Latest / Backchecking the Bolts / Buffalo’s Insane 8-7 Game + Lightning vs Toronto Recap NHL Trade Deadline Talk
Transcript
- Jason Linkes: Coming up next on Back Checking the Bolts, we're going to take a look at the NHL trade deadline. It concluded on Friday at three o'clock. Were the Bolts winners or were they losers? We're also going to take a look at some of the other big deals that happened on Friday. Plus, we're going to recap the Bolts weekend at Toronto and at Buffalo. Justin Godfrey and I will be giving you the latest and more. It's coming up next on Back Checking the Bolts. Welcome to Back Checking the Bolts. Back checking the bolts is your cup of coffee to get you the latest on the Tampa Bay Lightning. Join host Jason Linkus and the managing editor of Raw Charge, Justin Godfrey, as they break down the Lightning's most recent games and go beyond the highlights, telling you what the box scores didn't. It's time to drop the puck. It is March 9th and the bolts just came off of, let's just call it an interesting game against Buffalo. You are on the back checking the bolts podcast. Hello everybody. am Jason link us and I'm always joined by the managing editor of raw charge. He is the one and only Justin Godfrey. Justin, before we talk about the game, how was that come quad festival over in date city? know, it was a little bigger than I expected. It was a, it was a bit of a drive, but you got to go back. past the old ⁓ stomping grounds, drove past St. Leo College where we both matriculated from and then to the good old beautiful downtown Dade City where I think they were anticipating about 40,000 people and it was a lot bigger than I thought. 40,000 really? Yeah, there's roughly, I would say eight blocks by three blocks section of downtown, booths all over place. did try some kumquat pie, it was fantastic. aren't quite aware of what a kumquat is. Imagine if you cross spread, I would say an orange with about the size of an olive, slightly bigger than a large olive. That is what it is. It is a member of the citrus family. There's a little town called St. Joe just north of Dade City, which is one of the largest kumquat producers in the world. Therefore the annual kumquat festival in Dade City. A lot of vendors out there, a lot of good food. There was fried. Oreos, fried Twinkies, fried everything, funnel cake. Everybody loves a good funnel cake. And then just a lot of vendors out there. So I think my lovely other half stocked up on our soap collection as well as what else she bought something else. We're good to go. So it's always nice. You know, it was 80 some degrees out. The sun was out. Stroll through historic Dane City and yeah, enjoy a slice of kumquat pie. is the first time in 14 episodes we've actually mentioned the word breeding before, but Hey, there's always a first for everything. know, that's kind of the fun part. You know, when we talk about traveling and stuff like that, just some of these local festivals that people aren't quite aware of, they do ⁓ make for some entertaining days. So yeah, always check that local events calendar. When you go out to travel, you never know what you're going to stumble across. you're new to back checking the bolts, one of the things that we like to do, Justin and I are travelers. like to actually Look at NHL cities and tell you where to travel to some hidden spots recommendations. We've been fortunate enough to travel to pretty much every NHL city to see games. So we just try to give you a little bit of inside information. And now if you just happen to be an Eastern Pasco County, now you know a little bit more about come quads. There's going to be no such thing as too much come quite knowledge, sir. Well, let's give everyone a little bit of knowledge about what happened. at the deadline and some of the lightning roster moves. First of all, Justin, Curtis Douglas was placed on waivers. You had mentioned in the podcast before that Julian Brizbois probably wanted to sneak him down to Syracuse. That did not happen. What was your thoughts? thought it was interesting that Vancouver picked him up. Yeah, they definitely need some NHL bodies. ⁓ he's going back out West. You he was part of the Utah slash Arizona organization for a long time. He'll get some playing time out there, which should be nice. So it's a good deal for him. think the travel probably sucks. Nobody likes flying cross country, especially after he's set up in Tampa for most of the winter. But yeah, he's going to go out there. He's probably going to be a fourth line player for him. But I have a feeling he's going to get a lot more playing time than he saw in Tampa. There's always a chance that later on he does get put back on waivers before the end of the year. If you want to pick him up for, to help