Latest / Backchecking the Bolts / Tampa Bay Lightning Recap: 4-1 Loss to Canadiens | Penguins Preview & Mailbag
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- Jason Linkes: Coming up next on back checking the bolts. there's one member of the Lightning who's a little bit maligned right now, it's probably Oliver Bjorkstrand. What is your thought on him? His shooting numbers are a little off. His shooting percentage is way down from his career. I don't know if it's just a fit thing, a style thing. You know, when they picked him up, he seemed to be exactly what the Lightning needed. You know, a right-handed shot on the power play and his power play numbers have actually been pretty good. think he's sitting on nine power play goals. If he didn't have Darren Radish lighting up the net like he has on the power play would be leading the team. His five on five play hasn't quite been there. He plays well. His defensive game is better than people give him credit for, but now that he's down and kind of playing that fourth line role, I don't think it's a good fit for him. 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 as we start the month of April. This is getting into the nitty gritty. It's getting into the playoff push. We're going to recap the bolts for one loss against the Montreal Canadians on Thursday. Tampa takes on the Pittsburgh Penguins. They're six of seven straight home games. We're going to go over NHL News and Notes. Alexander Ovechkin is 20th 30 goal season. Also Brad Treveling. He's out in Toronto. We're going to talk about how that happened and why I'm Jason Lincolns and as always, I'm joined by the managing editor of raw charge. could see him at www.rawcharge.com. He is Justin Godfrey. Justin, that was an interesting game last night. have two teams really in the heat of it, trying to catch Buffalo. I still think Tampa is much more likely to catch Buffalo than Montreal, but Montreal showed some grit in that game. It wasn't pretty from their end. They got outshot tremendously, but that was a big W for the Canadians. I mean, they're on a, they're on a bit of a heater right now. So I think that's their, ⁓ sixth in a row, if I'm not mistaken. know, they're playing really good hockey. They're getting great goaltending from, ⁓ Yacob Dobish and, ⁓ Jacob Fowler. Sometimes you just run into a team that that's catching all the breaks, winning games. On the Lightning side, I thought they played really well. It's probably one of their better defensive efforts we've seen her, you know, since the break. They are slowly dragging their way back to the way they played defensive hockey, you know, during their big winnings. It's good game between two good teams. I have a feeling this is a first round playoff matchup. You know, if I had to put my money on who the Lightning face in the first round is probably going to be the Canadians. And I could see this series go in seven games. And if there's seven games like this, it's going to be a fun series. The final score doesn't dictate what. how the game was actually played Montreal threw in a couple of empty net goals at the end is pretty much a two one game for most of it. two good teams, they had fun. I don't think you can get too bummed out over this loss. Judging by the end of the game, I'm not sure how much fun they were having because the game got a little bit chippy after a couple of the empty net goals. But Justin, I want to talk about the second and third period. First period, the play was relatively even. It ended up as one one going into the first intermission. But when you look at the shots, Tampa dominated the shots, but did they dominate the high quality chances? You know, that's, that's kind of the rub there. Like you said, first period, pretty even Montreal scores on the five on three, the lightning answer right back on a nice goal from Jake Gensel. And then it kind of settles into an attack counter attack game. Montreal takes the lead two to one, a little turnover in the neutral zone. And then Slavkovsky and Colfield just make a really great play. mean, it was, it was such a fun game to watch. Yeah, his speed down the left, Sloufkowski speed down the left wing side. He just hit another gear with that line. was the fear is, you know, that was a very fast line. thought the lightning did a decent job containing them for most of the game. Can't take your foot off the gas at all. It'll happen. What happened happened. So, ⁓ much all gets a lead. I do think they kind of went into a little bit of a shell after the two one lead. Lightning started to string some chances together. Part of the problem in the second period is they were getting some shots. But a lot of them were for distance. didn't have anybody in front of the net. So the second chance ⁓ opportunities weren't there. They weren't taking Dobish his eyes away from him. So a lot of shots from the perimeter. Don't like to see that. They did up their game in the third period