Latest / Backchecking the Bolts / Lightning Season Preview: Burning Questions, Bolts Blueprint & 2026-27 Opening Night Roster
Transcript
- Jason Linkes: Coming up, I'm Backchecking the Bolts.. The Lightning have the League MVP, they have the Vezina trophy winner, ⁓ they have the Jack Adams Award winner. John Cooper won for Coach of the Year. There's not many teams that can say that. I ⁓ and there's probably not many in recent history that can say that they did that all in one year. ⁓ is a deep hockey team. It has star talent, they have depth, they're a little bit feistier now with Viel out there. ⁓ But there was one player that I was surprised made the final roster. Welcome to Backchecking the Bolts.. Backchecking the Bolts. is your cup of coffee to get you the latest on the Tampa Bay Lightning. Join hosts Jason Lincoln and the managing editor of Raw Charge, Justin Godfrey, as they break down the Lightning's most recent games and go beyond the highlights, telling you what the box scores didn't. It's time to drop the puck. ⁓ Hi, everybody. We are back for the Backchecking the Bolts. podcast. The season begins on Thursday night in Madison Square Garden. ⁓ Bolts. take on the New York Rangers before heading back home to face the Washington Capitals. Hi, everybody, I'm Jason Linkes., and welcome to Backchecking the Bolts. today. Justin and I are going to talk about thoughts out of training camp. We're going to get Justin's thoughts on how training camp went, ⁓ who the winners, who were the losers, ⁓ and in store for the Lightning going into the season. We're also going to look at Justin's Burning Questions, Jason's Bolts Blueprint for Success in 2026-27. We'll take a look at the roster. And now I'm going to bring in my co-host as always. He is the managing editor of Raw Charge at www.rawcharge.com. Justin Godfrey, how are you doing, bud? ⁓ doing pretty good. You know, nice and relaxed. ⁓ had the joy of covering the Lightning training ⁓ all the way across the pond. So it's great to be back on East Coast ⁓ And following the Lightning. So, you know, it's the best week of the year. It's right around the corner. We had some NHL games ⁓ today. ⁓ we're recording on Tuesday. So yeah, it's the the excitement's back. I'll probably do my usual preseason routine of watching the 04 Stanley Cup Game 7 just to get even more excited. And then ⁓ yeah, and then we're right into it, right? Exactly. Well, since you've been away, Justin, we had Ben Clymer on the show. talking about that just exact that game seven, talking about the anxiety of playing in game seven. And Justin, you were on the Habs Eyes on the Prize podcast just recently. What did you guys talk about? Yeah, we just talked about the Lightning, kind of the Canadians. ⁓ you know, Jared was very kind, didn't make too much fun of us ⁓ in regards to the playoff series last year, but we kinda previewed ⁓ you know the division a little bit, talked about some of the common rivals we have. ⁓ I believe that should be dropping. Probably Thursday or Friday sometime around then. But ⁓ we'll definitely set up the link for it, ⁓ so that you guys can listen to Jared and I talk about the Lightning, talk about the Canadians a little bit and ⁓ you know, some similarities between the Canadians now and the Lightning back in say, you know, two thousand fifteen and sixteen, when they were the team that was the up and coming ⁓ young kids, you know, full of excitement and hope. So yeah, it was a it was a good chat. And ⁓ like I said, we'll ⁓ forward the information over. Before we came on the podcast, you and I were talking about now the expectations are on Montreal. Before they were sort of playing with house money. We're happy to be here. They advanced to the conference finals. Now the pressure's on. There's going to be a lot of expectations for Montreal just to not only get to the cup, but to win the cup. They haven't won the cup since nineteen ninety-three. No Canadian team has won the cup since ninety three. So there's a little extra added pressure on them for that. Justin, earlier today, I was on Fox Thirty Five Orlando with Garrett Weimer talking about the upcoming season. One of the questions he asked me, one of your burning questions, who needs to step up for the Bolts. to get beyond that first round threshold? And you and I have talked about it. It's gonna be point and Hedman. We'll get a little bit more in detail on that. And finally, Justin, congratulations. You are credential for the Lightning if you follow us on Backchecking the Bolts.. Or on Raw Charge. Hopefully you follow us on both. You saw that Justin was at the preseason game and who will be covering from the I always want to call it the St. Pete Times Forum, but it's the benchmark arena. It's old habits die hard. Yeah. It'll always be the Ice Palace to me. But ⁓ yeah, got to write up the infamous ⁓ press elevator, the world's slowest elevator for the first time ⁓ last ⁓ week. ⁓ wanna thank the Lightning for that. The