secure the Syracuse out down the stretch, they can always do that. But I think it's a good chance for him. The lightning freed up a roster spot, which they then promptly filled on Friday. So I think overall it was an improvement for the lightning. bolts did make one trade at the deadline and it was bringing back an old face, Corey Perry, who played with Tampa from 21 to 2023. He was with the Kings. got him for a second round pick. Now, first of all, Justin, I was surprised it took a second round pick to get Corey Perry. I was surprised that Los Angeles traded him because they went out and got Panarin. So you thought they were going to be buyers at the deadline, but Perry was actually having a quietly decent season, 28 points and 50 games. He's your typical third line guy. Now at this point of his career, he's the age of 40. I liked the move. thought a second round pick was a little bit high, but the lightning are trying to win the cup. You have to make some of these moves. liked the Corey Perry edition. Yeah, it's. It's not something you write home about and celebrate in the streets or anything like that, but I think it was a solid pickup from, from what Breezeball said afterwards. He wasn't entirely sure, you know, Perry was on the market and there had actually been some talk about LA extending him going into, know, Thursday night, Friday morning. The draft picks a 20, 28 second round pick. I'm not overly bummed out about it. It's, it's going to be what it is. If the Lightning want to, they can always pick, pick another. pick, you know, drop it back up by then. He gets a couple of years down the road. And with some of the other deals that were going on during Friday, that was seen to be the price to pay for a veteran. comes in, he knows the system. He's going to fit right in. He's going to be down on that fourth line. So he was, he's actually seen some second unit power play time. And it seems over the last couple of games, ⁓ Cooper's balanced out the power plays a little bit more. It's, know, instead of 90%, 10 % between the two units, it's more like 80, 20. I think he has a little, you know, Cooper has a little bit more confidence in Perry out there and he does, he's doing what Corey Perry does. So he comes in, he gives them some veteran experience. think he's a great mentor for Connor Gickey who's he's playing on that line with. going to play similar styles. Gickey probably has a little more offensive skill in his game, but there's no one better to learn to play in front of the net than Corey Perry. Sometimes getting that veteran leader. You can't say enough about it. And you're right. When it does, when he is able to play with a guy like Connor geeky, helping him develop is a nice little addition to a part of this deal. Now the other lightning move, I should say lightning news was a meal, little Berg, he will be out two weeks. I believe he took a puck to the face. Yeah, I think it was, it was either a practice the before the would have begun or in warmups took a fit, a puck to the face. Sounded like he broke something. You're pretty familiar with orbital bone fractures. don't know if that's what it was, but yeah, took a pipe in the face. Sounds like he's out ⁓ a couple of weeks. I think it was the diagnosis. So he joins Nick Paul on the sidelines as well as Gage Gunga his call base as I butchered that nail, unfortunately. ⁓ Breezewa did provide a little update on those two in his post-trade deadline presser. So it looks like. Gunn-Kalvis is officially day-to-day. There's a good chance he'll be back for the home stand. And then Nick Paul, they said probably another week or so. He has been skating, but it sounds like he's out for another week or so. So that's another three or four games for Geeky. Assuming he's probably going to be one of the casualties once Paul and Gunn-Kalvis are back in the lineup. I could see a fourth line of Paul, Gunn-Kalvis, and Corey Perry, which makes for a pretty interesting... fourth line, but yeah, that's what we're kind of looking at right now as far as the roster. There was some news. I don't know if we're going to have to wait a couple of days to see what happened. Eric Chernak got into that second period fight tonight against Buffalo. Didn't return to the game after that. So we're to see what happened. He was kind of shaking his hand as he down the tunnel. So we're going to see if that's long-term. If the injuries just keep kind of rolling in for the lightning. Chernak is out, who's in? You're probably looking to see right side defenseman. You're looking. Carlisle probably draws back in right now immediately. If it's any kind of long-term, know, hopefully it times up to where Lilliburke's back. I can see them recalling. Maybe Max Groshev gets another shot, inject a little bit