EP. 3 "Going Out West"

Stevie Z gets into the game vs. Carolina (3/14) and the first two games on the Western Canada/Pacific Northwest trip, Seattle (3/17) and Vancouver (3/19). Then there's a discussion about the current playoff format and the Lightning's D-pairings with 15 games left. Finally, a little preview about the Alberta back-to-back vs. Edmonton on Sat. 3/21 and Calgary on Sunday. 3/22.

Topics:

- Bolts vs. Carolina, Seattle, & Vancouver

- Playoff Format

- Lightning's D-Pairings

- Alberta B2B Preview

- Prospect talk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's going on, everyone? Welcome to the 401 Channel Side Podcast, a Tampa Bay Lightning fan podcast, hosted by yours truly, Stevie Z. There's a lot to get into today, so let's get straight to it. I want to start off by recapping the game from this previous week all the way back to last Saturday versus the Carolina Hurricanes. So if you can recall coming into that game, right, Carolina had played 65 games, they were sitting at 41, 18, and 6 with 88 points at the time of last week's recording, right? With a plus 40 gold differential. They were sitting at 7-3 in their last 10, coming off a loss on Thursday to St. Louis, 3-1. If you can remember, I said that Tampa was going to have to be ready to go from the opening puck drop because Rod Brindamore has his team play one way. One way. And it's a full speed go for an entire game. Sure enough, right off the opening puck drop, that's what happened. 38 seconds into the game, Svechnikov scores a goal off a delayed penalty. Beautiful feed from Aho in the corner, net front all alone. 1-0. I couldn't even get into my seat. It was already 1-0. From a lightning perspective, the goal was a little controversial in the sense that it was a delayed penalty. Edmund slaps the puck up the board. However, the referees didn't think that that constituted possession. Therefore, every lightning player stops playing. Carolina Hurricanes don't hear a whistle, so they don't stop playing. That's when you get to play on the corner with Aho, getting to the puck first, everybody taking a nap for the lightning. From then on, for the next like two and a half minutes, Carolina just poured it on a little bit more before the Lightning even got a shot on net. It was 6-0 in shots before Tampa got their first shot in the game. Just a little sleepy out of the gate for Tampa. And eventually they they find their stride. A couple good shifts. Gord Gergensen's homeberg line was really going early on. They get into the offensive zone, get a little cycle retrieval game going. Gergensen's beautiful hard drive to the net draws a slashing penalty with 1333 left in the first period. The first unit of Darren Radish, Braden Point, Nikita Kucharov, Corey Perry, Jay Gensel comes out. Nothing doing. Out of sync with overpassing and Carolina just doing a really good job on their penalty kill, getting their sticks on the puck and clearing it out. Near the end of the first period, Eric Chernak tries to make a play in the neutral zone. It's a poor pass that ends up on KeAndre Miller's stick. Aho gets behind the defense. Vasi stops the initial breakaway shot, but Andre Svechnikov follows up and finds Aho at the back post, undefended. 2-0 Carolina with 232 remaining in the first period. And after the first period ended, I'll be honest, from my perspective, I thought despite the early goal and the breakaway that turned into a 2-1-0, 2-1-1, whatever, I didn't think Tampa played all that bad. I thought they grew into the first period. I thought that they were willing to meet the intensity of the game. The shots ended up being 13-10 at the end of the first. Now getting into the second, although Tampa ties the game, I felt that Carolina carried play in the second period. Great first goal, Henman makes a great play in the defensive zone, gets a stick on the puck, slaps a Tianni Gord along the wall. He goes down the right side. Great shot past Frederick Anderson. I'm sure it's one that he wants back. 2-1 with 550 left in the second. And then less than a minute and a half later, like on the next shift, right? We have a great breakout from the defensive zone. Das 2 to Gonçalves out of the zone. Gonzalvez to point, point cross ice to Das 2, who follows the play up the ice, 2-2 with 425 remaining in the second. And you're thinking, wow, Lucky's really weird because there is no way that Tampa deserved to be tied in this game, right? And that's just my opinion. It's kind of funny hearing, you know, John Cooper after the game felt that the first period was the worst and that they played better in the second and the third. And watching it from where I was seeing it, it just seemed like Carolina was in our defensive zone almost the entire second period. They just kept coming in waves. And the fact that Tampa got a tie 2-2, I thought they were pretty fortunate, to be honest with you. Getting into the third, Gergenson doesn't return because he blocks a shot late in the second period. However, the flow of play in the third is fairly even until Martin Luke scores off a terrible