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Did the Lightning Send a Message vs Detroit? Full Breakdown + Hurricanes Preview · Backchecking the Bolts

• Jason Linkes: Coming up next on back checking the bolts. We're going to recap Tampa's four one victory over the Detroit Red Wings. We're going to preview the Carolina home game at seven o'clock on Saturday. The bolts face a big road trip coming up next week. They start a four game road trip in Seattle on Tuesday night. We're going to talk about all of that and more coming up next right here on back checking the bolts. Welcome to back checking the bull. 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. And as always, I am joined by the managing editor of raw charge. He is Justin Godfrey. Justin, the bolts just faced Detroit. Caroline is coming up next. There's a lot to unpack. Let's back check the bolts. First. Let's talk about the Detroit game, a four one victory. Give me your instant reaction. Yeah. Was it a perfect game? No, but was it a lot better than what we've seen over the last two weeks or so? I would definitely say yes. As coach Cooper said in his post game press press conference, it was by no means a perfect game, but I did think that the intensity was kind of ramped up a little bit. The lightning were skating really well, especially early in the game. thought the first 10 minutes they played was probably their best 10 minutes they've played. I don't know in a week or so, especially against a non Toronto Maple Leafs team. So yeah, I really liked the energy they put out. They had that little bit of a lull in the second period after they scored the goal. One of their lines got stuck out there for about four minutes or so, but they weathered the storm. pushed a lot of the opportunities Detroit had to the outside and kind of weathered it. Got into that third period, had a strong third period. You know, after protecting the lead, they went ahead and extended it a little bit. Gage and Gonçalves had a great third period and then they kind of, yeah, finished it off. So kind of slowly getting back to where they need to be. Again, not a perfect game. Still had some defensive miscues, some bad breakouts, but overall definitely one of their better efforts over the last two weeks. want to talk a little bit about the first period. If you look at the box score, you only see eight shots, but Justin, let's go beyond the box score. They attempted 26 shots. As you said, that first 10 minutes of the first period might've been their best 10 minutes in quite some time. What did they do differently that they weren't doing in other games? So they were, I mean, they were getting the puck out of their zone. Basically, ⁓ Detroit wasn't in the lightning zone for much of that period. So you saw that transition game back. saw them flowing into the offensive zone. Then good puck retrieval skills while they were in the zone. One thing is, and Cooper alluded to this at the beginning, they probably weren't selfish enough in the first period. There were a couple of opportunities. know Kuturov was right in the slot at one point and he dished it off. They kind of get into that habit of trying to make the better percentage shot. Sometimes by passing it off and then they don't get an opportunity at all. So let's see them take maybe a few more shots. Detroit did a good job of blocking shots, which is what they do. Uh, they get in the lanes that they mess things up and they actually had two, think one is want to say with cider made a really nice play at the back post to deny a goal. Uh, for the lightning early on. So they kind of had that flow back to their game. A lot of, a lot of good looks that they passed a couple of them up, but I thought brain point was flying up and down the ice. He looked really well. That line, know, the point Kuturov, Gonsalves line was really feeling it in that game and look good. Kind of set a nice tone. It was just a kind of that lightning hockey that we're used to saying. Justin, the one thing I noticed was unlike in the blue jackets game, they looked quick. They were entering the zone quicker. They had the defense on their heels. The forwards just weren't able to get stick on puck quite as much. Is that a mentality of saying we need to be faster or was that What Detroit was giving them a little bit of both is what Detroit was giving them. But again, that all starts in the defensive zone. That all starts with clean breakouts, making that first pass out of your zone. That allows, you know, point to build up a little bit of speed and drive those defenders back as he enters the zone. So yeah. Um, and yeah, and Detroit, maybe, you know, they don't have their lineup that they want to be putting out there. Um, you know, Diller Larkin was out, Andrew Cop was out. That's your two top centers and both are pretty responsible defensive players. Maybe they're not as cohesive as a forward group, stopping that