of speed back into the lineup there. ⁓ He's been doing pretty well down at Syracuse. Just kind of keep shuffling the ducks here in the defense. It's going to be interesting to see if he's out long, how they kind of fill that role. We're going to be talking about the winners and losers at the deadline. know everybody wants to talk about this Buffalo game where the bolts lost eight to seven, but we're going to talk about the deadline first. Justin, I had the winners of the deadline Buffalo. The reason is they needed depth. Buffalo was not a deep team. They were able to get some depth. got Sam Carrick for face-offs on the blue line. got Logan Stanley. They got Luke Shen from Winnipeg. Do I think this makes them a Stanley cup contender? I don't. think right now they are just on an amazing hot streak. And I think once they come back down to earth, I don't think they're a team that is as good as Carolina or Tampa. Just my own opinion. I liked what Colorado did in the short term by getting Nazem Kadri. You now have that third line center. You can roll out there with confidence, but Justin. He has a large cap at Calgary took what about 1.8 off of that contract? Yes. 1.4 million Calgary retained. And that's kind of one of those new wrinkles to the trade deadline this year where you could not do the double retention deal. I have feeling that's why it took quite a while for a Connery to go through. Also probably why a couple other people like a Robert Thomas didn't get moved. GMs were having trouble finding, you know, finding the salary, finding the room. to make things work out. So yeah, it'll be interesting. thing I was kind of thinking about here with a deal like Cadre, like you said, it's a good short-term move. Does Colorado move him in the off season and maybe retain a little bit of salary? Some of these players that were moved, a portion of their salary was taken off. They could be moved again and now you're outside that 70-day deadline for double retention. So we'll see. You know, made for slower deadline. it make for more action in the off season around the draft? So that's something to keep an eye on as GMs adjust to this do, you know, double retention role and some of the restrictions that the new CBA is going to put on. we had our podcast on Friday morning, and this was before the deadline was official. I had mentioned to you that players with term longer contracts were not being traded. lot of the guys that we saw were. unrestricted free agents after this year or after 2027. And I think that what the deals that we saw on Friday, with the exception of Kadri, that was still the truth. don't think too many people, you know, signed past, I would say next year really moved. Um, we saw a lot of smoke and a lot of mirrors about some of that stuff. know, Vincent Trotschek didn't go anywhere. Gordon Cairo didn't go anywhere. Robert Thomas didn't go anywhere. Go thought it, you know, almost went somewhere, but he. He used what was in his power to go in and turn that deal down. Yeah. I think GMs, know, it's kind of funny because they did have all season to prepare for it. It was pretty well known that, you know, these are going to be the rules for the trade deadline. So for them to kind of complain about it at the last minute, you know, rings a little hollow for me, but they are NHL GMs. They pay people to take care of this cap stuff. So by next year, we'll have it all figured out. think it will be back to our regular, scheduled trade deadline with them finding the loop holes and everything and moving forward. I want to talk about some trade deadline losers and Justin, you mentioned the name, Vincent Troschak. The New York Rangers are going nowhere. They're probably not going anywhere next year. I was shocked. did not move him. I'm surprised they didn't move some other guys on that, on that team and expiring contracts. They were dead silent at the deadline. don't get it. I'm not sure what Chris Drury, their general manager's doing. Yeah, I don't think Chris Drury knows what Chris Drury is doing to tell you the truth. I got to think you ownership's got to have a long conversation with him this summer. think, cause the funny thing is I still have a feeling that, you know, Trojek is going to get moved, but what's he going to get moved for in the off season? You know, it's probably going end up going for like a third round pick. Now I think Drury kind of set his sights a little too high on what he could get back. Never came off of it. And you know, now they're going to have to figure it out. And he's going to take pennies on the dollar when he probably could have pulled. you know, at least one first round pick, you know, or a decent prospect for him. But the Rangers are a mystifying team. They ended up trading one of their