Raw Charge has been credentialed in the past. ⁓ Matt was one of our ⁓ writers who had a season credential. So it's ⁓ it's it's good that they recognize some of, you know, the non traditional media. It it's it's fun to be in the box watching the game. ⁓ you know, some of these guys that we read all every day, Eric Erlanson's up there. You see some ex players up there, you you ride in an elevator with Julian Brisbane and you tell yourself, Don't make a joke right now. Don't get your pass revoked on the very first day. But yeah, no, it it's it's a cool atmosphere. It's it's an honor to do it. It's a privilege. And ⁓ we look forward to ⁓ you know Trying to get as much access as we can ⁓ to keep our listeners and our readers informed. So yeah, it's gonna be a fun season. Justin, let's jump right into it. Let's get some thoughts on training camp. It's a short training camp now. I mean, you have an eighty four game schedule. Training camp is shorter than it has been in the past. What are a couple thoughts that you had with training camp and how it went for the Lightning? You know, honestly, I thought it w it went really well. ⁓ you know, it's it was definitely a a different camp than what we've seen in the past. I think it was a better camp, in my opinion. ⁓ even if the it's just a week shorter, it's that kind of lull of a week where you started playing games, ⁓ but then you're still two weeks away from the season started. You s you start to see tempers kind of flare from time to time. You didn't really hear that much about, you know, teammates getting into fights this year. I think there were a couple across the league, but you know, the Lightning seemed to went pretty smooth. ⁓ I think one of the most interesting things about this training camp is the players that r you really needed to come through that were kind of fighting for a job were some of the best players in camp. made it really tough for the Lightning. ⁓ Cooper talked about it after ⁓ I believe it was Thursday's game against Florida about how tough it is gonna be how tough it was gonna be to make those final cuts, you know, and that these guys had come through. the Sam O'Reilly's I thought he had an excellent camp. Connor Geekie had a really good camp. And then like Jensen ⁓ Harkins, I th he had was one of the best players, especially over the last two games. And I really think he earned a spot. I I don't know if he was in their plans even at the beginning of training camp. ⁓ but he came out and did what he had to do, and he's probably gonna be your, you know, third or fourth line center going into the season now. What was your initial thought on Dennis Hildeby? There was a lot of talk about the backup goaltender, Jonas Johansson. For those of you who don't know, he was traded to Ottawa for future considerations. It's more or less a way to clear up some cap space and to give Johansson a place to play because he was going to be buried on the depth chart with the Lightning. What was the initial reaction on Hildeby? I think it was everything advertised. ⁓ it looked very athletic and nut, looked very calm. And collective, like he's not a guy who moves around a lot. He's not gonna be flopping around out there. ⁓ big dude takes up a lot of the net. ⁓ I've seen anywhere I think they officially had him listed at six six on the on the ⁓ roster, but I've heard anything between six seven and six eight. So he's a big dude on skates. ⁓ takes up a lot of the net, but I think he he kind of looked like what we thought he would be. ⁓ he got into two games, played pretty well. I think the Lightning backup is in pretty good hands moving forward. Not only this year, but you're looking into probably the next couple of years. Hilde B is gonna be a really strong addition to this team. Justin, you just mentioned his height, and I was just thinking, and this isn't important, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Is he the tallest Lightning goaltender besides Ben Bishop? ⁓ he's gotta be. ⁓ I know he's the tallest one since Bishop. I think how tall is Bishop? Was six six? He was six six, I believe, is what he was listed as, ⁓ if I remember correctly. But yeah, so yeah, he's probably one of the taller ones. It looks like he's got a little more weight on him than Bishop did. I mean, Bishop was like a string bing when he was out of the pads. He he was one of those guys who looked like he put on about 60 pounds when he put on his pads. But yeah, so he's gonna be definitely one of the taller guys to to take take to the net. Justin, let's talk about some of the burning questions. The first question that you and I talked about can Ilya Mikheyev hang on the top line? Now, the lines came out. He was on the top line left wing. Do you think he ends up staying there this season? I think he does. ⁓ the big question is is he gonna be able to, you know, finish off some of these plays? We knew he was fast. I didn't realize how fast he was. He's a bigger dude as well, so it