angle shot. Puck deflects off a headman, 3-2 canes with 1042 left in the third period. And from that moment, Carolina shut it down. There was a shift at about the four-minute mark remaining in the third period, where Carolina goes to work in Tampa's defensive zone. Tampa cannot pull Andre Vasilevski. And it's not good. Tampa is struggling to just make a basic play to chip it out and get the puck down to the other end of the ice so Vasi can get off the ice. Carolina goes to work for about two minutes. Eventually Vasi gets off the ice. Tampa gets a rush. And with about a minute and 30 left, I don't remember who makes the pass to Takita Kucharov in the slot, all alone. Anderson robbs Kutarov. After Kucharov gets robbed, Carolina sends the puck down the ice into the empty net 4-2 Carolina win. And here's the thing, right? My overall impression of the game, I thought Carolina is exactly who we think they are. They play that same exact style all season long. Now it hasn't proven to get them four rounds of playoff wins. They sputter after the second round typically. But they are so consistent in what they do. And I just had a feeling that if Tampa wasn't ready to go from the opening pug drop that we were gonna get that result, the lightning had 19 shots on goal. And you would think that Carolina was blocking a lot of shots. They only blocked 10. So that that leads you to two conclusions. Number one, Tampa's overpassing, or number two, Tampa's not hitting the net. I felt that Tampa was overpassing a lot. And it just kind of spoke of maybe a lack of confidence that the players were having. Like it's not that they couldn't score. They just maybe felt like they weren't going to score. Or they're trying to find the perfect play, the perfect pass, pass the puck and didn't that stuff that's driven us crazy under John Cooper. Aside from the overpassing, this game was not Victor Hetman's finest game. It just seemed like instead of being the one step behind that we've been seeing since we got back from the break, he looked to be multiple steps behind, getting skated around, missing his angles on trying to break up defensive plays. He's getting pressured, struggling to make a decision with the puck. It was a rough night for him. And in full transparency, I felt like I kind of had an egg on my face because prior to the game, if you listened before you got to the arena, before you turned the game on, I was like, we gotta give Victor Edmund some time. He's still working his way back. And he just kind of came out with that performance defensively, and it was like, oh man, that's a tough look. Moving forward, Tampa had a nice 10 o'clock PM matchup with Seattle on Tuesday night. A good win for Tampa. Like we got to see elements of the team that we had been missing, and it started with a good start, right? Gonzalvas was playing with his hair on fire, forces a turnover in the offensive zone with a good check. Point skates into the slot. Gensel finds him. Gonzalvas goes to the net off the check. Gonzalvas stays hot with a fourth, with a fourth goal in the last four games in his 11th of the season. Just over 14 minutes left in the first. And from there, right, you begin to see, like I said, these elements that we had been missing. The quick D-zone exits, fast transitions to the neutral zone. Tampa didn't give up their first shot until 11 minutes into the first period. And it was so good to see Tampa dictate the tempo from the start because since the post-Olimpic break, it had seemed like it was the complete opposite. Anytime the puck drop, Tampa seemed to be on their heels. And it was like, who is this team? They don't seem to have a control over anything. And against Seattle, they started to flip the script a little bit. Lightning get the game's first power play. The first unit does well. They don't score, but then they get an eight-second five-on-three when Hegel was tripped near the end of the period. I thought Kooch were off a little turnover prone on the power play early on. Eventually he figured it out. But early in the game, it seemed like he was losing the puck a lot. That second power play eventually gets cut short off of Corey Perry high sticking. The second power play wasn't good for Tampa. With just over a minute left in the first, Cooch then steals a puck on the fore check, plays pitch and catch with Hagel, 2-0 after Grubar goes fishing and catches nothing. Great first period by the Bolts. Score both goals on hard for checking. They controlled the first period. It was finally a period where they were not chasing the game. And it felt really good to watch. Coming back for the second period, a little bit bumpier than the first. 57 seconds into the period. All five players touch the puck. Mozer goes to Radish. Radish goes to Hagel coming out of the zone. Hegel goes to Sorelli, and Sorelli finds Kuchoff across the face of the net. 3-0 Tampa. 