younger players. mean, Brendan Alton went out to Calgary for Jacob Petadlia. And I know he's had some issues with, with management, way he's been used, but still, you you would think the 23 year old kid is the one you want to keep around as opposed to, you know, someone like Trocheck who's, taken up a bunch of your money, bunch of your salary cap and you know, is an aging player. So it's going to be interesting to see what they do in the summer. You know, maybe he rescues it with some nice deals, but at this point you got to really wonder what their direction is and how much longer a player like Adam Fox is going to want to put up with it or, you even Schusterke, he just signed his big long deal, but did he sign up for eight more years of them rebuilding, you know, three more times. So we're going to see what they end up doing. team that I thought was a loser was Carolina, who right now is in the top spot in the East, but they did nothing. They're a good team. Don't get me wrong. I think are a team that's destined for the conference finals. They've been there numerous times. And the last few times they've been to the conference finals, they've been obliterated. I don't think they've won more than one game in any of those series. So I thought with the number of first round draft picks they had, I thought that they would make some moves, try to tinker the roster a little bit just to get over the hump. They've in the past, they went out and they traded for Jake Gensel from the penguins. They got Miko Rantanen from Colorado, which who they eventually traded to Dallas, but they've never been afraid to make moves. was surprised this year. They didn't do anything. think they kind of trust in their team a little bit more this year. I thought they made some good moves in the off season, you know, bringing in Keandre Miller, bringing in, ⁓ citing Nick Ehlers to a deal. think they're a little bit deeper than we've seen them in the past. And maybe those trades that they made the last couple of years and not paying off made them a little gunshot. That being said, I'm really surprised that he didn't bring in another goaltender. know they really liked the way Brandon Busey is playing, but you you're going into a playoff run. You're going to the playoffs with Brandon Busey, Frederick Anderson, who's kind of a shell of his old self. And then, know, Piora Kochekov is hurt right now. So in the end, is that going to be good enough for you? You hope so, or you hope your talent's good enough to play around them. But yeah, it's kind of interesting that they basically did nothing at all. So, but yeah, still a good forward group. Their defense is solid as always, but we'll see how it plays out. You know, the Metro first round is not going to be any more fun than the Atlantic. So they could be bounced in the first round, even if they finish up with, you know, the most points in the league. let's talk about the Lightning. Let's talk about that game against Toronto was a 5-2 victory on Saturday. Justin, the Bolts finally found their offense. They scored four goals in the first period. After that, it was pretty much on cruise control. John Cooper though made some changes within his lineup. What did he do? So kind of mixed things up. You know, you had Corey Perry and you went back to the 12 to six rotation. They had been rolling pretty much 11, seven since the, since the Olympic break, which was more by necessity than anything else, just because of some of the injuries they've had upfront. got 12 healthy fours and also he rolled them out. You saw kind of a mix up of that line. He broke up the Yanni Gord line for a lot of the game. He had Oliver Yorkstrand playing down. had Zemgas-Gergensen playing up with Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel. So I think Cooper was just kind of looking for a little bit of a spark, maybe get the offense going. They'd been relying so heavily on the top line that I think sometimes you just move players around. let them, know, it just kind of changes their outlook on the game a little bit. Maybe they see something against Buffalo. He did kind of go back to some of the older lines. ⁓ The Buffalo game is just his own beast and we'll talk about that later, but ⁓ it's kind of hard to. just with the penalties in that game to track how they were doing. But another thing is he also broke up the defense, the defensive pairings as well. JJ Moser and Derrick Radish stayed together, but ⁓ the Ryan McDonough-Eric Cernak pairing has been golden since 2020. And he broke those up. Hedman was playing with Cernak for most of the game against Toronto. And then Charles Edward de Stuart jumped up to play with McDonaghs. know, Cooper's kind of, I think he's just... Trying to wake his team up a little bit. They've