doesn't always look like he's moving super quick, but he's one of these guys. He has the puck in the neutral zone. Next thing you know, he's in ⁓ bearing down on a defenseman. So I think with him in point kind of attacking the zone, ⁓ It's gonna back up a lot of defenders and create a lot of space in the offensive zone. It's just gonna be a matter of can he gel with Kucherov, which isn't always easy. There's a lot of players who struggle to play with top end talent. They're either not on the same wavelength or not looking for the the ⁓ puck coming when it does. But I thought Mikhailov had a really good camp. He had a really nice assist. ⁓ I wanna say it was one of ⁓ Parkins' goals where he's just a little no look behind the bet behind the back. pass, but it was again that speed was evident because he drove the defenseman back, which opened up that lane behind him. He drops a pass back and you know snaps the puck home. So I think if he can fill out that role, that pushes Jay Guentzel down to the Cirelli Hegel line, which makes that line even more dangerous. I mean it's going to be one of your top offensive line, but they're also going to be able to play pretty good defense as well. So if they can get that top six taken care of, they're going to be a really dangerous team in the Atlantic. If he can't stay on that top line. It's Guentzel who jumps there, correct? Yeah, I th I would think so. ⁓ Gage Goncalves may get a look up there as well, but I I think it would be Guentzel first. ⁓ Gon Goncalves played really well on that line last year, but it seems like this year he's kind of more destined for a bottom six role. ⁓ I think they had him playing with Connor Geekie in practice after the cuts were made. So yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see how the depth goes up and down. Cooper loves blending his lines, especially when they start struggling. So I think we're going to see quite a few combinations. And that's one of the the you know the detriments of the shortened camp with the veterans only getting two games, is you don't get to really mess around with lines or anything. You kind of go with what you have and see how it works and then figure out you're gonna how you're gonna do it in the first week of the season. Well, let's talk about the bottom six now. You had Gonçalves Harkins is gonna be there as a fourth line center. Connor Geekie made the club. It's going to be his first chance to, let's say, have expectations on him when he came up a couple years ago. He came up just like the Montreal Canadians. He came up there, you're playing with house money. Now he's fighting for an NHL job. If he's not able to succeed, he might not stay in the Lightning organization, in my own opinion. I think this is a make or break time for Connor Heeky. But the third line to me that we were looking at, ⁓ Jeffrey Viel. Zegmus Gergensen, Pontus Holmberg, that looks like a dynamite third line, in my opinion. Yeah, it's interesting. They kind of moved Gergensen's back to center. ⁓ he played a lot of wing last year with ⁓ Yanni Gourde Pontus Holmberg combination. ⁓ so he moved him back to center. He had a really he quietly had a good training camp. He only played in two games. ⁓ I think he picked up an assist. That could be one of those just real pain in the butt lines to play against where They're taking the puck. They're keeping it in the offensive zone. They may not generate a lot of goals, ⁓ but they're going to tilt the ice a little bit and ⁓ set up the other lines for offense. Third, Justin storyline, and you're burning questions. Can they get the power play going? This power play is used to clicking at a high rate. Last year, down to 21%. You no longer have Darren Raddysh. You no longer have Oliver Bjorkstrand. The two leading power play goal scorers on the Lightning. What do you think they have to do to get the power play going? And what kind of a different look do you expect this power play to have? ⁓ it didn't seem like they were doing too much different. ⁓ they went I think if my numbers are right, they went about one for fifteen in the preseason. One thing about preseasons, I don't put a lot of stock into the final numbers. ⁓ it's more about how do they look? Are they getting chances? Things like that. And as we've mentioned, pretty much ad nauseum over the last couple weeks. You know, can Brayden Point get back to being Brayden Point? If that happens, I think the power play is going to be fine. ⁓ you still got Nikita Kuchov on it. Looks like they're going to have Brandon Hagel ⁓ over in the left circle. John Carlson. You know, the game I was at, they had a bunch of early power plays. He kind of struggled a little bit on the power play on the five on four. Coop even mentioned it after the game that He's a great player. He's played with great players, but it takes a while to adjust to the puck coming off the stick of of new teammates. You know, somebody like Kucherov, he's gonna put the puck where