a little bit. thought, thought the lightning played really well in the third period, but Dobish was there to make the saves. mean, there was a nice play. Kuturov kind of sent point behind, behind the defense. Point just couldn't get his stick on the puck to make a good shot. I don't like, had a couple of chances on the power play point from the slot that Dobrish made the saves on. And sometimes that just happens. Sometimes you just run into a goaltender that makes the saves. Like I said, it get a little, little ridiculous at the end. There was a big hit. Jake Evans threw a pretty big hit on Kucherov. Uh, that was initially called a five minute boarding kind of, um, got rescinded to do a two minute, which was the right call. It was only a two minute boarding. And then after that, ish. Scott Sabarin fought quote unquote, it's more of a wrestling match. then had McDonough and Anderson at the very tail end of the game. know, game's pretty much over. McDonough's playing the puck behind his own net and Anderson comes in and throws, you know, a big hit on him. It's what Josh Anderson does. It's why you have Josh Anderson. He doesn't play until the whistle blows. McDonough, who's usually a fairly even tempered guy, took exception to it. So it kind of sets up that next game, which I think is on April 9th up in Montreal. You know, that could be a pretty big game with some lightning in there, their stretch where they're playing a lot of, ⁓ division opponents. That could be one of those games that kind of comes down to, you know, deciding who's where when it comes to the seedings. But yeah, overall good game. Nikita Kuturov had been out for the past two games. He's back after an illness. How do you think he looked? Looked a little rusty, a little frustrated. He took two penalties. ⁓ two pretty, I don't want to say useless penalties, but you know, you've watched him. of getting Malkin for many, years. And that leaves out of frustration. Yeah. Yeah. I would call him Malkin. Malkin X penalties where you're like, what, is he even thinking? ⁓ the first one, first one's in the offensive zone. You know, he kind of gets hit a little bit, ends up in the crease. So they just knocked Stobish over. How are you not going to call that? ⁓ and then the second one, he had a, I believe a slashing in the neutral zone. And that was definitely a frustration. ⁓ penalty had been hit just previous to that play. And he just kind of. sees a guy out there and wax him on the thigh with his stick. So, you know, I thought he looked fine. He definitely wasn't tip top shape, a little rusty with his passes. I think his timing was off a little bit, but you know, he got going in a third period. The power play didn't record a goal. thought their first power play opportunity was pretty good. They did get some chances. They just didn't get the bucket in that second one was cut off a little premature. And then the other ones were, were okay. Just didn't really get that. No second chance opportunities that. that the lightning needed, you know, get those ugly goals. Justin, you and I keep track of the betting odds. We just do. That's who we are. And when I was in Iowa last week, I took a look at Nikita Kucherov for the heart trophy and he was minus 185. Now I'm going to bring it up today just to tell you how much these odds change day by day. Nikita Kucherov is now plus 150. McKinnon is minus 140. Interesting that it's McKinnon that passed him because I know it was McDavid that passed Kucherov on the, uh, on the points race while Kuch was out. intriguing. was actually wondering about that because, and that was where I was going to go with this. One, it's the flavor of the week. Whoever happens to be hot, right? All of a sudden jumps to the leaderboard, but you have to give Connor McDavid a little bit more love here because When Edmonton lost Leon Dreisaitl, everyone thought, including myself, that the Oilers might not make the playoffs. And now after winning four in a row, Edmonton is making a push to overtake Anaheim for the Pacific. If Edmonton wins the division, now he's again, he's at 10 to one, Nathan McKinnon and the Avalanche are going to run away with the president's trophy. If McDavid comes back and helps Edmonton win the Pacific. Is that a bet worth making? Yeah. I was just looking up the local tip of betting odds. They have them at plus 650. McDavid is plus 650 here. I mean, if I'm going to bet on any of the three... Send me a few bucks, I'll put it on David for you. Out of any of the three, that's the one I would probably put the money on. Just because like you said, if Edmonton makes it in, it's going to be because of McDavid. You know, it's not going to be because of Conor A. Ingram or Isaac Howard or, know... whoever else they have on the roster right now, it's going to be because of McDavid got hot at the end of the season. And of the three, think he is, he's pretty important to the team right now with dry settle