57 seconds into the second period. Kucharov gets a second on the night, 36 on the season. And then 10 seconds later, Radish has a poor clearance. Matty Beneers catches the clearance, gets it to Bobby McMahon. McMahon scores 3-1. Jared McCann then makes it 3-2 shortly thereafter. A nifty goal and a nice dish from Jordan Everly. McCann gets behind Hedman in front of the net. Nice wrist shot. Pass Vassey. And the period would end at 3-2. And I was a little bit nervous. I won't lie. I was like, uh-oh, how is Tampa gonna respond here? Well, they come out in the third period, respond with three goals. The first one being a Hegel four check that causes another turnover. Hegel steals and passes Sorelli in front of the net 4-2, just over 15 minutes left in the third. Then Tampa gets a late power play goal. Kuoch has the puck along the wall, makes a nice diagonal pass to Gonsalvis. Gonsalves goes cross crease to Hegel. 5-2. Hegel gets a four-point night. Kucharoff reaches 110 points. Shortly after that, Kucharoff gets an empty net hat trick. He has a five-point game, his seventh career hat trick, and his first since October 11th of 2024. So game finishes 6-2, and I thought it was an excellent road game from Tampa. They controlled pretty much the whole game. Outside of a few goals in the second period, Seattle was held to 18 shots. It was a dominant win. Tampa left that game being 5-0 in Seattle and 8-0-1 overall versus Seattle since they became a team. Moving to Thursday, the Lightning had another late night game versus the Vancouver Canucks. Coming into that game, Vancouver was last in the NHL in points with 50. They were last in goals against per game at 3.75. They were last in goal differential with a minus 75. And they were 31st in goals scored per game, 2.55. So it was perfect for Lightning to lose, almost you would think. And you would think early on, I thought it was going to be the Kevin Lankin show. But before we even get to that, how about Dave Mishkin calling his first NHL game on TV? Listen, for as long as I've been a Lightning fan, I have always wanted to hear Dave Mishkin on TV. It was like a dream fulfilled. I was so excited to be able to hear his voice call a goal on TV. And you know what? Lightning rewarded him with six of them. So getting into the game, Tampa definitely wanted to maybe avenge that loss that they had from the Canucks earlier in the season and that November matchup. Tampa ended up giving up five goals in the third period. Early on in the game, Tampa was on their heels up until that first TV timeout, around nine minutes. Vancouver was moving, passing the puck fast, getting faster the zones. I thought the point Gensel can solve this line looked good early on. And then with just over two minutes left in the first period, that that point Gensel can solve this line with the McDonough Des two D pairing. Go to work in the offensive zone. Das two fires a shot that gets tipped. Jake Gensel gets his 30th of the season. Moving on to the second period, 51 seconds into the second period. Sorelli Hegel Cooch go to work, get a Radish bomb. 2-0. Radish scores his 18th goal of the season. And really from that point, Tampa kind of blew it open.

unknown 16:03

Right?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Lincoln does rob Hegel with 1729 left in the second. And Hegel had this look of disbelief on his face. Wide open that Lincoln makes a great save. You can see Hegel saying, Wow, as the camera panned to him, and he was skating around. 1540 left in the second. Yanni Gergenson's and Holmberg go to work. Radish shoots. Yanni gets in position for a tip 3-0. 14-29 left in the second. Thernack to Cooch. Cooch shoots 4-0. Vancouver gets on the board with 754 left in the second. They get a good shift, and Liam Ogren snaps a shot past Vasi 4-1. And then I didn't really realize it. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but Hedman hadn't taken a shift in about 10 minutes. Right? So moving forward a little bit, John Cooper said he was sick. Everybody thought it was an injury, but it was just illness. Anyway, game finishes 6-2 after Lightning get a goal from Sorelli and Hegel and the third period. And overall, I thought over the first two games, it was a great start for Tampa on this road trip. Obviously, they're playing opponents that they should beat, but like I've said before, it's the NHL. Anybody can beat anybody on any given night. For Tampa to come out and score 12 goals over two games and give up four and do it in a manner that we are accustomed to seeing them do, right? That process that they talk about coming to life a little bit, very good to see. I would really like to see them continue that over these last two games, and we'll get to that when we cover the Alberta back-to-back. But after 67 games played, the Lightning are still sitting in second in the Atlantic Division with 88 points. I just want to take a dive into the Atlantic Division race again. So I gotta give props to Buffalo because I thought that there would be a fall off at any moment, right? And they haven't. After 69 games, they got 92 points on a three-game winning streak. Like I said, Lightning are in second with 88 points. Still two games in hand on Buffalo, Montreal in third, 84 points. Tampa has one game in hand on