he knows it has to be, but you may not be on the save way same wavelength, kind of what we talked about with Mikheyev. ⁓ you gotta get used to that. I think Carlson maybe had a little bit of trouble with that early on. He fumbled a couple passes at the blue line. ⁓ and that's just gonna be repetition. You can't You can't do that in practice. Yes, you could work on your schemes and your plays, but that game time speed, you just can't account for it in practice, no matter how good the opposition you're going up against in your own team. So I could see it struggling a little bit to come out of the gate, but it looks like they're gonna pretty much go with the same formation. ⁓ so you're gonna have Brayden Point in that that bumper spot in the slot where he likes. ⁓ there was a six ⁓ or excuse me, a five on three that they had where they had pushed him out kinda to the w to the circle. And I think they had moved Hegel into that bumper slot. And it worked pretty well. They had a lot of chances, but I'm not gonna lie, Cooper Black had a really good game. He was the he was the AHL goalie for the the Panthers last year, and he had a really strong game in net. I thought the the Lightning looked really well at generating some chances, but he ⁓ he turned them all aside. So I'm not super worried about the power play yet. ⁓ I think you're gonna see basically a unit that is ⁓ Kucherov, Carlson, Guentzel, point and ⁓ Hagel to start. ⁓ they may flip it around a little bit, but ⁓ we'll see how it goes. Maybe yeah, bring Geekie on if he's having a strong start to a season. ⁓ he did really well in the power play in Syracuse and and he played with a lot of confidence in training camp this year. So he could be somebody who might bump up if they do struggle early on. Do you think Hedman is on the second unit? Yeah, I think they're gonna have Hedy on the second unit. ⁓ You know, depending on how he plays, you know, you can always rotate the stew in there as well. ⁓ but I think, yeah, I think you're gonna have Hedman ⁓ man that second unit. And again, you know, if Carlson does continue to struggle at the he's just not looking like he's fitting in, you can always flip Hedman in. It changes the looks a little bit. You also got a guy who's played eleven hundred regular season games, he can Hedman's gonna be okay. So yeah, I think there's a gonna be a lot of toying around the first couple of weeks. And I think that's true for just about every team in the league. Justin, I want to talk about my Bolts blueprint for success. I have three things that I want to talk about. First of all, last year they were terrible at scoring the first goal. They find themselves down one-nothing in a lot of games. The opposing the opposing team scored first 44 times. In those games, they had 19 wins. They were able to win 47% of those games. The league average is 32%. You're not going to buck every trend every year. The Lightning have to find a way to get that first goal. When they get the first goal, their winning percentage is over 75%. So it's important for them to get off to better starts. And I think as the year went on last year, the starts they they always felt like they were down one, two, nothing in every game. They're talented enough to come back. That's not the issue. The key is to get that early lead so you're not putting yourself in that position where you're always playing from behind. Second of all, I want to talk about face-offs. And you had talked about Harkins a little bit earlier, and I think he's a key addition to this team. It's not that he's going to be in the lineup for 84 games. When Yanni Gourde comes back, when Dominic James comes back, he might find his way in the press box, but they were 28th in the league in face offs, 31st in defensive zone draws. Justin, he's a guy who's over fifty percent. It's an important guy to have in your organization. You take these preseason stats with a grain of s a huge grain of salt, a boulder of salt, if you will, especially considering that the way it played out this year, when the Lightning had their starters in, they were pretty much playing AHL ⁓ opponents. And then when they had their AHL team in, it was pretty much the NHL lineup for the other team. But, you know, I I I took a quick look, and you know, according to natural stat trick, Your f the four centers who are gonna start the season, which are Point, Harkins, Cirelli, and Girgenson's, Point won 70% of his face-offs in the preseason. Harkins won 63.6, Cirelli won 61.9, and Girgenson's won fifty-two percent. ⁓ so again, you take that with a grain of salt, but at the same time, if you're gonna have numbers that you look at, you want them to be positive numbers. And that's a pretty good overall, you know, team wide, the fact that they were winning that many. And to tell you the truth, I think it's part of the reason why Luke Glen Denning was in on a on a PTO. I don't think they ever thought Glenn Denning was gonna make this team, you