plate in the neutral zone, which gave the lighting a little bit more space to, to attack through the zone. So like I said, that, that top line looked really good. The Yanni Gord line, thought had a good game and that was kind of tweaked up a little bit. He had, ⁓ Cooper had put York strain on the line, moved out, Gergenson's down to center of the fourth line. So like you said, lot of pace and kind of kept Detroit on their heels for most of that, the early. the early part of the game until that, you know, that kind of weird shift in the second period. was the turning point of the game? ⁓ for me, it was the Lightning weathering the stretch after their first goal. They don't score in the first period. have a lot of opportunities. Genzel scores early in the power play in the second and, ⁓ the Lightning kind of pushed play for another three or four minutes and then their fourth line gets stuck out there. was the Gergensons, Corey Perry, Scott Sabur in line, kind of got pinned in their own zone a little bit. Detroit got a good match up to Patrick. ⁓ Kane line was out there and Detroit just started really cycling the puck. Something JJ Moser had mentioned in the previous game against Columbus that at times the lightning had been a little too slow in the defensive zone. They have, they've been getting beat the pucks and you really saw it in that shift where Perry had a chance to get to a puck got outskated. It was really nerve wracking kind of as a lightning fan. Cause you were like, Hey, we've seen this before. And just Detroit's ability to kind of cycle the puck. If you look at the numbers, Darren Radish was on the ice for four minutes and seven seconds. McDonnell was out there for 352. Perry was out there for three minutes. Gergensen's 314. know, Scott Sahlberg had a, you know, a cake shift shift. He was only out there for 234. But while, while the possession was there, the Lightning did do a nice thing where they pushed all the pressure to the outside. Yes, Vasileski had to make a couple of good saves, but there were no rebound followups. was no traffic in front of the net. ⁓ something that's kind of been plaguing them for a little bit. So yeah, they got, ⁓ they got pinned in, they eventually cleared it. I think actually Detroit ended up clearing the puck and Detroit kept the pressure up for a little bit more, but the Lightning got back to their game by the end of the period. And then it got into the third. They still had that one, nothing lead, which I think was big. think if Detroit scores there, it's a different outcome. ⁓ Lightning score early in the third. ⁓ go up to nothing and the goal they gave up a bit of an issue clearing the puck. It allowed Detroit to do a line change to bring it comes on the ice, fires a puck in on that JD Comfort. And the sad thing is Moser did a great job of screening Comfort, but JT kind of left his stick trailing behind him on the play. The puck hits the stick, deflects pass Masoleski. Not much you can do on that other than if you had cleared the puck earlier in the play. But yeah, I think overall. They weather that storm and they don't give up a goal. keep the league going into the third and then they're able to extend the lead in the third period to close it out. we've seen them do in the past. Justin, I got to tell you a story. I saw the Darren Radish had played four minutes in one shift. It reminded me, there's a story that Mike Keenan, when he was the coach of the Rangers had Alexey Kovalev and Alexey Kovalev liked to take some extended shifts. So Mike Keenan said, you know what? I'm going to punish this guy. I'm just going to keep them on the ice. Well, Kovalov sort of read it as a youngster. Hey, my coach is rewarding me. He keeps putting me out there. He's not taking me off the ice. Apparently he had him out there for, think it was 10 or 11 minutes. It was some ungodly amount of time and Kovalov's just skating, doing his thing and he's not tiring out. And finally, Mike Keenan, all frustrated has to bring them back to the bench because he can't tire out Alexey Kovalov. Someone's teaching them a lesson. Exactly. Yeah. think, I think it was around the eight minutes or something like that. I, if I remember, I watched the clip a few years ago and I think of love, he kind of keeps looking at the bench and then like shrugs his shoulder. just keeps playing. So yeah, sometimes these lessons aren't what they meant to be. Not such the case in the lightning game. mean, you kind of saw it. think Radish probably was gassed. He was probably sucking on those oxygen cans in the locker room afterwards, you know, and that's kind of the problem with those kind of extended shifts where you're out there for such a long time. It's, it's the trickle down effect later in the, in the period, you know, that was about halfway through the period. you know, those legs get shot and it may take you a while to get back into it. So I think that kind of led to