EP. 8 "Summer's Here"

After a little 3-week break Stevie Z is back to talk some Bolts hockey. A quick recap of Bolts players who went across the pond for the World Championship, some talk about the latest Bolts signings, some prospect news and a fun dive into the Bolts roster on PuckPedia as it stands on June 1, 2026.

Transcript

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What is going on, everyone? 401 Channel Slide Podcast. It's TVD here. Happy June 1st. To all of you listening, it's been about three weeks since I recorded last. The last episode was the Tampa Bay Lightning regular season playoff post mortem. An extremely bitter, angry, frustrated version of myself on that episode. And today, on June 1st, 2026, still bitter, but slightly less so. Right, so let's kind of get into um what's gonna kind of transpire here for the summer. This is the first episode of the summer, so it stinks because we've we're gonna have another long off season, so I kind of wanted to get through that the disappointment of losing in the first round again, and then honestly, just give it a couple weeks, because full transparency, I still haven't watched a lick of hockey since Tampa's been eliminated. I've I've followed up with it through, you know, ESPN and NHL or whatever, but I I just I can't be bothered to watch hockey right now. I haven't even watched sports in general, to be quite honest with you, and that's that's saying something, right? Um, because in my household and in my family, I have Knicks fans. So if there are any Knicks fans listening, congratulations to you on the first time making the NBA Finals in 27 years. However, this is not an NBA podcast. We're here to talk about the Tampa Bay Lightning. And so this summer we're gonna kind of just trial a couple different things. Um, today, where we're gonna talk about where the NHL is currently in their, I guess, postseason timeline, their playoff timeline. Uh, we'll we'll cap a little bit of the world championship and who was part of that for the Tampa Bay Lightning. We'll talk about some signings, some prospect news. Uh, being June 1st, I'm sure that you may have heard that we've had a nice little prospect trade. Go down for the Tampa Bay Lightning. We'll hop onto Puckpedia and we'll do that live as I'm recording, and we'll kind of take a venture to what Tampa Bay Lightning's roster looks like at face value right now, before there's any moves. Some of the uh salary cap space that the Lightning have accrued, and we'll kind of just play around with that. We'll do that a couple times over the course of the offseason because why not? What the hell else am I gonna do, right? Other than just pretend that I'm Julian Breesbois and mess around with the organizational depth chart of the Tampa Bay Lightning. And then as we get along closer to the draft and free agency, we'll we'll record then and uh we'll do a lot of fun, hopefully what I consider fun, you know, some fan interaction things on some of the social media outlets asking questions and just getting some of your feedback and creating dialogue with fans. And it's just a way for us to help pass the time, keep the Tampa Bay Lightning fresh on our mind. And you know, the schedule release will hopefully be out later this month. I believe it came out in July last year, so hopefully it's later June that we get that, and then uh, God willing, that my bitterness will subside by the time training camp comes around. I kid it will subside by then because it'll be a brand new season and we will have seen a potential new Stanley Cup champion in the Carolina Hurricanes or somebody in the Vegas Golden Knights who will win their well, I don't want to say new Stanley Cup champion. Carolina Hurricanes have won a Stanley Cup championship before, um, but it's been 20 years, and Vegas is fairly new, and they've been at this, what, nine years, and this is their third trip to the Stanley Cup final. So, with that being said, yes, the Stanley Cup final is set for game one on Tuesday. Vegas uh sweeps Carolina in the Western Conference Final, four game to zero, and Carolina beats Montreal in five four games to one. Uh Vegas, nine years of the franchise, making their third Stanley Cup final appearance. They're making the finals at a 33% clip. And here is something that I love about Vegas that I've grown to appreciate is their ruthlessness and how they kind of approach um how they work within the organization in terms of player acquisition and getting rid of players. And honestly, early on when Vegas was a franchise, I thought that it may work against them, but they continuously bring in big superstar names to their franchise, right? So you I mean, most recently Mitch Marner, right? Yeah, Jack Eichel, right? They just bring big stars, and you would think that like early on in this franchise's tenure where they were just seemingly kind of dumping guys left and right, that it would work against them, and it hasn't. Players still want to go and live in Vegas, play in Vegas. Obviously, you have the uh the state tax thing that some people like to make a big deal