a game of ventures and those two plays Grubauer came up big, especially for a team. And you and I mentioned this on the last podcast, Seattle had lost four in a row prior to when they played the lightning last week in Seattle. Seattle was in the playoffs and now they're on the outside looking in. actually trail Nashville after the win by three points because Nashville also lost tonight to the devils. But coming into the game, they had a five point deficit on that second wild card spot. So you really faced a desperate team. You have to give group our a lot of credit because he came up big for them tonight. He did. He made several really good saves. ⁓ You mentioned the, ⁓ the breakaway, ⁓ by home bird, that shot, ⁓ opportunity in the third period of Brandon Hagel, was coming off a rebound off of a Yanni Gord shot. It was one of those kind of came off the pad. Hagel had pretty good look at the net, but I couldn't put the shot past him. So yeah, mean, group baller did what he had to do to win that game. ⁓ even the goals he gave up, ⁓ Gensel and, ⁓ Perry's goals, both those goals were basically right under the bar. I mean, those are a shop maker kind of goals. It's good to see the lightning bounce back and score those goals. They were down two and they came managed to get a point. So it's not the end of the world. ⁓ they're one day closer to the playoffs. They're one point closer to the playoffs. They still kind of have control of their own destiny. They still have the game in hand against Buffalo. They're only down two points. I think they had a four point lead on Montreal who won tonight. In the end, it's not the worst thing in the world. ⁓ one thing I do like after the Nashville game on Sunday, it's all Eastern conference teams. It's all teams that they're going to be fighting for playoff spots with. So I think their kind of motivation is going to be a little bit stronger coming out of the gate. There's, there's going be a little bit more to play for. It's that, it's that stretch of the season. It's tough. You're playing a Western conference team that, you know, if you, if you don't get to two points, it's not the end of the world. So I think kind of saw that a little bit against Minnesota. saw it tonight. I don't think they were super fired up for this game. Going down the stretch, that's going to change a little bit for them. They got Ottawa on Saturday. That's going to be a division. You got a hot Ottawa team coming in and narrowing the gap between them and the Lightning. So yeah, I think you're going to see a little bit more spark out of the Lightning early on and they can carry that through the game. we talk about the games coming up this weekend, Ottawa and Nashville, let's talk a little bit about some NHL news. First of all, The Ottawa senators who are coming in are going to have some injury issues, especially on that blue line. Thomas Shabbat, who was injured in their previous game, he's now out four to eight weeks. You're talking about a guy with seven goals, almost 30 points, and he plays 22 minutes a game. You're losing him at the wrong time of the season. That's a tough loss for the Sens. saw the Lightning go through this earlier in the season when you know, Headman was out, McDonough was out, Chernak was out. Um, that happens at the midpoint of the season. You have time to recover. You know, Otto has done a ton of work to get back to where they're at right now. And like I said, losing Shabbat, is a big minutes eater, eater form is going to hurt. they've been playing without Jake Sanderson, uh, the young defenseman who probably should be on their top pairing as well when he's healthy. He is supposed to come back. You know, Sanderson's supposed to come back maybe on this trip to Lightning could see him on Saturday. Um, but another player like Lassie Thompson is a blue liner that's missed the last couple of games. He's day to day. Um, their goaltending hasn't been the greatest, um, this year. So to lose these offencemen in front of them is just, you know, you wonder if it's maybe a bit too much, if this is the straw that breaks their back and, uh, they kind of go into a slide a little bit. So that being said, uh, they're going to be a lot like the lightning or like the Kraken war tonight. You know, this is a, a team that's playing for every point. They're going to come out, you know, no matter who's in the lineup. They're going to play the lightening hard. So the lightning haven't seen him in a while. It's going to be an interesting matchup, but yeah. Injuries at this time of year, it's kind of tough. know, Pittsburgh's going through the same thing now that they've lost Crosby it looks like for indefinite amount of time. don't know the severity of his injury. looks like it's the same injury he had in the Olympics. And I have to say, I mean, I live in Pittsburgh. I see the Penguins almost every single night. Crosby has not looked the same since he came back. And now without him, no Afghani Malkin. No Anthony Mantha, no Blake Lazotte. They are really crippled at the center position. They're back to having Ricard