Detroit having a couple more good shot solid shifts after that. you know, the lightning, you know, sometimes you're to have that happen in a game. And if you can weather the storm, as I said, and then kind of pick your game back up, that's, that's how you pick up these W's. ⁓ whereas, you know, maybe a week ago. They give up a goal to Detroit and then a second goal and then you have things are off the rails. So thought it was a good, good sign that the lightning are still working their way back, but they are getting closer to being what they were during the winning streak than what they were post Olympic break. Buffalo losing last night to Washington and regulation, the bolts are now two points behind Buffalo for first place in the Atlantic, but they also have two games in hand. The team, the lightning just faced Detroit though, Justin, you had mentioned the injuries to Dylan Larkin, Andrew cop David Perron, who they traded for. He's still out. This team is getting hurt at the wrong time. Now, according to Todd McClellan, Larkin and copper out at least two weeks. And I was taking a look at the schedule. If you put them out two weeks, their next seven games, Dallas, Calgary, Montreal, Boston, Ottawa. Buffalo make that the next six games. Those are a bunch of division games. Those are four point games. They are going to be extremely short-handed going into those matchups Detroit right now is only two points clear of the Columbus Blue Jackets who are just outside of the playoffs Justin right now if you're making a prediction does Detroit make the playoffs? It's hard to say, you know, I think they got to go at least 500 in these games without their two centers. It's gonna be one of these If they do make it, they're going be limping into the finish lines. think they pull it off. know some of the prognosticators out there. was looking at some point projections from, I think evolving hockey has theirs up. You kind of look at it. There's, they have a bunch of those teams that they're projecting to hit that 95 ish points right now, which I think is going to be your cutoff for those wild card teams. So yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be a fight down to the end. mean, we're going to start seeing a lot more conference games for all of the people still in it. ⁓ the nice thing is for the lightning is, Hey, let those teams beat each other up. And then we get to face him in the first round. Maybe make our lives a little bit easier. looking at, like I said, the evolving hockey's right now. They have, they kind of have the blue jackets taking that third spot in the Metro. Hurricanes, Islanders, blue jackets, and then the Atlantic, they have the lightning sabers and Canadians with the senators. And then they had a red wings actually finishing fifth in the divisions. Whatever simulations they're running, whatever their algorithms say. have Ottawa kind of leapfrogging them a little bit. So it's going to be a fight for them. They still have a lot of talent on that team. I mean, Duprinquit, you have JT Confers, you know, Patrick Kane still doing things. Their defense, I like the Justin Flop pick up for them. I think they're going to try and be a little more defensive minded going down the stretch here. So I think their defense is going to keep them into the game. And if they can pull out some of these wins with their top guys out, then they can finish off the last five or six games, hopefully. You know, make the playoffs. I'd like to see him in the playoffs, you know. It's been a while. Yeah. It would be akin to, know, I wouldn't be differential to a, uh, lightning Detroit, uh, first round playoff. They've, they've had some fun ones over the years, you know, kind of remember the, that big, massive brawl they had a few years ago, um, with Mike Blundine in the middle of it. And you're just a pile of players punching at each other. So, you know, bring some of that back in the, in in the first round of the playoffs. So now Justin, you had mentioned that Patrick Kane is doing Patrick Kane things. Well, that brings us to the nurture marketing trivia question of the day. right. get to screw this marketing is going to be sponsoring a Nikita Kucherov Jersey to one lucky fan of our podcast. All you have to do when you listen to the podcast, email the answer to back checking the bolts at yahoo.com and you'll be registered for that Nikita Kucherov Jersey. Now we're this promotion is going to be running throughout the month of March. So you have many chances to enter, but you can enter as many times as you like. here's the question, Justin, Patrick Kane recently passed Mike Madonna as the top scoring us born player in NHL history. Right now he has 1381 points. Madonna has 1374. I gave you numbers one and two, who are his numbers three, four and five. ⁓ man. I am going to struggle with this one. So was Madonna and Kane. Is Eddie Olchek on there? Is he an American? He is an American, but he's not He's not up there. right. Phil Kessel? Phil Kessel, good guess. He is number 11. He finished eight points shy of 1,000 in his career. Okay. Try and think of 1,000 point Americans. What are their total point totals for the next three? The next three is a defenseman with 1232 points. I think this is going to be the toughest one. Number four is a forward with 1216. Number five is a forward with 1068. Phil Housley in there. That is number three. Correct. The defenseman Phil Housley. Yeah. The defo, once you said defenseman, I was like, it's gotta be Phil Housley. So Phil Housley, 338 goals. 