out. So, you know, we're not a gambling advice show, so please take everything we say with a grain of salt, but, we just like to do it. Yeah. We just like to throw our money away. So I do like, you know, those McDavid odds. do think Khrushchev has another multiple game point streak in his, in his future. So. It'd be interesting to see if he can catch McDavid as far as the points race is concerned. I McKinnon is going to win it. McKinnon wins it. think it's kind of a season long coronation of, you're the, you know, the main engine of the best team in the league. So congratulations on your MVP. But yeah, it's going to be an interesting race along with everything else down, the stretch here. one award that surprised me right now was Ilya Sorokin is even money to win the Vesna. Vasileski was. just slightly worse odds. And I'm a little bit surprised at that because the Islanders have not exactly been winning down the stretch. I still think there's probably a New York contingency to that. Vasilevsky sort of slides under the radar for those people who are not in Tampa. He just does. Because Tampa has so many high powered weapons at times. I don't think that's the way with the NHL media and most of the people who vote for this, but I think in terms of betting, The Islanders are just on the radar more than the Lightning are in some people's eyes. And I think Soroka has some of the flashier stats as far as like shutouts, things like that. Things of that nature, if you will. The last night's game was kind of an interesting look into how important Vasileski is to the Lightning. You were talking about the chances and the shots that the Lightning had. That being said, know, Montreal had three or four like just absolute great A chances in the third period. And Vasileski made the stop on all of them. Iani Gord, a broken stick. And he was trying to get off the ice. kind of ran into, I think it was Caulfield and then falls down. Caulfield ends up right in the top of the slot all by himself. I mean, there wasn't anybody in the picture. He fires it off and Vasilevsky makes the save. He really kept him in that game as the light. a really, he made a really good save on Anderson early in the third as well. had about a minute and a half in. Yeah. He had about two or three really nice pad saves that, like I said, just really kept the lighting in the game. And if you're not a Someone who watches the lightning regularly. It's it's one of those games where you look at it, you know, it's a four to one final score Yes, he gave up you really gave up two goals, but he was really good And this is about the third or fourth game in a row where he's been really outstanding. Maybe he gives up an early goal Yeah, the slefkowski one in his mind. He probably wants that back He knows the shots coming from over there and he just doesn't get to the post fast enough. It was a five It's also a five on the fire on three goal and you know, slefkowski is probably one of the best shooters in the league But still, know, Vasilescu is not going to take that as an excuse. He's had a couple questionable goals during this recent stretch, but overall he's been really, really good. I think if they get on a little heater and they finish the season strong, know, his odds will go down a little bit. So we'll see. It all boils out over the next three weeks, two and a half weeks or whatever's left in the season. Justin, let's take a look at the Eastern Conference standings. Finally, some of the teams... In those wild card spots and on the outside looking in, finally lost for a while. There seemed like every week, everybody Columbus, Ottawa, Philadelphia, they were all winning. Finally, some of those teams are starting to lose. So in the Atlantic, you got Buffalo in first place with a hundred points. They've played one more game than the Lightning who sit in second at 98. The Canadians in third with 96 in the Metro. got Carolina. with 100 points, the Penguins with 92 sitting in second. The Islanders who we mentioned with Ilya Sorokin, they've dropped two straight. They are now at 89 points. The wild card, Boston seems to be firmly entrenched in that wild card. have 94 points. The Columbus Blue Jackets who've lost four in a row have 88 points. They are in the last wild card spot and chasing hard behind you, the Ottawa Senators lost three in a row. tried red wings with 86 points. They've lost two in a row. The Flyers, a bad loss to the Capitals last night. They're also there with 86 points. So there's some separation for a team like the Lightning. You feel extremely confident now that they are in the playoffs, barring a horrendous setback. it's kind of interesting. You have two teams in the East with a hundred points in Carolina and Buffalo. Technically they haven't clinched a playoff spot yet. You know, here we are on April 1st, you know, you would think if you can rack up a hundred points with two and a half weeks to go, you should be comfortable