been in this funk since, since the break coming out of the break in. There's only so much you can do. You're not going to bench anybody really that that matters. think you just kind of move, shuffle the lines around, give them a little bit of a new look and then see where it goes. Like you said, the offense took off. scored the four times. Personally, I'm not going to read too much into a Toronto win right now. That team is, I hate to say any NHL player, any high level athlete just quit on a coach or quit on a team. They are just playing with absolutely zero passion right now. So, know, yeah, you beat Toronto, you stopped at losing streak. That's great. But can you read too much out of it? I would say not really. had mentioned the defensive pairing, the changes. McDonough was playing with Destu, correct? And Headman was playing with Cherneck. How does that change the... I mean, previously Headman with Destu instead of Cherneck, how does that impact the Lightning defense? Does it make them quicker? Does it make them more physical? What does it do? think with the headman Chernak parry, gives it gives headman a little bit more ability to kind of be more offensive, play more to his strength. I Chernak is going to be your stay at home defenseman. He's going to cover for you. The drawback is that you just don't have a lot of speed on that, on that parrying anymore. mean, headman's kind of, he's still laboring through it. seems he doesn't have that smooth skating style that we've seen in the past and he's ⁓ kind of getting burned a little bit. So I think with Chernak back there. You can tell Victor, go up, push up on the play, make your passes, do your offense. And you have a safety net behind him when he's playing with a younger player like the Stu who's not as experienced, you know, the headman's kind of got to play both roles a little bit. So that gives him the chance. And for the Stu it's kind of the same. You got Ryan McDonough, probably one of the best defensive, um, you know, defensive defensemen for lack of a better phrase in the game right now, even at 30, know, 35 plus years old. The guys are rocked back there. So you can let the stew carry the puck up the ice knowing that McDonough is going to be back. So yeah, it of, kind of mixes it up a little bit. We'll see how long it lasts. does love his safety blankets and that McDonough Chernak pairing has been a safety blanket for forever. If the big guy is healthy, I wouldn't be surprised to see them back once they're back on the home ice and Cooper can control the matchups again. in the Toronto game, Nikita Kuturov had four assists. And today it's the nurture marketing trivia question of the day. Nikita Kucherov has the lightning record with five assists in a game. That record is shared with four other players. Who are they? think I got a couple of them. He four other players. Four other players. Darren Radish. That is correct. Darren Radish with five helpers on March 9th, 2024, two years ago to this day. Um, did Chris Contos get a five assist game? No, he had a four goal game. No, it was like an old, old, old style of defenseman. There somebody you wouldn't think of. No, actually. I'll give you the years 2009, 2010. The other two were in 2024. Well, and of course you got radish. So that was one of the radish, uh, Marty St. Louis. 2010 five helpers November 18th. All right, so I got two out of the four Who else has put up a five assist game? Brendan Hagel that is correct. Good. I didn't think you were gonna get that one. I remember he had one of those weird games and then the other ones were from 2009 2009 and I'll give you a okay. He is a Hall of Famer Mark sorry said Marty Hall of Famers. it Andrew Chuck? No, he was gone by then. He was gone by then. So on that light need our hall of Famers. you want another hint? It's not Mark Cracky. Is it? Yes, it is. It's the wrecking ball. Yeah. You were trying to, trying to get me on that one. Yeah. So yes, the wrecking ball five helpers March 1st, 2009. So ladies and gentlemen, here's what I need you to do. You can just give me one of these five or one of these five names. Send an email to back checking the bolts at yahoo.com. We will get you registered for a Nikita Kucherov Jersey compliments of nurture marketing. It's been pretty good job there. was impressed. got Hagel. did not think you would get that much better than last week's trivia question. ⁓ but yeah, no, was kind of, with all the players that have come through there, you know, you knew Marty St. Louis would be on there. You you're probably kind of surprised that, ⁓ look, have you ever got there? think he'd max out at four. ⁓ Yeah, it's always nice when you have teammates are helping teammates and, well, let's get to the reason we're here tonight. It's to