Raquel, a winger take faceoffs because they just don't have enough centerman right now for a team that is really in the thick of it. mean, they're in the playoffs right now by a couple of points. This one is going to be a hard one to overcome if Crosby's out more than a week, because now we're getting to the point. There's 10 games left. The schedule is still so condensed. You're going to be playing four games in six nights, pretty much through the balance of the rest of the season. I don't know how they can overcome that. They just be in part of it is to Justin. They don't have a goaltender who can steal you games. have competent goaltending, but they don't have the guy like a Vasilevsky. Who, if you're being out shot 40 to 20 can still find a way to get you a W. It speaks to the depth that the Lightning have put together, you know, over the years, the fact that they can roll in some of these players when they got hurt. You know, other teams aren't having been able to do that, you know, and so they start to drop off and you kind of wonder if Ottawa and Pittsburgh are in that boat right now where the next man up that they have isn't going to be able to, you know, tread water. You know, that's kind of what you want to do while your stars are out is just have the had the other players tread water and you know, the lightning had Crozier in and Declan Carlisle and the stew, all these guys playing bigger minutes. Did they blow the, you know, the scoring out of the water? No, but they, did their job. They held the water, kept the lightning where they needed to be. They let the other stars who were still on the ice, you know, performed. Can the penguins do that? Can Ottawa do that? Can they outscore their problems? I think, I think that's what you're going to try and see from Ottawa. You know, maybe they can, they have enough offensive talent where they can outscore some of these defensive deficiencies that they have. But, uh, it's going be an interesting race. We kind of knew it was going to come down to these, these last three weeks or so, just with how crowded the standings were and injuries are going to play a part in it. Um, this isn't going to, I don't know, it's not going to be the last team to lose a big player down the stretch here. So it's going be interesting to see how everything shakes out after they start playing everybody head to head. Justin, let's take a quick look at the Eastern Conference standings first. Let's take a look at the Atlantic. The Sabres are in first place with 96 points. The Lightning are two behind. With 94, the Lighting do though have a game in hand. Montreal four points behind Tampa with 90 points. They are in the top three in the Metro. Carolina leads the East with 96 points. They have the tiebreaker. The Penguins who we just mentioned have 88 points are in second. The Columbus Blue Jackets. And this is a story not getting enough attention. Rick Bones takes over this team in January. They're at the bottom of the standings. They have been red-eyed. Ever since he took over as head coach, they have 87 points. They're only a one point behind the penguins. And then the wild card spots you have Boston with 88, the Islanders with 87. We had mentioned the Ottawa senators. They're one point out of the wild card with 86. The Detroit red wings with 84 points. And I didn't tell you about the flyers. The last couple of podcasts, they keep winning. They have 82 points. They're still five. points out of that spot, but they have a lot of young legs. They're talented. Watch out for the, will they get there? I don't think so, but they're going to be tough down the stretch. I think the Flyers are just going to run into too many teams between them or around them right now. You know, I think the caps are done. The caps are at 81 points, but they've played 73 games. So I don't think they're going to take the jump up. ⁓ the Flyers, it, ⁓ you know, it's interesting cause Ottawa. Like we said, Ottawa, you don't know what you're getting out of them right now if they can't overcome these injuries. Detroit's been scuffling of late, although everybody in Tampa is probably going to be rooting for them tomorrow when they take on Buffalo. I would like to see the, the Red Wings steal a couple points out of, out of that game tomorrow. It's going to be a dogfight coming down. think Boston's been playing solid enough that they're going to make it. You know, they're going to sneak in either a third spot in the Atlantic or the wild card spot. Like they're fine. That last wild card spot is going to be a dogfight. And with the way the Metro is setting up, I mean, you could be out of the playoffs one day and then in third place the next day, depending on, yeah, what other teams around you do. So, yeah, and it's going to come down to health. Who's healthy. The one thing I will say, and I wanted to mention this before, when you were talking about the lightning injuries earlier in the season, sometimes when you battle injuries early in the campaign, it allows you to get players playing time that you normally wouldn't get a chance to see. One. The