about. However, I guess there's something to be said about playing in Vegas and playing for that franchise and how they treat players and what they love about it. I guess we can also say the same thing about Tampa, why players love to be here, play here, um, and eventually stay here after they're done playing. And so I just I've grown to appreciate that ruthlessness. I do sometimes wish that the Tampa Bay Lightning operated with elements of that ruthlessness as well, in terms of how they would acquire players or um maybe ship off players or you know, coaches or whatever, just elements of that were sometimes business is business, and um you know, you just get rid of an uh of an underperforming player. Um, but the lightning are more measured, more calculated, and that is something that I as a fan can appreciate as well. And so for Vegas, it has worked for them in their short tenure as a franchise, uh, and they've they found a formula that works, they stuck to it, and it continuously generates positive results for them. And on the other hand, you have Carolina, and Carolina operates, I would say, similar in the ruthlessness with uh how they go about acquiring players or or paying players uh for the longest time. There was a knock on Carolina that they couldn't acquire big name guys, that big name guys wouldn't want to be traded or sign in Raleigh for that franchise. And the thing is, is what Rod Brindamore has done, they he has given that franchise in terms of how he coaches and how they play an identity. And it's so good to see, and and I'll be the first one to say that at the beginning of the playoffs, I didn't think that it was going to last long. I didn't think that they would be able to continue to manufacture the type of play that we had seen from them from the opening puck drop uh in game one of the regular season to this point right now. I didn't see it. I mean, they've they've only lost, what, one game in the playoffs this year, Carolina. And so I was just a little bit off put by how he has them play. I'm like, there's no way that he could get them to play that way for an entire season. Now it remains to be seen if it gets him a cup, but they've won a conference final finally. They're in the Stanley Cup final, so we'll see what transpires from it come Tuesday, game one. I'll be honest with you, I probably still won't watch. Maybe I'll watch. I don't know. I just, like I said, I can't even be bothered to watch hockey right now. Maybe that's a little bit of childishness on my end. I just, if it's not the Tampa Bay Lightning, I'm at least for the moment, how the way the season ended, and it's kind of funny, even though it was a damn near a month ago, I'm still like, damn, I wish our team was still in it, I wish they were still playing. So all that to be said, I I I am really surprised, but I but I do appreciate that Carolina has been able to play this way for an entire season and it's taken them to a Stanley Cup final. I do like Rod Brindamore as a coach. Um I just there there's an edge about him. He's got like, and I hate to say this about somebody, but like you look at Rod Brindamore's face, and like, look, he's not the most handsome guy, right? But he's got like the face of a hockey player. Like there's just something about him, like steely-eyed, like edgy, right? And then meanwhile, on the opposing bench for Vegas, right, John Tortorella, Torts, uh, our beloved torts, who took over Vegas, what, with the over in the last eight games of the season, regular season, and look at where he's gotten them. Right, all the way to the Stanley Cup final. So there's just something about how both of those coaches approach the way they prepare their teams that has gotten them to this point. I will say this, I ultimately believed that it was going to, we were headed for a Carolina-Colorado final, and it would have been really interesting to see. Like, Colorado has been balls to the wall all season, right? All regular season and into the playoffs, and same thing for Carolina, like I mentioned, and I would have been curious to see if both of those teams would have been able to just uphold that style and standard of play all the way through to the end of their cup run. Obviously, Colorado gets eliminated in the Western Conference final in four games, so we won't we won't know. Obviously, we we don't know. So um, in saying that, I do think that it's a good matchup. And that's all I'll say about that because this is a Tampa Bay Lightning fan podcast, and you don't give a damn about Vegas or Carolina. So let's get talking about our bolts. So let's get into a little bit of world championship recap. Uh so we had two guys who are currently on the roster, and Declan Carlisle, who represented the US, and uh JJ Mosier, who represented Switzerland. Uh look, US, obviously, they didn't bring a fully loaded team. They didn't perform well at all, lost to Canada in the quarterfinal uh 4-0. So the USA was done fairly early. They got into the quarterfinal after they beat. I don't even remember who they beat, to be quite honest with you. Was it Austria? I think they beat