talk about the Buffalo game. If you didn't catch this one, the bolts fell by a score of eight to seven. Justin, this game had a little bit of everything to it. First off the fisticuffs. mean, this was a physical game. I had even mentioned it a week ago, the way the six two lost to Buffalo ended. I thought the game was going to be chippy, but I didn't expect this. think you got a couple of, about two or three factors going on here. As you mentioned, the chippiness from the way the game ended the last time with, counselor, I believe it was council rain, the counselor or Malistein that kind of fell on top of, ⁓ Dominic James and, and led to the big injury. I think there was some pushing, shoving towards the last whistle there as well. So you had that going in, ⁓ two teams meeting each other again at the. within a week of each other, a little bit over a week, two teams fighting for first place. You got a Buffalo team here that hasn't been in this position, God knows how long. They want something to prove on home ice. A lot of talk today about how this is a real playoff atmosphere kind of game with Buffalo, you know, fighting for first place. So I think the lighting here, they're like, hey man, you guys might be the new kids on the block here, but we want to show you what it's like to play playoff hockey. We're going to be in your face. We're going to finish every check. We're going to... push you around and see if you guys break a little bit. And to Buffalo's credit, I don't think they did. I thought Buffalo handled it pretty well. There's a lot of four on four action, a lot of matching minors. And then when Buffalo had their chances on the power play, they took advantage of it. So, you know, I thought it was a pretty good showing by the Sabres. We've seen the Lightning do this a couple of times throughout the year where they have this kind of new found edge to them. It's mostly been against Florida. So I had to kind of like double check the schedule to make sure this wasn't. some random Florida game that popped up out of nowhere. But yeah, so it was good to see. I liked it. I don't think anything was too egregious. were a couple after the whistle hits that didn't care for one on each team. thought Sam Carrot took a nice shot at Nikita Kutrov's rims after a goal. And then the one thing I really didn't like was the Brandon Hagel play. We had talked about this beforehand. So it's kind of, I want to say it's in the second period or so. Hagel's in front of the net, he's battling, he's doing what Brandon Hagel does, he either breaks his stick, slashing somebody or gets it knocked out of his hands. And he really tries to go rasp his Dallin into a fight. Now Dallin had fought earlier in the game, was apparent from the get go he wanted no part of Hagel. He was willing to skate away from it. Hagel's tugging at his jersey the whole way, Dallin follows the play up the ice, Hagel's from behind. And honestly, it's amazing Hagel didn't get... kicked out of game for this. He starts punching Dallin in the back of the head. They go to the ice, Hagel keeps punching him and the scrum breaks out. think even ⁓ Lukenin was involved at one point, but Hagel ends up with ⁓ two roughing penalties, so a double minor, and stays in the game. I've seen people kicked out for way less than that. mean, it was uncalled for. You basically let it go. Once you know Dallin's not going to engage with you. You separate, you skate off, you chirp him a little bit about not wanting to throw the gloves and you move on with your life. know, Hagel is who Hagel is. He gets a little emotional through these games. And I think you kind of got the better of him there. Buffalo goes down, scores on the power, pull the first power play and kind of put the game, you just kind of felt was out of reach because the lady had been kind of getting back into the action at that point. Now in the end they do end up coming back, but yeah, I just thought it was kind of a bad moment, not a great look for Hagel. And you kind of want to. Get that out of your game, especially come playoff time. You don't want to take emotional penalties like that. Now the bolts fell down three, nothing, but Justin, this game was tied at four after the second period. And again, like many games during the streak and even the Carolina game, when the losing streak has started, the bolts respond. They don't go away. You have to like that about the team right now. Yeah. And I think that's what makes the first match against Buffalo such the outlier is it was, it was a game where I felt like they didn't, you know, really fight back. ⁓ this, they weren't going to let it happen twice. That's for sure. You know, it's three, one, and, ⁓ they're kind of coming back kind of a key play. It's they score to make it