coach has confidence in him so he knows where to play them to the players are playing at a higher speed. They always say once you get to the playoffs, the intensity, the speed of the game is faster. So it's the period of adjustment isn't going to be quite as much. If you're going to have injuries over the course of the season, even though no one wants to go through it, it's sometimes not a bad thing because come playoff time. Those players, you know what to expect out of them. Instead of having this guy that comes up from the miners and you're like, Hey, where do we put them? Right. One of his overuse sayings is, know, it's going to take more than 23 players to win a Stanley Cup. The Lightning did it in their Cup years. know, they had a deep roster. They're doing it this year. Like the point you're making, like a player like you know, Destu is. He's getting all these reps under him. You had no idea what he was going to be this year. if everything had broken correctly, he's probably still down in Syracuse helping them with their playoff run. But he got in early. He showed the coaching staff what he can do. He's getting better. He's adapting to the NHL as well. You know, for me, there's always a cut, you know, with young players or new players, there's always two adjustment periods. First is you come into the league. Now you got to deal with NHL speed, NHL talent around you. If you can handle that adjustment, you're going to stick in the league. The second adjustment comes when other teams start scouting you. You know, they start getting tape on you. They learn your weaknesses and your tendencies. If you can make that second jump, if you can adjust to that, if you can adjust to that adjustment, you know, then you're going to be a good player in the NHL. And I think the Stu's kind of in that mode right now where other teams have scoured what he likes to do and they're defending against it. Now he has to make that second adjustment to. Okay, they know I'm going to do this. So now I got to do that. And so I think getting these reps in, as you talked about, helps with that as well. know, to still getting this in again, you know, to go back to Lilleberg, this is his second full year. So he's kind of in that spot as well. There's a lot of tape on him now. They know what he likes to do. Can you make that second adjustment to it, to overcome that? So I did like to hear in a good spot, even if Headman doesn't come back, it doesn't seem like. Hopefully it's going to be too long term with whatever he's dealing with. So there's a possibility he could be back. Justin, I'm going to stop you right there. Cause there's some certainties in life, death, taxes, and the nurture marketing trivia question of the day. That's right. It is back. Thanks to the people in nurture marketing, we are going to ask Justin a trivia question. He's eventually going to figure out the answer. If you Get that answer, send it over to back checking the bolts at yahoo.com. You give me one of the correct answers. You'll be entered to win a Nikita Kuturov Jersey compliments of nurture marketing. This goes through the entire month of March. We appreciate nurture marketing jumping on with this promotion. Now, Justin, I try to give you some questions that are going to make you think. And as I mentioned last episode, I'm going to try to make you the best Tampa Bay lightning bar trivia. participant ever. I'm not really sure how to say that, but okay. I ever get on the Jumbo Tron, the lightning question of the day, I'm to be able to answer it. Okay, Justin. So there's a statistic called plus minus that we all know. That's that so much, sir. Okay. Now least favorite counting stat, but I'm not, I'm not counting this year. Not, ⁓ man. Yes. I'm not counting this year. of the Of the top seven in team history, one player has two. So how many do I need to name now? You have to name six players total. Six players. All right. So I'm going to go with Ryan McDonough. Ryan McDonough, number one and number three in 2024-25 was a plus 43. It's impressive. And in 2018-19 was a plus 38. Um, so all right. I'm a third of the way there. Sweet. Um. Victor Headman. No, he's never, he's never finished in the top six or tops. No. ⁓ And I'll tell you number seven was a plus 33. Okay. This, this is a single season, right? Single season. ⁓ all players or defensemen. All players, any lightning player. I should pay attention to the question. If we want to keep this under an hour, ⁓ Andre, pull out. No. Wow. Shocking. Um, just going with like defensive minded for Anthony Sarelli. is not correct. Well, I might've come up with a really good one. Stop me here. Marty St. Louis. Yes. Marty St. Louis is fourth 2003 and four plus 35. So I got one three and four. All right. So MVP or your plus 35. That's a, yeah. So you can press some stats. God, like I want to say Stamkos, but he gets so many points on the power play that I don't think he's on there. Yeah. I'm trying to think of non power play people. You're right to think there. Yeah. Did Kilorna have a good year? Did he ever get to plus 33? No. right. How many defensemen, how many forwards do I have left? Okay. You have the rest are forwards. They're all forwards. Okay. And let's see here. Three are still playing on the lightning right now. Okay. Uh, Yanni Gordon. Yes. Number five plus 34, 2017, 18. Uh, let's see if I can somebody else on his line. Did, uh, Godreau have a, uh, no, he wasn't there long enough. So it would have been the last couple of years. Yes. Uh, Brandon Hagel. Yes. Brandon Hagel, 2000. 