Austria. That that shows you like the level of commitment I have towards watching hockey after Lightning were limited. I don't even know who the US beat to get into the quarterfinal. I believe it was Austria. So we lose the Canada in the quarterfinal 4-0. Uh I just don't really think that Canada even got out of second gear for that game, to be quite honest with you. They just were loaded in terms of older star power, but they still had it. Uh JJ Mosier wins silver with Switzerland in a tough 1-0 OT loss to Finland in the final. Uh Switzerland just, I mean, they are like they've got a thing with not being able to get a gold, similar to how the Lightning just can't get out of the first round as of late. Uh and then Prospect, who was recently signed, Noah Stein from Norway, right, wins a bronze medal with Norway, their first medal at the world championship. Noah Stein tied the term for the tournament lead with seven goals. I I saw some people say, oh, maybe he could chip in at the the the big club next year in the NHL. I I don't really think so. It's the world championships are always kind of hard to gauge because the the disparity in I guess I don't know if skill level is the right word, but just overall team talent is so vast because you know that you're going to have the upper elite level countries such as Canada, uh Finland, the US, Sweden. Who else? Who else am I missing? Did I say Finland? Right. You're you're they're always just going to seemingly be better, and Switzerland has kind of worked their way into that, and then you're playing the likes of Italy, sometimes France, Great Britain, like just those countries who they don't have, I guess, the infrastructure to build elite uh hockey developmental programs as far as countrywide to be able to compete with the likes of the US, Canada, Sweden, Finland, and and whoever else, Finland. So it's always a tough gauge when you watch the World Championship because you don't know if what that what a certain player who may be a prospect, if what they're doing is replicable at the NHL level. So I would envision that Noah Steen will be in Syracuse for a majority of the year, and if he produces, maybe he gets a call-up later on in the year, or maybe just wows in training camp. And so we'll see about that. Uh looking at some Tampa Bay signings, yes, Julian Breesbois has been at work, right? So defenseman Max Groshev, uh, two-year, two-way deal, played two games with Tampa this year, had one point and 58 games with Syracuse, three goals and 21 points. Uh forward Nick Abrazisi re-signed a one-year, two-way deal. Did not get any time with Tampa this year, had played 60 uh 56 games with Syracuse, 15 goals and 51 points. That's just a depth signing. I would assume I don't really ever envision him kind of making it up with Tampa, but you know, good organizational depth who will continue to help uh Syracuse be competitive and also push some of those younger guys who are coming in. Uh forward Scott Sabarin, re-signed for one year, a two-way deal. He played 26 games with Tampa, he had five points, 24 games with Syracuse, eight points, he had 89 penalty minutes uh during his time with Tampa, five fights. Truth be told, we know what he's here for. And he has a specified role. Will that continue to be his role? I would assume so, yeah. I mean, that's how he's made his career. And so moving forward, I would just assume that if he's on the roster next year with Tampa, that he'll continue to do that, right? Which will be providing that element of grit and edginess and um that that protector, if you will, that enforcer role. Also, uh, some some big prospect news here. Benjamin Rotyainen, our our Finnish prospect, signed a three-year entry-level deal with the Bolts. Right? So if you remember Rottiainen, he scored 77 points in Liga with Tapata this year. He led the league, he won the league MVP, and Tapata won the league championship. Uh, the 20-year-old 6'174-pound forward had 111 points in 11 uh 12 games, 112 games with Tapata in Liga. So they bought out the last year of his contract with Tapata, and you can assume that he will start off in Syracuse, barring that he has just an unbelievable training camp in preseason with uh the Tampa Bay Lightning. Uh, just an assumption that he will start down in Syracuse, then we'll see how well he his game will translate to the North American style of you know, the North American ice. And um, I'm really looking forward to kind of seeing how he does and how that game translates. Obviously, he's playing against grown men uh in Finland, but the time and space on the ice is now going to become more condensed, so he's gonna have to make quicker decisions. Obviously, the physicality of the game ramps up when you get over to North America, so it'll be interesting to see how he is able to mesh that and hopefully contribute for Syracuse because it is a he is a prospect who is highly intriguing. I don't know if Tampa has had a player like him in terms of projection and what he could be. Um, you know, projecting as maybe I don't know if he'd be an elite forward, but a top six