them. Looking at the Metro, Carolina, 94 points, 69 games played. Pittsburgh, 84 points, 68 games played. And look at Columbus into third in the Metro division with 83 points, three-game winning streak. Like I said, Rick Bonas has that team playing ready to go. They are playing so well. And like I said last week, I would not be surprised if they got that first or second wild card. Now they find themselves third in the metro. Currently, the wild card is Boston and the first wild card, 69 games played, 84 points. Detroit also 84 points with 69 games played. It's gonna be close, y'all. It's gonna be really close. The Islanders on the outside looking in right now with 83 points, 69 games played. Ottawa, 79 points, 68 games played. Philly, 78 points, 68 games played. Washington, 78 points, 70 games played. And then after that, I think it's it's not mathematically impossible, but for those teams in the remaining parts of the standings, there's just really no way that they'll make the playoffs. Speaking on the playoffs, we got a question from Bolt's Breakdown, and he asked about my thoughts on the one through eight playoff format. Okay, so bear with me here because we're gonna take a little bit of a history lesson. Alright, so 1998 through 1999, the NHL is realigned into two conferences, each consisting of three divisions. Okay, in the east, the three divisions were known as the Southeast, the Northeast, and the Atlantic. Whereas in the Western Conference, the divisions were known as the Central, Northwest, and Pacific. This one-through eight playoff format gets used from the 98-99 season all the way to 2013-2014. So we'll give it a nice midway point right after the lockout. We'll jump into the 2005-2006 season, which also happened to be the season, the very first season that they played after the Lightning won their first Stanley Cup. So in those divisions, in the Southeast division, Tampa had Carolina, Atlanta, the Florida Panthers, the Washington Capitals. That was the Southeast Division. The Northeast division was Ottawa, Buffalo, Montreal, Toronto, Boston. The Atlantic was New Jersey, Philly, the Rangers, Islanders, and the Pittsburgh Penguins. So how they determined seeding was the winner of each of those three divisions would be seeded 1 2 3. So in that 2005 2006 season, Ottawa won the Northeast Division with 113 points. Carolina won the Southeast Division with 112 points. New Jersey won the Atlantic Division with 101 points. And they were all seeded in that order 1 2 3. Buffalo Finish fourth with 110 points. Philly, fifth with 101. The Rangers, sixth with 100, Montreal, 7th with 93, Tampa in eighth with 92. So the matchups were the following: Ottawa played Tampa, Carolina played Montreal, New Jersey played the Rangers, Buffalo played the Flyers. And those were your one through eight matchups. Let's fast forward to 2013-2014 to our current playoff format. Still two conferences. However, instead of three divisions, they go to two. In the east, it's the Atlantic, in the Metro, in the west, it's the Central and the Pacific. And what they do now is they take the three best teams from each division and then two wild cards, regardless of the division, and they format it as such. The two and three teams in each division play each other, and the division champs play the wildcards. When they went to this new playoff format in 2013-2014, it appeared that they wanted to develop more divisional rivalries that would begin in the regular season and then carry over into the playoffs. And in truthfulness, they've done just that. Look at Tampa and Florida, and what started really in the playoffs has now bled over into the regular season. And now there's an animosity amongst the two teams that they don't like each other at all. And I think that this is what the league was really aiming for, something along the lines of that when they went to this playoff format. Okay, so now my thoughts on it. Okay, but I think that if you go back to the one through eight with our current divisions, how they are, two divisions, you have to continue to put a premium on winning the division. So for example, if the season ended today and they went one through eight, but the top two seeds were the division champs looking at the east, you would have Carolina and number one. This is off points percentage, okay, and they'd still be number one regardless. Carolina would be number one, Buffalo would be number two, and those would be Carolina winning the Metro, Buffalo winning the Atlantic, and the six remaining teams: Tampa and third, Pittsburgh and fourth, Montreal and fifth, Columbus and sixth, Boston and seven, and Detroit Knees. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Yeah. Okay, your matchups would be the following Carolina would play Detroit, Buffalo would play Boston, Tampa would play Columbus, Pittsburgh would play Montreal. Alright, now look at the West. And it gets kind of crazy here. If you were to do one through eight, but the top two seeds had to be division winners. Colorado would advance as they'd be the first overall seed in the West, and the divisional winner of the Central, the Pacific division winner, if the season ends today, based off points percentage, would be the Anaheim Ducks. Okay? So you'd have Colorado in first, Anaheim in second, Dallas would be third, Minnesota fourth, Utah fifth, Vegas sixth, Edmonton eighth, and the Kings. Oh I'm sorry, did I just skip? I did skip it. Vegas would be sixth, Edmonton in seventh, the Kings in eighth. Okay, so your matchups would be the following. So Colorado would play LA, the Ducks would play Edmonton, the Dallas Stars would play the Knights, and the Wild would play Utah. That's what it would be if they went one through eight and they still put a premium on divisional winners and rewarding those teams for winning their divisions. I still think that you'll get a good product. It's the NHF playoffs. I think what has become of this current format that they went to in 2013 and 2014 is just they're trying to force the divisional rivalry so it's not as organic. That's number one. And number two, you're seeing some really good teams get out of the playoffs so early. For example, right now, if you were to look at it in its current standing, okay, the Dallas Stars and the Minnesota Wild would be playing each other in the first round. One of those two teams is going home early. And the crazy part is that they are respectively ranked two and three in the conference. But despite where they're ranked in the conference in the West, because they play in the same division, one of those potential Stanley Cup contenders from the Western Conference would be eliminated in the first round. Meanwhile, you have the likes of, gosh, let's look let's look at the Pacific. You would have the likes of the Anaheim Ducks, Vegas Golden Knights, and Edmonton Oilers, none of which have hit 80 points yet. One of those teams would be moving on, two of those teams will be moving on to the second round. While a team in the Dallas Stars who has 96 points currently, and a team in the Minnesota Wild who has 90 points currently will be eliminated after the first round. That's crazy to me. So yeah, I think I would be in favor of going back to one through eight as long as you still put a premium on winning the division. You reward those teams for winning their division, and then you find that the next six best teams, regardless of the division. I mean, that's what we want to see. That best on best, regardless of the division, because some years certain divisions are stronger than others, and certain are weaker than others. For example, the Atlantic is incredibly tough this year. They're probably gonna get five teams in looking at it. Well, potentially five teams in. Because right now it's Buffalo, Tampa, Montreal, and the two wild cards are by Atlantic teams, Boston and Detroit. So yeah, come on, Gary. Give us what we want. Stop being stubborn. Give us that one through eight format again. Get rid of this divisional stuff that's been going on for the last 10 plus years. I don't want forced rivalries. I want organic animosity between teams when they meet in the playoffs. Like that, like that's what I want. Tampa and Florida, yes, geographic, but that was forced. And that's okay. I don't mind it. Like it was never really like that before the playoffs, before they started meeting in the playoffs, but I'm a big fan of when teams just they play each other, they play hard, they play the same style, they naturally hate each other. Like Campo and Florida would see each other four times in the preseason, then they'd meet three or four times in the regular season, then you give them a whole playoff series together, you're playing them damn near 15 times a year. Like, yeah, of course you're gonna eat them after some spirited playoff series between the two teams. Like, that was always gonna happen. Then it gets to a point where you're like, you know what, I like playing them, but I'm really tired of seeing them, at least for me. Uh moving forward, right? The Lightning now have 15 games left, and it's really this time of year where you want to see the Bolts start to develop some consistency in their lineup. Obviously, it's a little bit challenging with who's been in and out with injuries, but I want to focus on the defense pairings, okay? I think we know that the first pairing is going to be Mosier and Radish. Right. And I was looking up some some statistics, some underlying numbers and things like that. We know that Radish and Mosier is our first pairing, regardless, right? 58 games played together. Time on the ice together, 707 minutes and three seconds. And in that time together, they've been incredibly effective, right? 377 shots for 265 against goals for 41, goals against 21. And you look at what they've been able to do, just where they're trusted, from an offensive standpoint, they've been on the ice for 242 offensive face-offs, they've been in on the ice for 243 neutral zone face-offs, they've been on the ice for 223 defensive zone face-offs. So it is clear that John Cooper trusts this pairing. Don't mess with it. In the playoffs, that needs to be that needs to be the number one pairing. The second pairing is what we have labeled or what people have labeled as the shutdown pairing, right? Ryan McDonough, Eric Chernak. The pairing hasn't been consistent this year because both guys have been injured fairly a good amount. Right? 