know, unless, you know, a bus veered off of the Sunshine Skyway or something like that. but they ⁓ you know, he's always been known as a good strong faceoff guy. And I think he's one of these guys who can be a coach on the ice during these, you know, practice sessions and everything, giving the young kids some tips. ⁓ you know, even Sam O'Reilly, I think, was at like fifty three percent. Coming up as a 20-year-old or whatever, and no matter who you're facing, to win more than half of your draws in any kind of NHL competition is pretty good. So it's a good sign that they're pointing in the right direction. I I think you are 100% correct. And I know you you mentioned this on your little hit over at Fox 35 today, is that was a big, you know, part of the Montreal series is the fact that you, you know, when they needed a face-off win, they didn't really have a guy they could send out there and go win once. For the early part of the seasons, I think Harkins is going to be one of those guys. ⁓ we're gonna see if point can increase on what he did. Zarelli started the year really well on face offs and then kind of dropped off. ⁓ but you know, if that's something that skill they've been working on all year, you know, all offseason, then it bodes well for them. And if they can bump that up in the standings and just be over fifty percent, it's gonna be a tremendous help to them. My third Bolts. blueprint is managing the minutes of the defense. They have an older defense. Victor Hedman's thirty-five, Ryan McDonough's thirty-seven, John Carlson is thirty-six. You have two extra games. Not that that's a huge deal, but they're carrying eight defensemen this year. And John Cooper's going to have to find playing time for all of these guys in order to keep them fresh. I don't think it's a bad thing to have eight defensemen. And ⁓ occasionally if you scratch McDonagh., if you scratch Hedman just to make sure that they're fresh down the stretch, I don't think that's a bad thing to do at all. I think it's really important that they manage the minutes of those defensemen. I think what you're gonna see throughout the throughout the season, if you look at the five on five numbers, I think those pairings are gonna be pretty s pretty equal ⁓ as far as the time that they're gonna be on ice. I know we looked ⁓ briefly last year ⁓ when you know those those three or four games where they actually had their their true six ⁓ defensemen playing. And, you know, they were all playing around fifteen minutes, you know, it was between thirteen and like sixteen minutes at five on five. ⁓ so I think that's what Cooper wants to do with them, you know, on a day to day basis is is keep them as ⁓ you know close as possible. It's a pretty deep defensive team, to tell you the truth. Like if they had had to put Lilleberg or Crozier or somebody like that on waivers, you know, do they clear? It's probably not a hundred percent ⁓ certain that they go through. ⁓ and then you also have, you know, Eric Turnik. You Thernak's gonna miss probably ten games this season just due to various injuries. It's just the style he plays. know, that's what his history has kind of dictated. He's he doesn't play eighty-two or eighty-four games. So having that depth is going to help there. And it's also going to help when someone like McDonagh maybe gets banged up a little bit. You know, maybe you give him an extra day off or an extra two days off and cause you have a deep enough defense to roll it. You know, Cooper doesn't like having his defensemen. ⁓ Cooper doesn't like having his defensemen sit or any of his players sit really in the press box. So he will probably rotate them through. ⁓ pretty regularly, especially early in the season. ⁓ they did it last year. You know, everyone talks about Raddysh, ⁓ you know, was a number one defenseman, but at the beginning of the year, he was a healthy scratch a couple times. You know, he was part of that rotation in the bottom six where, you know, they were going through two or three players and one guy would s play one game and then sit for two games. So it's nothing new. ⁓ I was a little surprised they went with eight defensemen, but it does make sense in the long run, ⁓ especially until they kind of figure out what their lineup's gonna be. And as you said, injuries are gonna happen. But the Lightning are a deep team. You saw Sam O'Reilly perform pretty well in training camp. I think he could be an early call-up if the if there's an injury at the right position for him. But unlike last year, they gave themselves some salary cap space. So if they need if they need to make a move, they're not hamstrung where they have to take out a player to bring in a player. They can actually make a move. Strictly to bring in a player come trade deadline time. If they don't make any additional moves from here up until near the trade deadline. But Justin, let's take a real quick look at this roster. We mentioned the top line of Mikheyev point