24 25 also a plus 33. Yeah, cuz he scored 35 goals without a power play goal. So had to be All right, so I got one more current player and then one former player correct. All right current players top six ⁓ What about wakey wakey? Jakey Gensel? Nope Jake. No snake is not up there 33 plus take the jersey of this promotion Frederick. Kuturov? Yes. Wow. Well, I guess, yeah, you score 150 points, then you're going to be a plus something or another. So in 2014, 15, he was a plus 38. I think he has like one fifth place Selkie vote or something like that. think he does. I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. I referred to him once. I think in one column is a one shift Selkie, cause there he will, um, Every game, it seems like he'll make an awesome defensive play. you're like, you know, if he focused on this, he could probably win a selfie trophy. Um, granted, he would probably only have like 85 points. He's one of these players that if he puts his mind to it, pretty sure he could, um, he could be one of the top defensive forwards in the league. I'll say this. One of the best defensive forwards I ever saw was Marion Hosa. He never got enough credit for just how good defensively he was. And I think when he played. Under Jacques Morton in Ottawa, that really got him in the back checking mode, but he was a really good back checker. Like Kutraov has that innate talent to, to sneak up behind you, lift your stick and take the puck off of it. There's been a few, especially recently where he's his butt back on the back check and just a race to play. So yeah, you know, he doesn't, his turnovers are always going to get him no consideration for defensive form. He has that subtle, I he has those quick hands, man. And sometimes you can use it for defense. All right. We're not done with the contest. have one more and it was in 2014-15, a plus 33. Tyler Johnson? Yes. All right. TJ, he's been in like every single question over the last week or so, I think. I know. I was actually about to give you a hint and saying, he was in the last question. Yeah. Well, Justin, good job. Yeah. I'm not a huge fan of the plus minus dad. think it's just one of those. ⁓ You know, jump on the ice, you know, just as the other team's breaking away, get dinged where the minus, because, you know, the guy in front of you was slowing the line change. It is what it is. I think it's a good overview stat. You kind of look at it and then dive deeper into the numbers. know people were complaining, like Kuturov was a minus eight at one point this season and people were like, oh my God, it's the end of the world. I was like, no, it's Nikita Kuturov. be fine. What's he a plus 45 right now? Something like that. Yeah. It's insane when he ever used an alphabet. Yeah. So, I mean, again, you score 120 points. Yeah, you're going to be on the ice for a lot of goals. I was about to say you pray to God you're not on the ice for 120 goals against, know, but yeah. So, but hey, I like the question. Well, thank you very much. That is the nurture marketing trivia question of the day. All you have to do is send one of those answers to back checking the bolts at yahoo.com that will enter you in our contest to give away in Nikita Kucherov Jersey compliments of nurture marketing. your IT marketing channel experts. So Justin, real quick, we got the game coming up against Ottawa on Saturday, Nashville on Sunday. We talked about the Ottawa injuries. Ottawa is a pretty good offensive team. You're probably going to get Linus, Omar and Net. But then the next game, Nashville, who plays at seven o'clock on Saturday in Nashville, comes back to Tampa for a four o'clock start. That is a really quick turnaround time for a back to back. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those, when you look at the schedule at first, you're like, ⁓ most teams are on the back to pack. So it'll be fair. The lightning are at home on Saturday. They have a one o'clock game. ⁓ I think you said this before we started recording, they'll probably be back at home by the time Nashville even starts their Saturday game. So yeah, there's going to be a big advantage for it. ⁓ I think the light are going to have to push early. You it feels one of these teams that. Somehow they're hanging around. They were sellers at the deadline. They got a lot of, got rid of a lot of depth players like Michael McCarron, but you know, they still have Steven Stamkos. They still have Philip Forsberg. They still have people who can score on that team and they're going to be a tough, no matter how tired they are, it's going to be a tough game for the Lightning. So I think