1232 points. When you say numbers four and five, when you say Phil Housley, what uniform do you picture him in? Winnipeg. I'm a caps guy, but yeah. Again, growing up, mean, Phil Housley ran that Winnipeg power play. I always will always think of him as a jet. All right. Cool. All right. So four and five we're going with. Are they active or what was their era of? Okay. 80s, 90s guys. One retired, I think two years ago may have been, I don't think he played last year. I think it was two years ago. The other one is a broad, a former broadcaster who retired in the early two thousands. ⁓ man. Tired like a year or two ago. I should, I'm sure I'm going to feel like an idiot when he say these names. ⁓ Roanoke. Did Jerry run it? Jeremy Roenick number four, Jeremy number four. So this one is the toughest one. I mean, I, I didn't expect you to get Housley, but this one is one that I just would not have expected when I looked at the list. what teams did he play for sharks? That's what he's known for. Also Dallas Marlow. No, no, he's Canadian. he said sharks. Yeah. Who else? Dallas. He's a forward guy. would feel dumb. I'm going to feel dumb not getting this one. Well, Justin, I'm going to give you the answer. It's Joe Pavelsky. ⁓ that's who I was thinking of. I always get him and Marlowe mixed up for some reason because I'm an idiot. But ⁓ yeah, the guy that the everybody saw at a Burns steakhouse when he was a free agent before he went to Dallas and everyone thought he was coming to Tampa. So nice. I like that question. Hey, that's it. It was, it was one that was with Patrick Kane coming into town. was trying to find a Detroit angle. Thought it was a decent one there. Now number six through 10 or Keith Kachuk, Joe Mullen, Doug weight, Brian Leach and Pat LaFontaine. Now Pat LaFontaine did not have the concussion issues he had. ⁓ yeah. He might still be number one. He was putting up, he had a tremendous career when he played with. Alexander Mogilny and, uh, think it was, it might've been Alexey Zhitnik up in Buffalo in 1993. That line was phenomenal. And of course they played in the old Adams division where they just couldn't, they could never get past Montreal and Boston. Yep. I wasn't really occupying back then, but you see some highlights of the stuff that he did. And yeah, he was one those players. kind of wonder if it hadn't been for the injuries, could it, how How good could he have been for everyone out there? The three names you want to email. can email one of the three Phil Housley, Jeremy Ronek or Joe Pavelski. Email that to back checking the bolts at yahoo.com. That will get you registered to win a Nikita Kucherov Jersey compliments of nurture marketing. Now, Justin, let's take a look ahead. Let's back check the bolts and look at that Carolina game. It's going to be a tough one. Carolina right now, 88 points top in the Eastern conference. The bolts are four points behind them. The bolts do have a game in hand so far this season. They split Tampa one six four back in December Carolina with the five four winning Raleigh a couple of weeks ago in both games. The bolts fell behind three to nothing. What does Carolina do that makes it so difficult for Tampa at times? It's just The constant pressure game that they play, know, Carolina is going be in your face from the minute that that puck stops. They're going to be launching shots from every angle in the offensive zone. They're going be retrieving the pucks or before checking you. ⁓ if you do get the puck into the defensive zone, their forwards are going to be pressuring the points. And that just kind of with the way the lightning's offense works, it kind of gives them an added pressure. You know how the lightning like to work all the pucks back to the blue line, shoot from there. When those lanes aren't open, it's kind of hard for the Lightning to generate a lot of offense ⁓ leads to those turnovers at the, you know, those dangerous turnovers at the blue line, either the offensive blue line or your own blue line. So the Lightning just to be really good with the puck. They got to be clean on their breakouts. They got to try and catch Carolina on some transition plays. I'm still not sold on Carolina's goaltending. I think we talked a little bit about this last week when we were looking at those Stanley Cup odds. Yeah, Carolina's