three, one, then they give up a short handed goal goes to four, one. And then, you know, they just kind of got back to doing what they did. I don't think Buffalo had a great defensive game. I don't think Luka didn't had a great game. I'd be a more concerned if I was Buffalo, at least the lady can say, Hey, we had our backup goalie give up eight goals. had your number one goalie give up seven on like 20 shots or something like that. 21 shots. So I think it's a little matter of concern, but I do like how they, ⁓ they, they really battled back. had mentioned Pekka Luka and then gives up seven goals for Buffalo. The bolts went with Yonash Yohansson again on the back to back as important as this game was Justin. If you were John Cooper, would you have gone with Vasilevsky playing both? No, ⁓ he's not going get out of his structure. think the main question was would you have gotten the Toronto game and then that's save Vasilevsky for the Buffalo game. The only problem with that is if you have to lose is the Toronto game or if the Lightning lose that game. Now you're chasing the points and you know, Cooper would rather have the two points in hand by beating, you know, having Vasilevsky. Vasileski and Ned for the Toronto game. You win that game. Cool. Now if you beat Buffalo, that's you win both halves of the back to back. That's always been his philosophy with, with these back to backs is you, you want to win the first one, you win the second one. It's icing on the cake, but if you lose the first one and you lose the second one, now you've lost both. So ⁓ great, great analysis there by the way. But yeah, you know, it's basically, ⁓ What I'm trying to say is that, you know, you lose the first one, now you're putting more pressure on yourself to win that second one. And if it doesn't work out for you, now you've really put yourself in a hole. Yeah. I don't think he's, you know, the guy's been behind the bench for what 13, 14 years now. He's not going to change the way he, handles these. Would he have liked to get the points? Yes. But you know, it is what it is. Now you move on, you're back home. You got four games. One of the problems with starting Vaseliski in both games is you just don't have the time in March. If they had more of a break somewhere down the road and say a week or so, maybe you see it, but right now, you know, they're right back at it. have tomorrow off and then they're right back on the ice for four game homestead. the third period, the bolts actually jumped out to a six, four lead and then a seven to five lead after Brandon Hagel banged home a rebound. But then the wheels just fell off. Buffalo. thought their speed really gave Tampa a lot of trouble. What led to the meltdown from. being up seven to five to all of a sudden trailing eight to seven. It's just bad play the neutral zone to me, especially against a team like Buffalo that's going to attack you with speed. If you can shut them down in a neutral zone or if you can get your four check going and make them work the entire 200 feet, you know, they're going to have a much tougher time than what they had in the third period. And I thought the light knee kind of got away with that. You know, they got away with it for a lot of the middle half of the game just by outscoring their problems. They couldn't do it in the at the end. They couldn't hold on. You didn't want them to see them go into a defensive shell either because Buffalo can pick you apart that way as well. I do give them credit for not doing that, but you got to be somewhat responsible at some point. And I thought they really got out of it, especially in the neutral zone. allowed Buffalo to enter with speed. Something that the Lightning broadcasters, Brian England was pointing out is during this losing streak, the Lightning defense has gotten really wide. So there's a lot of space in the middle of the ice for other other teams to attack. That's something that you really have to keep an eye out for moving forward, kind of close that gap up a little bit, or have a, have a forward back helping them out with that. You just didn't see it in this game. So Buffalo is either able to score off the rush where they were good, easy entries and now the lightning are chasing them around. And that's kind of what happened over the last five minutes of the game. Justin after the game, John Cooper talked about special teams. Buffalo was four for seven on the power play and had a shorthanded goal. What did John Cooper have to say? Yeah. And basically he said that he liked the way his team played five on five. Um, he actually said he loved the way they played at five on five. Uh, they all scored Buffalo six to three and then, you know, a lot of chances, but yeah, he got to tighten up that, that, that special