29 games played together, 289 minutes on ice together. And when you look at it, right, the statistics as far as shots for 116 to shots allowed is 127, goals 412, goals allowed 13. And you know what? I get it. The numbers don't look good, but that that's a trusted pairing, in my opinion. And you look at it, they only get 36 offensive zone starts. That's what they've had this year. 78 neutral zone starts, 63 defensive zone starts. So it's clear that John Cooper trusts them to get the puck out of the defensive zone and up the ice. Now, here was a pairing that I didn't expect, but it makes a lot of sense considering that Victor Hedden was injured, and we're gonna kind of get to that where he's gonna kind of fit into all this. The third most utilized pairing this season by John Cooper, Charles Edward D'Stu and Emile Lilleberg. 28 games played together, 267 minutes on ice together, shots four, 129, shots allowed, 109, goals 4, 15, goals allowed, 9. From where they start, right? 40 offensive zone starts, 79 neutral zone starts, 35 defensive zone starts. This is a surprising pairing to me, and it just kind of leads me to believe it not necessarily where it leads me to believe, but it leads me to question who is Victor Hedman gonna be paired with on that third pair. Because here's the thing, guys, is uh I know what everybody's thinking and everybody's saying, like Victor Headman's gotta sit, and I'm I'm I'm not gonna disagree, I'm not going to agree, but I'm gonna think about this practically, and we have to think about it practically. John Cooper is not going to sit Victor Headman. There is an element of loyalty, and that's that's his captain, that's that's his guy, and I get it, it's it's results-based, but he's just not gonna sit him when you think about it practically. Even if the numbers do suggest that maybe he should, right? They they're operating on obviously a different set of numbers that that we as fans have access to. Okay, so if that first pairing is Darren Radish and Mosier, that second pairing is McDonough and Chernak, who is going to be paired with Victor Hedman on that third pair? Right, so you have to scroll down. So, like looking at it, and I'm I'm looking at this on natural stat trick, right? So defensive pairings when you filter through it. The lightning have utilized 54 different defensive pairings this year. Okay. Victor Hedman has played with Mosher the most, but out of the two guys remaining, so if Radish and Moser are together, McDonald and Cherneck are together, he has played with if it's Dasteux or Lilleburg, he has played with Charles Edward Dastew the most. They've played 23 games together, they've played, and the thing is, is like out of those 23 games, they've only played 42 minutes together on the ice. Shots for 17, shots allowed, 24, 1 goal 4, 3 goals against. It isn't a big sample size, and and the the tough part is like what it becomes is you're trying to find a partner for Victor Hedman who be consistent, and you don't want to break up Radish and Mosier or McDonough and Chernak. But because of Hedman's struggles so far this year, dealing with injuries and injuries on the blue line in general, and the lack of continuity and consistency throughout the year with players being available. Now we're in a place where I didn't personally think we'd be you have to find somebody to play with Victor Headman, or you have to find somebody Victor Headman can play with. And I I wouldn't have never expected that. Mosier and Radish has been a pleasant surprise because I didn't know that Raj could get to this level defensively, right? We knew he had the offensive talent, but where he's gotten defensively this year, what he's been able to produce and and play at that level defensively, it's been a pleasant surprise. I always kind of knew that Mosier could get there because when he got traded here for Sergachev from Arizona, Utah, his numbers were good in the fact, like I'm not a big believer in like the plus-minus deal. I think it has its place, but his his plus-minus wasn't like detrimental to be like, oh gosh, you can't really tell what you're getting because the teams that he was on wasn't very good, work very good defensively. But I believe his plus minus was was fairly low in coming from Arizona at the time, Utah, where they weren't good defensively, to have that low plus minus be a lower negative. I thought it was like, okay, what can this guy do when he's playing with a team that really does play good team defense? So I could I could have kind of projected Giannis Mosier to be what he is right now. I didn't expect the physicality in the fighting that he's delivered. Like, holy cow, like that surprised me for sure. But him and Mosier or him and Radish have by far been the best pairing. And over these last 15 games, what you hope is that