in your playoff spot. And they are, they're going to make it as far as the Lightning. did try to use some of my excellent public school education math here to figure it out. I have their magic number at four points. And I think I looked up a couple of websites of, don't know their reliability, but also the math match. So they're looking at, you know, Ottawa. Those two teams that are sitting at 86 points or excuse me, three teams with 86 points outside the playoffs. That's kind of the teams you're looking at right now. If you're a Lightning fan and the Lightning just want to, at this point, they just want to get into the playoffs, right? Cooper mentioned it after the game yesterday. Don't talk to me about playoff matchups until there's an X next to our name. So there's a good chance they could have it by the weekend, a win from them and then like a loss from Ottawa or Detroit. And they've pretty much wrapped up that playoff spot. Like I said, they're a little bit separation between the top and the bottom now. Uh, team, you know, you mentioned Boston that they're at 94 points. They do have, you know, one more game played in the lightning, but they've been playing some pretty good hockey. They've seven, one and two over their last 10 games. I mean, they've won four in a row. They they've been, they've been sneaky. They've been sneaky. They could get up into that, you know, get into that conversation in that second and third spot. I don't think they're going to catch Buffalo now. I believe the lightning playing down the stretch. That's going to be a big, one of those quote unquote four point games. know, Boston wins that all of sudden, you know, they've trimmed that loss lead to two or four points between. behind the lightnings as someone who likes to plan out his playoff previews. It's going to be very annoying because I don't think you're going to really know who the lightning are playing until probably the last week of the season. I still think it's going to be the Canadians. think it's kind of shakes out the way it is. Congratulations to Buffalo for winning a division that nobody expected them to. If you had them at the beginning of the season, congratulations. You're making some cash. Exactly. Yeah. You're making some major money because I want to say they were. 12 to 15 to one to win the division. Yeah, it had to been something like that. And then it got off to, you know, a not so great start. So you probably could have even gotten them for better money at that point. Well, Justin, you talked about writing your playoff previews. The Lightning play the Penguins on Thursday. After that, they play six consecutive division games before they play one game out of the division. I think it's against the Rangers to end the season. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. I know that's their last game of the season is the Rangers. So in those six games, the standings are going to be really tight, especially if teams just pair off wins. If a team gets hot, they're going to be able to jump. And I still say, and I've said this in other podcasts, the key is not to give that other point away as a charity point. Don't let this game go into overtime regulation wins this time of the year are huge. Especially in these division games. You know, we we referred to them as four point games because if you win. Not only do you get the two points, but you deny your opponent two points. So it's really a four point swing. That's what last night's game was Montreal really wanted to win that in regulation. didn't want to give the lightning a charity point. thought the lightning played well enough to get at least a point out of the game. They just didn't do it. So yeah, as we come down the stretch, if these teams could win in regulation, you're going to start seeing these standings really start to separate out. Lightning need to really be kind of playing in their best form. I know they're fatigued. know they're tired. I know it's been a long stretch and they haven't. Everybody is right now. but exactly. Everybody's in the same boat right now. It's not the greatest hockey out there at times on the ice, but you just got to find a way to dig down. Even if it's just outplaying your opponent on one shift here and there, you know, pick up those two points, move on. The more points they get now, the higher the standings, the better chance they have at home ice, which sometimes, know, maybe this year, maybe they want to be on the road as much as like Betman gets. black for some of the decisions he makes. This is exactly what he wanted when they agreed to the bonus points, the parody, and then the playoff matchups. Instead of going one through eight, these, these division games mean something because you're going to be looking for the seating within your division. let's look forward. They play the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night. So far they've played twice this year. Pittsburgh won