teams, the light, haven't been through a third rated penalty kill this year. So they've done it for most of the, most of the time, but you can't a team like Buffalo with the scoring talent that they have with Tash Thompson and Alex Duke, you just can't keep handing them chances. And that's kind of what they did early in the game. And then at the end, you know, that, that the last, that last power play Josh Jones scores on it. It's just, yeah, it's tough. Anytime you give up a short-handed goal, especially in a game you're chasing is such a, such ⁓ a deflating moment. Like I said, it was three, one at the time, lighting score on the power play, which honestly they eventually did, you you cut it to three, two, and now you have all the momentum instead, you know, close down the side and makes it four, one. Now you're really seriously chasing it. Yeah. ⁓ something they'll clean up. ⁓ I think now that they've kind of got their defense, hopefully back, you'll, you'll see a little bit more play out of that. Not having all their forwards healthy either kind of hurts. I Hagel was in the box, like we said, for four minutes, you know, he's one of their top penalty killers. So sometimes when you have those guys out, it's also tough for the unit to come through, but yeah, there's, there's gotta be better, man. They got it. They got to get back to what they were doing, which is make the simple clears on Doan's goal. You know, Yanni Gord had a chance to to knock it out, but he didn't clear it and they keep it in and they score, know, puck hits the post comes right to dough and he puts it home. That was the game winner. Correct. Now let's take a quick look at the Eastern conference standings in the Atlantic. The Buffalo Sabres leapfrog, the lightning, they now have 84 points, but they've played two extra games. The lightning sit in second with 82, the red wings are in third with 79. Over in the Metro, you have Carolina leading the conference with 86 points. The penguins with 78, the Islanders with 77. The two wild card spots right now are Montreal with 78 and the Boston Bruins with 76. Columbus blue jackets are hot on their heels with 73 points and Ottawa is right now 10th in the conference with 71 points. Justin, there's a lot to recap in this one. What's going on at raw charge. Probably gonna break down, ⁓ got a couple more things, couple more thoughts to share for the trade deadline now that we're a couple days away from it. So I'll be sharing now, probably gonna be a subscribers only post. For those of you out there who aren't aware, we do have a subscription option to help support the website and occasionally I'll drop in some bonus articles that are only available to subscribers. So you'll probably see that either tomorrow, probably tomorrow or Tuesday. And then I'll kind of break down this homestand. You know, it's going to be a tough homestand. think Carolina on it. A other teams, Detroit's in there. So yeah, it's going to be another tough homestand. They got to get their act together. Posit some thoughts on how they can kind of get back to the lightning ways and then just get you your standard recaps and keep you up to date on the news going around the league. coming week, the bolts return home on Tuesday. faced the Columbus blue jackets at seven on Thursday home against the red wings at seven and on Saturday. They host the Carolina hurricanes at seven o'clock. That's a pretty tough three game home stand there. Justin coming back after losing five or six. got Carolina who said best team in the Metro. Then you got two teams in Detroit and Columbus that are, you know, buying for that last playoff spot. I think Detroit's kind of in the same boat as buff or Buffalo is where they haven't been here for a while. So it's going to be one of these. another one these young teams that wants to knock the champ off. So they're going to be throwing both barrels at the Lightning. Columbus has stumbled a little bit lately, but you know, they're still a tough team to play. So yeah, it's not like the ⁓ Lightning get a chance to catch our breath with this home stand. And the good news is if they do pull out some victories, it's going to be quality wins that they're playing. So it'd be a good indication that their game has gotten better as we go over the last 20 games of the season. Our next podcast will be out on Wednesday after the bolts play the Columbus blue jackets for Justin Godfrey. You can see him at raw charge at www.rawcharge.com. I'm Jason link is thanks for joining us today. Please make sure to like, and subscribe to the back checking the bolts on the YouTube channel or whatever podcast platform you use. Thanks again 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. 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