been good the last, you know, 10 games or so, think there's seven, three and ⁓ but they've been given up some, goals, which is kind of odd because they don't give up a lot of chances. If you look, they're still one of the best teams in terms of scoring chances against high danger chances against, but they're just not really getting the goaltending they need right now. So the lightning just need to find ways to get shots on that. Retrieving pucks is going to be big for them as well. So get those second and third opportunities, ⁓ something that we haven't seen during this little stretch. So if they can do that, I think their best defense is going to be. keeping Carolina in their own zone. Don't get down three nothing. mean, just a little bit of advice, maybe not spot them three goals. Cause you just burn so much energy. know, credit to the Lightning for coming back at both those games from three down, but you burn so much energy doing that. It's kind of hard to, to keep it up and get that fourth goal. so that's going to be my advice. Don't give up three goals, keep the puck in the Carolina zone and then just get shots on net. talked about Carolina's defense leaking a little bit. In their last five games, they gave up four to Vancouver, three to Edmonton, five to Calgary, four to Pittsburgh and three in their three one loss yesterday to St. Louis. Is this as much as their defense struggling a little bit or is it their goaltending? is, there's always been question marks about Carolina's goaltending with Frederick Anderson and Boosie in that. What's your opinion? You know, you look at some of these, like these scoring chances against like that blues game that they lost three to one, I think it was two to one with an empty matter, basically. And they only gave up 16 scoring chances at five on five and only three high danger chances against the Canucks. gave up four goals, but only again, three high danger chances. Seattle had four against them. So I think the defense is kind of doing their job a little bit. They have, you know, this really solid blue line back there, but. They just need a little bit more out of their goaltending right now. just, did take a quick look at the numbers kind of since the break here. You look at that Frederick Anderson, they've, they've split, they've split the starts pretty evenly and they each have four stars. Frederick Anderson's three and one, but he's got an 875 goals against, sorry, an 875 save percentage and a 2.73 goals against his goals saved above average is, he's doing it. It's 1.24. So he's basically stopping the pucks he needs to. As far as Bucey, you're looking at he's two and two cents the break. He's got an 835 save percentage and a 3.81 goals against. And then he's at a negative Did he remember his glove? I don't know. He signed that extension and know, he's just sitting back on that big fat wallet now. He's a great story this year. mean, the guy was on waivers. He picked up off of waivers and he turned it into a nice contract. Yeah, I think you just kind of go through some of these lulls sometime as a goaltender. We've seen it with Vasileski. You just kind of, for whatever reason, you get out of sorts a little bit. You stop making the saves that you're expected to make and then takes you a game or two to get back into it. Of course, that being said, you know, he'll get to start tomorrow and make like 42 saves or something like that just to make us look bad. I think there, there are holes in the Carolina game that, that the Lightning can exploit, but I think it's going to, they're going to have to focus on a shoot first mentality. Sometimes that's hard for the bolts. saw it against Detroit. We've seen it ever since Cooper's been here. You Kuturov's not a shoot first guy. He's just not. I mean, this guy could be probably a 55 gold scorer if he shot the puck as much as he should, but you know, he's a guy who's going to set up his teammates. Gage Consalves is the same. He's he's a setup guy. He's a playmaker, know, point, point is the playmaker as well. Outside of like a guy like Brandon Hagel and Gensel a little bit, there's not a lot of shoot first mentality kind of guys on the roster. So. It's hard for them. And I like the creativity that they have out there, but sometimes you just got to keep it really simple and just start putting pucks on that control the front of the net, get those rebounds and the second chance opportunities and, make Carolina work coming out of their own zone. Let's talk about special teams because Carolina's penalty kill. saw the game the other night, Carolina, when they played Pittsburgh, their penalty kill is extremely aggressive. How do the bolts react when they face a penalty kill that is that aggressive? It's tough. Again, it gets back to the Lightning, like what the Lightning like to do and can they accomplish it against Carolina? And it's a team they struggle against. think they were