in Tampa four to three, Tampa won in Pittsburgh by a score to two to one in the shootout. The Penguins have recently just got back Sydney Crosby, if getting Malkin returned to the lineup, but they lost Brian Rust for Tampa. They seem to be coming into this game pretty healthy. Word on Headman hasn't been updated. he's presumed to still be out, but that's really it. You know, of course, Crozier and Carlisle with the long-term injuries, but they seem to be pretty healthy. All of York Strait was a healthy scratch yesterday. It seems like Cooper's rotating him and Scott Sabarin into the lineup based on matchups. They key one a little more physical presence with Sabrin yesterday. So that's why Bjork's Tram was out, but the lightning, ⁓ yeah, they're getting healthy. If they could have chosen to, they probably would have wanted to play the penguins a week ago. And you know, Malcolm and Crosby were still out, but, you could only play the games that are on the schedule. So it's going to be a tough game, you know, out of the next stretch. It could be. If you want to rank them, it's probably one of their easier games. Cause it got Boston Buffalo and Ottawa after this and the Buffalo and Ottawa games are on the road. So I think they're looking forward. think this is a game they circle as to one that they want to get two points out of. The penguins are going through a stretch of five games in seven nights. They're basically rotating goaltenders. I think this game is going to come down to transition. When the penguins are at their best, they forced a lot of turnovers in the neutral zone. They did it last night against Detroit. They easily handled the red wings five, the one they've won three out of four. The lightning need to impose their will. They need to for check. They need to get behind the penguins D they need to really impose their physicalness on Pittsburgh's defense. think they're going to see Arthur she lost. It's been a pretty much a goaltender rotation all year in Pittsburgh. I expect that to continue. Justin, is there a matchup in particular in this game that you like or dislike for the lightning? It's going to be interesting to see how he uses the Yanni Gord line. Against Montreal, he pretty much had the Cirelli line playing against the Montreal's top line, that Nick Suzuki line. And honestly, they didn't do too well. Now the Suzuki line kind of dictated play when they were on the ice. So I do wonder if Cooper goes back to using the Gord line as his kind of top defensive unit. They played pretty well. You know, you talk about a line that four checks and that's what kind of what the Gord line was doing last night against Montreal. They were really getting in there disrupting some of the breakouts. And that's really the fourth line was doing a little bit as well. They just weren't on the ice that much. It's kind of those bottom two lines really kind of play that style of game. Whereas the top two lines are more of a transition, build it out of the back and kind of try and fly through the zone. I could see the Gord line getting a lot of time against Crosby's line, establishing that four check, you know, making the Penguins play the entire 200 feet length of the ice. If the Lightning didn't get to that and they showed signs of it against Montreal, that's, you know, that's playoff hockey really right there is. Get the puck in deep. It's as corny as it is, as cliche as it is, you know, it's get the puck deep, four check, force your team, force the other team to play hard. So yeah, that's kind of what I'm looking at. ⁓ at the end of the game, ⁓ Cooper had actually moved Kuturov back up with Poyton and, ⁓ Gon, Goncalves. So he kind of broke up that, ⁓ Pagel-Sorelli-Kuturov combination that had been so successful over the last couple of weeks. Find some space for Kuturov. If he can find his space, I think he's going to be okay. He's going to, you know. finding ways to put points on the board. Justin, let's take a look around the NHL. Some news first off out of Toronto, the Leaf decided to fire general manager, Brad Tree Living. It is probably time for this to happen. And when you look at his tenure in Toronto, now this year has been a complete disaster in Toronto. You now have Austin Matthews hurt, but even before then they were struggling all year. First off earlier this year, Like most NHL teams who are struggling, they do not fire their coach. He stuck with Craig Barube. Many teams like Columbus fire their coach. They put Rick bonus in, they get this immediate bump. Vegas is hoping the same thing with John Tortorella. Was he too loyal to his coach? feels like it. Like I'm never going to sit here and say a team quit. I didn't tell team quit. But it didn't seem like they were playing with the passion they did last year. thought when they brought Barubi in, I thought he was the perfect hire for that team. They needed a little discipline. They needed to be a little bit more of a tougher team