the Lightning are going to have to bring it this weekend. Again, no days off the rest of the way. Otto is going to give them fits. They always do, Stutsel. Drake, the Aderson for some reason always seems to torment the lightning. It's never fun playing against a Kachuk brothers. So, know, Brady's going to be in there mixing it up. So I think the lightning kind of got to find that juice early come out strong. You know, I wouldn't be surprised in the auto game to see maybe Gord or Corey Perry start a fight early, you know, or at least start, you know, face washing some people and just kind of. Kickstart that team and get them going, get them involved, you know, emotionally early on. I'm going to talk real quick about the slow starts. That's something that has plagued this team for a large portion of this year. Is it just the fact that this is a veteran team and they realize, Hey, it's a 60 minute game. You're looking forward to the playoffs, but why are the lightning starting off so slow in your opinion? I think that's part of it. They don't mind being behind. They don't mind playing from behind. So I think maybe they're like, Hey, we're just going to go out. We're to get our legs under us and we're going to get into our game. Other teams take advantage of that. was looking at the numbers. It's in our preview, but I want to say over this little winning streak that they're on, I want to say they're getting outscored. think it's four to five in the first period. But in the second and third period, think the second period, have an 11 to five edge in goals. And then in the third, it's like 11 to three. So they definitely get into their game as it goes on. But yeah, these starts are kind of weird. They've talked about it the last two games where they talked about the Corey Perry fight against Minnesota where he's sporting. don't know if you've seen a picture of Corey Perry over the last few days, it's, yeah, he's not taking any family pictures anytime soon. They talked about that parry fight kind of, you know, giving them a little bit of a spark and same thing with the sabber and fight later in the game. But I think it is a very veteran team. They're not going to get nervous about being behind. So I think that does contribute a little bit to their starts. They try and maybe stay a little too even keel. I think sometimes you want to have a little bit more excitement in your game early on. Get that, you know, like I said, get those juices flowing, get out there, hit some people, get involved in the game and then, you know, go from there. It'll be interesting to see how they start the auto game, see how they start the Nashville game. know, know, Cooper's going to be telling them, Hey, this Nashville team's tired. Let's jump on them early. But, ⁓ you know, you still have to execute when you do that. You know, I think if you get too excited, you you start missing passes, you start turning the puck over and it just turns out not very good for you. So we'll see how they come out. Hopefully they can, ⁓ kind of get it going with the early puck drop on Saturday and just kind of get a lead and just kind of put the foot on the throat and just close it out. Sometimes when you're one of the best teams in the league, you're the hunted, not the hunter. And I think that also could be a reason why you're playing a team that is geared up to play you and you're going to get their best effort every single night. Justin, I know you just got done with the game. What's going on at Raw Charge? After we shut the microfilms off here, I'll throw a quick recap up. I think I had mentioned it earlier. We were going to release an article on Headman, probably not going to do that now. It just doesn't make sense right now with him being out. For those who aren't aware, know, Victor Headman is on personal leave right now. The team isn't releasing any information. Thoughts out to the, you know, the big Swede and his family. Hopefully, hopefully everything is okay. But with him out of the lineup, it just doesn't make sense to talk about a season right now. We'll talk about it if he comes back. We'll take a look at a couple of things that, you know, special teams has been pretty good lately. Might we go into why that happens? Just, you know. Start thinking about some playoff matchups, start thinking about some East coast matchups and have a good time writing about hockey. Well, you got a couple more games to cover Ottawa on Saturday, Nashville on Sunday. There's a lot going on at raw charge. can check out Justin at www.rawcharge.com. He's the managing editor, ladies and gentlemen. So it's coming right from his mouth. Right. ⁓ You're stuck with the thoughts in this brain right here. So. Unfortunately, that's it, but we'll see how it goes. Well for Justin Godfrey, I am Jason Lankes. Thank you for joining us today on back checking the bolts. We appreciate you being here. Please hit that like and subscribe button and we hope to see you soon. We'll be back next Monday to recap this weekend's action. Have a great one and 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.