in Kucherov. You have the league MVP. And I was going to mention this on Fox 35 today. The Lightning have the league MVP. They have the Vezina trophy winner, and they have the Jack Adams Award winner. John Cooper won for coach of the year. There's not many teams that can say that. I and there's probably not many in recent history that can say that they did that all in one year. This is a deep hockey team. It has star talent. They have depth. They're a little bit feistier now with Viel out there. But there was one player that I was surprised made the final roster. And you know who I'm gonna say. Go ahead. Scott Sabourin. You know it. Yeah. Did they keep him on the roster because I believe he was out of options and he would have had to have been put on waivers? Is that pretty good? Yeah, he would have to clear waivers. ⁓ I honestly I think Cooper really likes Sabourin. And I'm not the biggest Scott Sabourin guy. ⁓ but he fills a role. He's better offensively than than I give him credit for, I'm not gonna lie. ⁓ you know, would I rather have seen a younger kid make the team? Probably, but I th I think he's one of these guys who's probably gonna spend most of his time in the press box. He's gonna rotate in every once in a while. He's he knows what his role is. He he like I said, he's probably gonna give you a little more offense than you think coming off of that fourth line. ⁓ he's just a really solid hockey player. ⁓ I was surprised that he wasn't part of that waiver cut, but I c I disagree with you a little bit about O'Reilly. I think they're gonna take the Geekie approach to him, where they're just gonna tell him, Hey, look, you're gonna play in Syracuse this year. ⁓ we want you to play twenty two minutes in Syracuse. We want you to kill penalties, we want you to be on the power play. Don't worry about getting called up. Don't worry about, you know, I have to play well in order to advance. Just go out there and play your game, learn the professional lifestyle, and then maybe you see him with the token call up if he does have a good season. The Lightning are really good at that. If if someone's playing well or above expectations, they'll give him like a cup of coffee. They'll be like, Hey, come up for two days, get into a game, go back down. ⁓ so I think with O'Reilly, he's probably gonna go down I wouldn't be surprised to see somebody like a Dylan Duke or a Lucas Mercuri get it get the first call up if they need it. But ⁓ yeah, Sabourin was a little bit interesting. ⁓ I can see his role on the team. ⁓ he is a true heavyweight. I mean, Viel Viel will will fight anybody, but you know, he's kind of that middle class ⁓ fighter. So it's gonna be interesting to see what happens when Gourde comes back ⁓ and Dominic James to see if they're still on the roster. ⁓ I think probably Harkins and Sabourin are your first two. to maybe have to go through waivers, but you know, that's a decision down the line and who knows in two weeks, you know, maybe somebody else is banged up. That's it's kinda what happened last year. It's like by the time if somebody was coming back from an injury, somebody else was getting hurt. So, you know, I think that kinda helped Dominic James stay up for as long as he did, is because every time whoever he was replacing was gonna g you know, come back, somebody else got hurt. So we'll see how it goes. It's it's a long season. Coop always says you need more than twenty three players ⁓ throughout a season. So Hopefully not as many as last year, but ⁓ there's gonna be a lot of you know, a lot of interesting decisions down the road. Well, I was just about to say last year for every player that was put into the lineup, they had two injuries. Exactly. Yeah, I mean they went through a period where it just seemed like they couldn't keep anybody healthy. But Justin, there was another player who was the AHL player of the year last year, Jacob Pelletier. He did not make this roster. And I asked Lucas Favale, is this a make or break year for him? in terms of his NHL career, where now you have to wonder if he might be one of those career AHL guys who just happens to get a cup of coffee now and then in the NHL. Were you a little bit surprised he didn't stick? No, ⁓ I was kind of surprised. He was the one guy I was kind of worried about ⁓ as far as waivers. ⁓ maybe a a team claiming him. I th the one thing the Lightning have going for him is that he's still got two years left on his deal. Teams making waiver claims tend to not like to take on term. I think he's like a $800 and some thousand dollar cap, but it's not huge. I was a little surprised he cleared. I'm not surprised he didn't make the team. ⁓ I think he had an okay camp, but he didn't really stand out too much. And he was one of those players that would have had to have a fantastic, you know, Sam O'Reilly light camp or a Connor Geekie light camp to to get consideration. ⁓ but I think he's on, you know, now that he's cleared, you know, you you you do