to play against. And I thought, like I said last year that they, they really had played to his style pretty well this year. You just never know what's going on in Toronto. They had the Mitch Marner leaving contract disputes. It just feels like they'd never found their game this year. Goal-tending is probably a little to do with it. They're constantly rotating through two or three goal-tenders, Joseph Walkin, stay healthy. I was surprised that they decided to go with tree living over Barubei. Tree living hasn't been there that long. GMs get about a five-year window or so to implement their plan. And I did find it funny that, you know, in the press conference yesterday, they were talking about, they want a, you know, a statistics oriented, you know, general manager or analytic was the word they used, which is kind of hilarious considering they dumped. Kyle Dubas, you know, a couple of years ago, who's kind of in that trend of being an analytical kind of G just tree living, probably just never fit what they wanted to do. He never had a chance to implement his plan. Now let's talk about Mitch Marner. I want to talk, I want to talk about Marner because his tenure in Toronto, Mitch Marner's was always one. made a huge contract. He, he, he got paid a lot of money. think he was in excess of $11 million. When Kyle Dube assigned him to the long-term deal, it was immediately criticized. There was always talk that Mitch Marner was soft. He wasn't a quote unquote playoff type of hockey player. Yet when you look at his stats, he's had multiple 90 point seasons. Last year he hit 102 points. That's hard to replace. you just, just to let him walk for nothing. That is on the general manager. If you're not going to resign a quote unquote superstar, anybody who gets a hundred points in this day and age, you're pretty much a superstar. You can't let them walk for nothing. And I know he tried to make some deals. One, I know Mitch Marner turned down a deal and I forget where was that because he did have a partial no trade clause. Yeah, was part of them. They were going to eventually get Miko Rantan. ⁓ But you can't let him walk for nothing. just can't. It's the risk you take with some of these free agents going into their final years. It's you have to make the judgment of, look, we're trying to win this year. And they were in the hunt last year. You know, they were in the playoff race. They were. It's like, do you, do you cut the, do you trade away this hundred guy, you know, under point guy while we're still in a playoff race, or do we run that risk of, not having him next year? I. I don't think you see it as much as you used to. think teams are more than willing to trade, trade somebody before they hit free agency or resign them before they hit free agency. mean, look at how many of the superstars resigned this year. That would have been free agents this year, like McDavid and Capra's off and those guys all would have been unrestricted free agents, but they got locked up contracts. So, and it goes back to Dubas. He made the bet on the core four. You these are going to be the guys that carry us to postseason success. And yes, they've played well in the regular season, but they haven't been able to translate that to, you know, postseason success. So the Lightning kind of went through this too, before they won their Stanley Cups. mean, they had three or four conference finals. They had the 2015 Cup run and they were starting to get that reputation of a team that just couldn't do it in the playoffs. And it's always going to be the way it is, you know, until you actually win that Stanley Cup, you're going to be the team that can't do it. Carolina is in that boat right now. Dallas is in that boat right now. Toronto, you know. has been in that boat. You got to make choices. They decided to let Marner go. The big thing is they just didn't find somebody to replace his offensive output. think my issue in Toronto is when you're investing a lot of first round picks, when you're investing a lot of your young capital to try to win now, giving up a guy like Marner, you don't have the draft assets to go to a team that's struggling and say, Hey, I want your superstar to bring them over here. You really don't have much to offer. All you have are honestly older players. And not to bring it back to the lightning, but you know, they're kind of in that same boat now. It's probably part of the reason why they didn't make a big splash this year at the trade deadline. know, the guys that were out there that would have been a good fit. You know, somebody like Robert Thomas, they just didn't have the assets to bring them in. And St. Louis was asking for the moon. Which they should, you know, know, Thomas who's who is signed long-term. if you, hold onto him, you're not going to be in that bad of shape. Even Vincent Trotschek, you know, he, they wanted a pretty big return for him as well. You get these older teams that have been