one for five on the power play against them this year. So it's not horrible, know, 20 % is 20%. But what, you know, with Carolina, they don't drop their forwards back in a shell. You know, their penalty killing forwards are out there pressuring the points. And the Lightning, who love to get those big shots from Darren Radish and Victor Headman from the point. If they can't work the puck back there, they got to find a different way to kind of work things around. So it's going to be a lot on Kuturov. Carolina likes to pressure Kuturov when he has the puck on the power play. So as you see, like Gensel work it back to him on the boards, you're going to have two people coming out to attack Kuturov. So it's going to be on him to find the open player. think Gensel becomes a key factor on this power play down low. If he can control the puck, you know, maybe walk out in front and get a shot off or find that scene over to. York Strand on the far circle. think that's what you're going be looking for the lightning to do. Kind of work the puck down low a little bit more. And then that'll draw those, those wingers back in those, those top line defenders and maybe open up the points again. So I think the lightning early on should focus on working the puck down low, get that rebound out in front of the net and maybe point in the slot could bang it home. So that's what I think what, what you're going to want to see. Carolina is super aggressive on the, on the penalty kill too. If they, if they think they can break it out, they're going to. You hear the phrase power kill a lot. They're kind of the originators of that, that kind of a style play where just cause you're shorthanded doesn't mean you can't generate offense. So if they get a turnover, their forwards are going to fly the zone. So it is tough to defend against at least a lot of two on one rushes, but it also opens them up. You know, if a defense, if a forward flies a zone a little bit too fast and you could pick that pass off. Now you got a, you know, a four on three or five on three advantage. So look for the lightening to be. Cognizant of that, make sure that they're keeping an eye on those forwards flying out and trying to intercept any kind of breakout. But one thing about the Detroit game, weren't any penalties really at all. think they, each team had a power play in the first period. ⁓ That was it. The rest of the games, hopefully they can keep it at five on five for most of the game. the last game, Declan Carlisle didn't play in the last 10 minutes. He was banged up. Justin, if he can't go, who's in? I think you see probably Steve Santini rotate back in. It does sound like. ⁓ Eric Cherneck is day to day. was out the last few, but, ⁓ at the morning skate, Cooper said he's basically considering him and Nick Paul day to day from here on out. So if he doesn't play against Carolina, expect him to be back, ⁓ for the road trip. I think, ⁓ Santini comes in. You may see a call up again, you know, the Lightning are kind of limited in terms of the number of call-ups they can make now that it's post-trade deadline. They've already used one to bring up Santini earlier in the week. So they got four more, I believe it's five is the new limit. So that's something to keep an eye on. I think they're going to try and push through it. Hopefully Carlisle's not too banged up. There was no word on him after the game, which, know, 99 % of the time that's, that's what you hear out of the lightning. I doubt we'll hear anything today either. So kind of keep an eye on, keep an eye on the crunch roster and see if anybody scratched tonight for their game. then. Justin real quick. So, so there are only allowed five call-ups after the trade deadline. So yeah, with the, with the trade deadline, used to be four. ⁓ it sounds like they kind of pushed in that new extra scape, ⁓ recall for this year. So that, that being said, there are emergency recalls that you're allowed to make Detroit actually use those for their forwards. There are some stipulations with those emergency recalls. Sometimes you can't just recall people willy nilly after the trade deadline kind of keeps teams from loading up on rosters. So you're allowed basically five recalls after that. There's only a month left in the season or so. So most teams don't run into this. But if you do get into a kind of an injury stretch here, could be something to keep an eye on. Justin, the lightning front office put out a post that the Syracuse crunch had made a trade. Now the AHL trade deadline does not mirror the NHL trade deadline. The NHL trade deadline expired on March the 6th. The AHL trade trade deadline expires today. What happens? when those AHL players are traded during this, we'll call it a week and a half period. Basically, you know, it's one of those things that lot of, especially newer fans may not realize that the trade deadline doesn't mean teams can't make trades. So as you mentioned