have that window where you can recall him. You may you you don't know. I mean the Lightning may make a change the roster, you know, prior to the drop of the puck on Thursday. Now that they've, you got some people through waivers and stuff like that, they can kind of manipulate the roster a little bit. But ⁓ we'll see how it goes. it'll be interesting to see how Pelletier kind of handles this this one. You know, last year he went down to the AHL and he had a great year, right? Led the league in points. He was a player of the year. ⁓ it's gotta be disappointing for him. So if he can kind of keep his head up, keep going, he'll get his chance at some point ⁓ with the Lightning, with another team, I think. He's still young enough if he keeps playing he can he can still make an impact at the NHL level. Is there any move, Justin, that they made that you that you scratched your head about? Mm, not really. It's it's kind of gone how I thought it would. Keeping Roth Dyn in as long as he did was interesting. They did eventually loan him back to Tapora. It looks like he's gonna finish out the season there. I wouldn't be surprised to see him back at with the Lightning at the end of the year. ⁓ maybe try and burn that first year off his entry level contract if he gets into enough games. ⁓ he was also one I thought maybe, maybe they give him like the nine game tryout, ⁓ kind of like you do with junior players. ⁓ what with the injuries that you had. So but no, I don't I don't think it's anything really surprising. You know, it was a veteran based team. Cooper likes his veterans. so it was a long it was gonna be a long march for any of the young players to make it. So it's good to see Geekie ⁓ get the call. He did what he had to do. He looked a lot faster out there and he kind of played with that confidence that you see him play with in Syracuse. That's kind of been missing a little bit in in Tampa during his, you know, first two stints up here. So I'd like to see that carry on, you know. Just go out there and play your game, man. Don't defer to anybody. You're you're a big, strong kid. Just, you know, do what you can with the puck and ⁓ go from there. Power forwards are hard to find, but they also develop a little slower, just like the fenseman. Cam Neely, when he played for the Vancouver Canucks, his first few years, it he wasn't very good. And then he went to Boston, he got an opportunity, and his game just developed and Power forwards just take a little bit longer to develop and let's hope that's the same with Connor Geekie. Now, Justin, you got a lot to write about. You got games to cover again, which I know you're glad about. What's going on over at Raw Charge? Yeah. ⁓ we're just kind of burning through ⁓ the season previews. We got a couple more, ⁓ getting ready to put the finishing touches on that ⁓ will start dropping. We got Buffalo out of the way, ⁓ Boston out of the way. So we did those two previews. I got Detroit coming up, Florida, ⁓ Our our friend Mantis is gonna go ahead and write up ⁓ Ottawa. So we'll be keep dropping the news. ⁓ we'll finish up our top twenty under twenty-five. ⁓ you know, the trip to Europe kind of interrupted that a little bit. So we still got four players to go, but we just like to say we're holding out the sus you know, the suspense as to how the the the top four prospects in the Lightning ⁓ organization kinda ended up. I I think everybody knows Yeah. I think everybody knows which four they are, but what order did they finish in is the big question. So We'll do that. We'll have our recaps up, our previews. You know, once it gets rolling on Thursday, it's gonna be nonstop for the next few months. ⁓ it's gonna be a blast. Well, the Lightning open in New York against the Rangers and then come back home to face the Washington Capitals, the new look Washington Capitals, with all the moves they made, it should be a blast. And that's the same day when the Rays will play game one, whether it's Boston or the New York Yankees. We won't know that yet. But it'll be a great sports day in Tampa. You can catch Justin each and every day over at www.rawcharge dot com. You can follow him on Blue Sky. He's gonna give you updates from the arena for each and every game. I'm Jason Linkes.. You could follow us on Backchecking the Bolts. on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. ⁓ know it. We are there. Thanks for watching us today. Please hit that like and subscribe button and go Bolts.. For the first time in the twenty six, twenty seven season. ⁓ Go Bolts.. Thank you for listening to Backchecking the Bolts.. We are free and available on all platforms, including Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, 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 Rawcharge.com. You can follow the show on X at Tampa underscore Bolts. underscore pod and on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at BackcheckingTheBolts. 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