competitive for a while. Like you said, they've been cashing in their first round picks. They've been using them for other deals. They don't have the prospect depth. I did think Toronto had a decent deadline this year, you know, being able to, McMahon, yeah, he wasn't the greatest trade in the world, but they were able to move in. They're not going to lose him. for nothing, so they're not repeating the disaster he's had a good year. But ⁓ yeah, it's just tough. It's tough to stay competitive in this league with the hard ceiling on the salary cap. Sometimes you make the right decisions, sometimes you don't. Sometimes the decisions only become right in hindsight. The Lightning could have been, to me, the biggest decision that they did was after that 18-19 flameout, they took a deep breath and they didn't make any major changes. They brought in some veteran guys like Pat Maroon. They made themselves a little tougher, but they didn't. If he had fired John Cooper after that loss, he's not going to catch a lot of flack for it, right? Cause then it's, know, John Cooper can't get this team to the next level. You know, he can get them to the finals, but he can't get to the next level. So if he fires Cooper then, okay, it's fine. They start over, Brice well decided, Hey, we have the talent here. We're going to stick with it. We're going to see it through. We're not going to make any major changes. And then as far as the last few years, it's just, again, living in the cap world, you can't afford to keep all these people under your. you know, under your salary cap. they lose the big pieces. They lose the Pilots, the Cullorans, the Stamkosas. They've done a decent job of refilling the talent. know, we got to give Reece Block credit. They have remained competitive this entire time, despite losing these guys. So he's done a good job. Toronto hasn't been able to do that. Like I said, they weren't able to replace Marner's talent. And that's the big thing is like, okay, so you're not signing Marner to a 15 year million, $15 million a year contract. are you with those resources? Yeah. What can you do? How else can you use those resources? And they just, you know, the moves they made just didn't pay off. I do want to get to the mailbag question that we got and Justin, yeah, this is for you. I'd like to ask Justin to break down Victor Headman and Oliver Bjorkstrand seasons to get some perspective. Are they having bad seasons or do the underlying numbers tell a story? ⁓ with Headman, let's start with him. I was working on a piece for him about this. Some of his retrieval numbers are way down. One thing that Victor Hedman has always been good at throughout his career is going back, getting pucks and getting them out of the zone. And those numbers have been way off this year. Just on the, on the, on the games that he did play. I do think he's been dealing with something all season long. We know he had the elbow surgery prior to the Olympic break. He just hasn't looked the same. You know, a of people say he looks slower. I don't think the numbers really add up to that. seems to be, you know, as far as what we can glean from the NHL edge numbers and returns in terms of skating speed. He's about where he is in his career. So he's not getting slower. He just doesn't look, ⁓ he just doesn't look right. And I know that's not a, you know, a deep analytical look at it, but things like that. He's always been good at doing, is shutting off the play before it starts using his size to push people to the boards that that's been off. He was always great at. Even if you get in front of him using his reach to disrupt plays and that stuff just hasn't been there for some reason. I'm not ready to call him lost yet. He just isn't there, you know, he was getting the points. He just hasn't scored a lot, but he's been getting the assists. Like his assist numbers are, are, are in line with everything. just, the puck hadn't been going for him. If he's not providing the offense, sometimes his defense can be exposed. But yeah, I just think he looks a little off. there's one member of the Lightning who's a little bit maligned right now, it's probably Oliver Bjorkstrang. What is your thought on him? Is it the numbers or is he just having a bad year? Uh, his shooting numbers are a little off his shooting percentages way down from his career. I don't know if it's just a fit thing, a style thing. You know, when they picked him up, he seemed to be exactly what the Lightning needed. A, you know, a right handed shot on the power play and his power play numbers have actually been pretty good. I think he's, I think he's sitting on nine power play goals. If he didn't have Darren Radish lighting up the net, uh, like he has on the power play would be leading the team. His five on five play hasn't quite been there. He plays well, his defensive game is better than people give him credit for. But now that he's down and kind of playing that fourth line