those guys stick together, continue to build, and you really don't want to see them split up unless it's an absolute necessity. Same with the likes of McDonald and Chernak, as long as neither of those two guys get injured, you want to try to see them play together as much as possible. That would leave Victor Hedman to play with Charles Edward Das too, unless you're pairing him with Lilleberg, or you're scratching him. Because here's the other part is that the fourth most utilized pairing, both of those guys are currently out till what, April, late April, right? Crozier and Carlisle. Like Crozier was out eight to ten weeks going back to February, middle of February, and Carlisle, as recent as last week, was out four to five weeks with a lower body injury. So Hedman has been injured so much this year, he's missed so much time that the the one defense partner that he has in the honest Moser that he's played with consistently or the most, he's Mosier's better paired off with Radish. And that's just what it is. That just shows you, I guess, not only the consistency, but the availability of Radish and Mosier this year. That those two guys, their next like it goes from 707 minutes time on ice for Mosier and Radish to 289 in Chernak and McDonough. That's how like that number is astronomical in the amount of time that Radish and Mosier would have been able to play together. They've produced, I'd keep them together, don't split them, stop trying to pigeonhole Headman with Mosier. When that happens, like you kind of just bring everybody else down. I'm not saying that it can't happen, but that's not his best guy. So I I guess you're kind of just gonna work through that the last 15 games, and you hope that Headman can round into form and play with somebody. Because I I'm not sure that Headman is that elite defenseman that we know him to be anymore. I still think that he can be effective if he's utilized in a more limited role. And I could just be saying this because he's injured in what we're seeing currently, and I've been a big opponent of letting Hedman work through it for sure. He's been injured all year, let him find his rhythm, let him find his form. Now, looking that Tampa has 15 games left, how much time do you really have to let him get into form? The other part of it is that even though Lilliberg's coming back, Lilliberg's been out for a couple weeks, so he's gonna have to get some rhythm again. So you're kind of gonna catch 22. Do you continue to play Headman? Knowing that he's struggling a little bit, and it appears that he could be still working through something because he definitely doesn't look 100%. Or do you kind of put Das do and Lilliberg back together and you leave your captain as the hot man out? I don't really know what you do, practically speaking. I I don't see any way that Hetman sits if he's healthy or healthy enough to play. So it will be interesting what John Cooper does really with that third defense pairing, because I really think that your first two are set in stone for round one, game one, assuming that Tampa gets in. I think the first two D-pairs are are set in stone. The challenge is going to be to find that third pairing and who Hedman works best with. Before we finish with a little housekeeping, I want to preview the Alberta back-to-back. So Saturday night, the Lightning are in Edmonton playing the Oilers. Leon Dreisidel is out for the remainder of the regular season with a lower body injury. So that will be interesting to see how the Oilers get through that from a standpoint of superstars. I am really excited to see Kucharoff versus McDavid. They are totally different players in how they play. I love the explosiveness of McDavid when he skates, how fast he is. And obviously, we see Kucharoff on a nightly basis as Tampa fans, and we keep up with him and what he does with the puck and how he sets people up. But right now, the Oilers are sitting second in the Pacific with 77 points. Okay, with a record of 34, 27, and 9, another plus four goal differential. They're coming off a loss versus Florida 4-0 on Thursday. So it is always interesting to see how teams respond after a bad loss. I'm always wary of it. You know, you you would think that a team would respond well. We'll see how the oilers are on Saturday night. Their big thing is still goaltending, in my opinion. Like, for whatever reason, they still cannot figure out a legitimate number one, like somebody that you can hang your hat on. I mean, they've kind of bounced around for the last couple years. I mean, former Tampa Bay Lightning goalie, Connor Ingram, is now the starter after the Oilers traded for Tristan Jari earlier in the year. They swapped out Stuart Squinner for Tristan Jari, and Jari's just been inconsistent, and now Connor Ingram is the guy. The Oilers cannot figure out a goalie to get them over the hump. It'll still be their detriment again this year, in my opinion. That'll be their biggest thing in the playoffs is just getting somebody who can shut a game down in net. Because I I just don't think they have that. Now, if Connor