yesterday, the Lightning and the Red Wings announced that they had made a trade. Detroit sent a veteran defenseman, Ian Mitchell, to the Lightning for Wojtek Stokowiak. And Michael Milne, a couple of forwards for in the Lightning organization. All three of those players are playing in the AHL right now. They do have NHL contracts, but they are playing in the AHL. So one of the big things is after the NHL trade deadline, if you're not on the roster, you are not eligible to play in the postseason. These trades that they were made, Mitchell would not be able to play in the postseason for the Lightning. The same thing with us, the Kovac and the Milne for Detroit. They take care of Syracuse. do a pretty good job of making sure their affiliate has what they need for their playoff runs. I think this is more of a, a Detroit pushed trade with the injuries to Larkin and Cup. They did have to call up a couple of people from Grand Rapids and it was two of their top forwards that they called up. So they're looking to kind of replace that. So, Sokoviac had a solid year for the, for the crunch. He was free agent signing. lot of, a lot of fans want to see what he could do at the NHL level. Never got that chance. Michael Milne was brought in earlier this year in a trade with Minnesota that sent Forrest Kachuk the other way, but kind of a depth move for both teams. But you're going to see this, I think you'll probably see a couple more trades trickle through, but the big, yeah, the big restriction is these are pretty much just for the AHL franchises, the affiliates. You're not going to see any of these trades. It's very unlikely you're going to see any call-ups based off of them. It's just general managers helping their affiliates out, making sure they're stacked for the playoff run. Let me figure. You know, Declan Carlisle should be playing in Syracuse probably. Max Crozier, who's hurt now, know, Syracuse was counting on him. Now they have Santini up there as well. So those are three veteran defensemen that Syracuse was counting on. So they bring in the 27 year old Mitchell. Yeah. Kind of funny that I saw you and Mitchell, was like, that guy must be 38 years old. It seems to be around forever. He's actually 27. think it's just one of those names that looks like a player that's been around forever. Um, kind of lost in all the trade deadline madness last week. I did see on the AHL transaction page that Connor Geeky and Charles Edward Destu, uh, the two way rigs that players on the lighting were actually paper transacted to, uh, the crunch on Friday and then immediately caught back up. So that gave them eligibility to play in the, uh, AHL playoffs if they need to. I think that was more for Geeky who probably will go back down to Syracuse once Nick Paul is healthy. It's going to be kind of interesting to see how they do. With the, HL trade deadline at three, you'd make see one or two more kind of small moves like this. let's talk about some NHL news real quick that happened yesterday. First of all, Austin Matthews, the star winger for the Toronto Maple Leafs took a knee on knee hit from Racco Goudis of the Anaheim ducks. He did not return in the game would be a huge loss for Toronto. The injury did not look good. Hopefully he's not out long term. The Leafs aren't going to make the playoffs, but you have to wonder when anytime you take a knee on knee hit, is there going to be some major damage to the knees? But the other news that was out there, Justin was the Ottawa senators now have a first round pick. They initially lost it due to salary cap circumvention. When they tried to trade of getting dad off a couple of years ago, they got that pick back. And a lot of people are crying foul that the league shouldn't have done this, but This precedent was set much earlier, Justin. Tell everyone why. yeah, a few years ago, back when there were slightly different rules to the salary cap and contracts you could sign, the devil's signed Ilya Kovalchuk to a long-term deal. I think this is like a super long-term deal with a tremendous amount of front-end loading to it. NHL- was a 17 year deal. Yeah, 17 year deal. So like I said, things were different back then. But most of the like 90 % of the salary came in the first few years. I was one of those that you sign the deal knowing that you're going to buy out the last five years of it and it's not going to cost you a lot of money. was too much for the NHL. So they find New Jersey, bunch of money. They voided the contract. Then they also find them, believe a first round and a third round pick. basically created those picks. After a few months, the NHL announced that maybe you can draft, but just not at the top of the. Not where your pick is supposed to be. So that's kind what they did with Ottawa as well. There's a couple of Ottawa was going to be drafting 32nd. They had the very last pick in the first round. they can't trade it. Yeah. I think that's