role, I don't think it's a good fit for him. I think he needs a playmaker on his line to set him up. And they've tried him on the second line on the top line for a little bit and just hasn't worked out. Sometimes it happens, know, players that look good on paper just don't fit in for some reason. He's doing his best. think he plays hard. We sit here and talk about all this. The players know it more than anybody else that. They're not doing what they were brought in to do, but he's not letting it affect his like defensive game. think he's still backchats really hard. He four-chats pretty hard. think he's better in the slot than he is out on the wing, on the power play. But when you have Braden points sitting there in the bumper spot, you're not going to replace him. So Yorkshire had a really good run when point was hurt, you know, on the power play when he is playing, he's back out on that kind of that wing, the Stamco spot, you know, his one-timer just hasn't been there. It hasn't been the threat they've needed it to be. Well, Andrew, we appreciate that question. If you do have a question for the show, feel free to reach us at back checking the bolts at yahoo.com. Now, Justin, I sort of jumped in there during our NHL news and notes. Final note was Alexander Ovechkin 20th, 30 goal season. I don't know if there's much you can say, but I'm still surprised at his age. The guy is just pumping goals in left and right. He's a guy who knows what he. what he does and you know, he's kind of the opposite of Yorkshire and really, you know, he is that guy out on the wing that can just keep pumping pucks and no matter, everybody knows it's coming. He still does it. You know, 31 goals this year with, think the surprising thing is he's only got five on the power play. So it's not like he's just been hasn't been the power play thread. Normally is, you know, he's not just hanging on, you know, kind of like Brett Hall towards the end of his career, just munching up power play points. Um, this guy's scoring at five on five. He's up to, is it 928 for his career. He started to wonder. Does he sign a three year deal? know he's a free agent at the end of the year. There's been some speculation that he may retire. May go to the KHL may go to the KHL for a year, but you know, if he gets, if he finishes year, you know, 930, 935, there's a thousand goals out of his reach. don't think so. You know, it's we've been talking about him being washed up and the score he's got to fall off at some point for what? 10 years now. So it's, and the guy just keeps scoring, keeps doing what he does. I think Washington will have him as long as he wants to play. He's not going to sign a huge deal. That's going to kill him if he does resign in the off season. But would anybody be surprised if he signs a three year deal for seven or $8 million a year? And he's still going to help the team. Justin, the Penguins are coming into town on Thursday. The Bruins are going to come into town on Saturday. That will end the lightning seven game home stand. So tell us what's going on in the raw chart. We're definitely going to. Preview both those games, especially that Boston game, could be a pretty big game in the standings as Boston continues to keep putting up the winds. Also take a look at Noah Steen. He's a prospect over from Europe that the Lightning just signed to an entry level contract. Kind of break down his game a little bit. He did not make our top 25 under 25 last year, but he had a really good season in the SHL that may bump him up to it. So we'll kind of take a look and see how his season evolved. Talk about some other prospects. ⁓ Jason Chagabay playing up in the, ⁓ know, university of Minnesota Duluth and, ⁓ take a look at the, ⁓ frozen four, which has been set. always loved the frozen four. You play the opening rounds and then you take like 10 days off before the next couple of rounds. Yeah. Unlike the basketball version of that tournament, you know, they kind of, you know, they just take a little, nice little break there and that. Yeah. And then, ⁓ so think he's the only lightning prospect still left in that tournament. ⁓ so take a look at him. I'll break down the games mentioned earlier. We are working on some, some stuff for the playoffs. So kind of keep looking at that, but, ⁓ yeah, just kind of keep covering the bolts and, hopefully record some wins and, ⁓ a nice, ⁓ playoff clinching win some point this weekend. are going to be back on Friday. We're going to drop our next podcast, probably sometime late Friday morning. We're going to recap the Pittsburgh Penguins game. We're also going to preview the Boston Bruins game on Saturday. For Justin Godfrey, who you can see at www.rawcharge.com, I'm Jason Lakers. Thanks for joining us. Please hit that like and subscribe button 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, iHeartRadio, Amazon, YouTube, and Deezer. 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