Ingram is in that Saturday night versus the Lightning, you believe that he's bringing his A game because every single time Connor Ingram plays against the Lightning, it's like I don't understand if the Lightning, I don't understand why the Lightning can't beat this guy. I will be interested to see the special teams battle, because Edmonton currently has the number one ranked power play over 31%. And the Lightning haven't allowed a power play goal in their last three games. So coming out of that Olympic break, the Lightning had given up 10 power play goals in the first eight games off of 30 opportunities in the last three games. Zero goals and six opportunities. So I do wonder how Edmonton's power play is affected by the lack of Dry Sidal. Because really that's that's the time when uh McDavid and Dry Sidal actually play together as on the power play. So I'd be interested to see how that has an impact on their power play. Could you imagine if Edmonton called up Isaac Howard for this game to help out with their power play? I mean, I know he's been in the AHL all year. Crazy, right? Like he didn't want to sign with Tampa because he wanted top six minutes, and he thought that he deserved that right away here in Tampa. So Julian Breesbaugh shipped his ass to Edmonton, and now he's playing in Bakersfield, California for Edmonton's AHL squad. He's got 38 points in 36 games. So that game versus Edmonton will be the last of the 10 o'clock games on this trip. And then Sunday night at 8 p.m. Tampa time, the Lightning head down to Calgary, where it is safe to say that the Lightning will be playing the second worst team in the league in the Calgary Flames, who, after 69 games, sit with a record of 28 wins, 34 losses, 7 OT losses with 63 points, a minus 41 goal differential. Now, Calgary has one two in a row. So it will be interesting to see Palais come into the game after beating Florida on Friday night by a score of 4-1. Calgary has the 10 best penalty kill, but the 31st best or second worst power play in the league currently at 15%. They don't really have any prolific scores on the roster right now. Michael Backlin leads the team with 38 points. Morgan Frost in second with 34 points. Matt Coronado, 33 points, Joel Farby, 31 points. Blake Coleman is fifth in the team and scoring with 28 points. That game will be interesting because it is a quick turnaround on a back-to-back. Johansen is most likely going to play that second game. So ideally, he would like to see Tampa win both games, but if they can get a split and at least win one of them, that would bode really well for getting six out of the eight points on the road trip and then come back home to seven straight home games to end March and open April. As we round it out here, we want to clean it up and do a little housekeeping. Syracuse, Tampa's AHL affiliate, clinches an AHL playoff berth on Friday night. So congrats to them. We do have an official playoff start date. So the NHL playoffs are slated to begin on Saturday, April 18th. That could be a busy weekend in the downtown Tampa area, so long as the Tampa Bay Lightning make it, as the Premier League will be hosting like their morning festival that travels across the country. So it will be here in Tampa that same weekend. So that area could be lit up with a lot of activity. A little prospect love to finish it up. Benjamin Rotiainen, the Finnish prospect that I mentioned last week, has been named the MVP of the Finnish Liga. 59 games in the regular season, 25 goals, 77 points. Tied for the second best total during this century. Also a new all-time club record for Tapata. He was voted as the league's best player, both by the media and other players. I believe the last player to hit these numbers, even at that age, was Saku Koivu. Another highly touted prospect, and Sam O'Reilly gets ready for the OHL playoffs. As Kitchener is first in the Western Conference in the OHL. Now, Samuel Riley did play for London earlier in the year, played 28 games for them, had 28 points, and gets traded to Kitchener, where in 28 games he has 43 points. So Kitchener has 100 points in the Western Conference of the OHL right now. And they'll go in as the number one seed in the Western Conference. So that'll be interesting to see and follow along as the OHL playoffs look to start fairly soon, possibly by the end of next week. Another name to potentially watch as a bolt prospect. Marco Minosa, the overage forward playing for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, currently has 87 points in 64 games played this year. And last year, in his draft year, he had 85 points as a 19-year-old. So the Sioux are currently fifth in the Western Conference right now in the OHL. So those are just some guys to follow along as they get their postseasons underway here at the end of next week. But that'll wrap it up for me here with the 401 channel side podcast. Remember, if you guys want to interact, 1x at the 401C underscore side pod. Ask questions, leave comments. I'm always happy to talk lightning hockey. Can't wait to do this again next week, guys. See ya.