the key right there is they can't trade up. I think they can trade it down. So if they want to include in there for some other picks, they just can't trade out. So basically they can't get any additional value out of it, which, you know, there's a couple of factors to this. One, I think the biggest one is the change in ownership groups. The Dadenoff deal happened just as. Auto was being sold. by the time the NHL announced the original fine and sanctions, they actually had a new ownership group in there. you know, their, their case is, Hey, was the old guys that did it. You know, maybe be nice to us a little bit. So I can see the 32nd pick. It's fine. It makes things, it makes the bookkeeping much easier to, know, you kind of, when one team doesn't draft it in a pick, it just seems kind of odd that there's only 31, you first round picks technically, but. You know, guy who's drafted in the first pick with the second round is still technically the 32nd pick. So I they find them an additional million dollars or something like that. Million dollars, a Canadian, I believe, which is kind of odd, but I got no problem with it. Exactly. Yes. Somebody, somebody tipped me a $5 bill yesterday, a $5 Canadian bill the other day and it was a $3 and 25 cents US dollars. So, but Hey, it's pretty, I like their money. Um, and then it'll just go in the old, it'll go in the old, um, fire deposit box until I Nick, make another trip up the K-10. So, you know, long-term investment. quick, I want to say one of the reasons I think they're giving the pick back and why I think they gave the devils their pick back. in 1983, there was a dispute between the ownership of the St. Louis Blues and the NHL. The Blues did not draft anybody that year. And I think they want to avoid those kinds of situations where you decimate a franchise. not giving them the ability to make draft picks because it's not like the NFL where, hey, this draft pick, he's in the league the next year and can have an impact. The guys at the back half of the NHL draft are not going to show up for three or four years. And it hurts the minor league development of a lot of these organizations if they don't have first round picks. And I think they want to avoid those situations. I think the original intention was they wanted to punish Ottawa because they basically forgot to tell I think Vegas that there was a no trade clause in Dadnall's contract and they wanted to avoid other teams doing that. So I think they did want to bring the hammer down initially pretty hard just to kind of nip that in the bud a little bit. But like I said, with the ownership change, I think if the original owners were still there, they may have held onto that forfeiting the first round pick. It makes sense. had a chance to, it was, it was kind of funny cause they were like, well, we're going to forfeit the 24, 25 or 26 pit. And so Ottawa kicks the can down the road two years. And then when they finally have to make a decision, the league comes around and it sounds like, think Elliott Friedman was talking about it. It sounds like Ottawa had been quietly campaigning for this behind the scenes for quite a while. So it's not like this is just an abrupt decision that came out of the NHL. think Ottawa was really kind of. laying out their case for why they should still be able to draft. And like you said, you know, the 32nd pick. Justin, tell us what's going on at raw charge. We're just kind in that grind situation right now. We'll kind of talk about that Ian Mitchell trade a little bit more today. I think I'll write something up as soon as we're done here. Just kind of preview going into the weekend. We got the big road trip coming up out West. So for all you folks that love to stay up late night, there's going be playing a late night hockey for you next week. We'll have those games and recaps done as well. Kind of look at, look forward to free agency a little bit. Maybe start pondering some possible playoff. We'll have stuff posted over there. Go read www.rawcharge.com. Follow us on blue sky. Take a look at our Facebook page. have a feeling some of that free agency talks going to mention Darren Radish's name a little bit since he is probably the most coveted blue liner that looks like he's going to hit free agency. It'll be interesting to see what the lightning does. That is today's podcast for back checking the bolts. We'll be back with you on Sunday. We're going to recap the home game against Carolina and preview the lightnings for game West coast road trip that starts with Seattle on Tuesday night, 10 o'clock Eastern standard time for Justin Godfrey, who you could see at www.rawcharge.com. am Jason Lankes. Thanks for listening. Please like and subscribe to the back checking the bolts YouTube channel or whatever. podcast platform you're using, make sure you hit that like button. Thanks again for joining us 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.