forward. I've seen some some elements of people say he's got element of Kuch Roth in his game. That that's that's steep praise. So we'll see if once again how he's played in Finland is able to translate here in the AHL and then hopefully in the NHL. Other prospect news. Sam O'Reilly caps off his season as a Memorial Cup winner as Kitchener beat Everett 6-2 on Sunday night. Sam O'Reilly had four points in the final game, one goal, three assists. Look he had 28 points in 18 playoff games, eight points in four Memorial Cup games. The 20-year-old 6-1 190-pound center finished the season as the OHL MVP, the OHL playoff MVP, and the Memorial Cup MVP. He had 71 points in 56 regular season gains between London and Kitchener this year. Uh he was fourth in the OHL in scoring. He won 59% of his face-offs. So he took 1,181 face-offs over the course of the season, and he won 695 of them. In the OHL playoff, he took 523 face-offs in 18 games. So that averages out to 29 per game. Now, and I'm getting these stats off the OHL's website. Okay, so in 18 games, 523 face-offs, 29 per game, he won 302 of them for a 58% clip. And then today on June 1st, right around noon, Julian Breesbois decides to just wake up everybody on uh on a nice, beautiful June 1st, 2026 in Tampa, Florida. And we get a nice little trade as the Tampa Bay Lightning trade, a third round pick for Sam O'Reilly's teammate, Jack Prithum. And look, I mean, Julian Breesball is just continuing to kind of stockpile uh the prospect pool in a variety of ways. So now, needless to say that Jack Pritham will not be playing in the Lightning organization next year as he is already committed to go play college uh here in America in the NCAA. But just a little bit about Pritham. Okay, so he's 20 years old, he appeared in 65 games this season for Kitchener, uh, recording 46 goals in 90 points. Okay, this is 46 goals ranked second among all OHL skaters this season, and he had 16 power play goals, which ranked tied for third, and his 90 points ranked fifth. Uh, Pritham had played in 18 playoff games with Kitchener this season, registering a team leading 15 assists alongside 17 points. Uh Pritham notched a goal into assist in in last night's game uh over Everett. Uh 6'1, 176 pound forward, 113 career OHL games, 73 goals, 144 points to go along with a plus 60 rating. He's also appeared in 34 career OHL playoff games, posting nine goals and 30 points. So, look, and here's the thing that uh I kind of looked at we got this guy from Chicago. I don't know what it is about Chicago being our farm system now, but we are just we have gotten guys like the last three, right? I mean, big ones, you look at it. Brandon Hagel, Dom James, who decided that he wasn't going to sign with Chicago, and now we've acquired the rights to forward Jack Pridham from Chicago in exchange for a third round pick in the 2027 NHL draft. And you kind of just push along his signing right to 2028. So, I mean, you look at that. Now, Jack Pritham is committed to play. The announcement for the school that he'll play at will be sometime later this week. I mean, look, just finding unique ways to restock the prospect pool for the Tampa Bay Lightning, Julian Briswall has done an excellent job of that as of late, right? I think, and that's and that's positive, right? Because if you listen to the playoff post-mortem, one of the things that I had said was, I'm just concerned about where the Tampa Bay Lightning are, uh, there's a there's a there's a gap between what we have in the elite player level and then what we have at the depth level, and then there was there seemed to be no middling ground. Um, I guess if there was a negative, right, looking at it with some of our younger guys, right, is that as our elite players, such as Point, Headman, you know, Kucharoff, as they get older, the young guys that we have in, they may, we may never see their timelines uh overlap into what some of our older guys' primes is now. So like Kucharoff is gonna be 33, I think point's gonna be 31, uh Headman's gonna be 35, 36, right? So looking at it, right, like we may never see the likes of Sam O'Reilly or put um play with, or Ratyanin and play with the likes of Kucharoff, Point, so on and so forth. Which, and I'm just I'm just putting that out there. Like, it I don't know for sure, like they very well, at least Sam O'Reilly and Ratiainen could make the team out of camp this year. And next thing you know, is they're skating alongside the likes of Kucharoff Point and and so on. Um, but I do like that organizationally, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Julian Breeswall is finding ways outside of the draft to continuously stockpile the cupboard for Tampa to continue to be uh competitive year on year. Now, I'm I'm obviously based on what I said a couple weeks ago after being upset, what you do like is that everybody thinks that this window is closing. Uh I guess outside of Tampa, you see a lot of people saying that the window is going to close eventually, and Julian Breeswall is doing an excellent job of just keeping that window open longer and trying to continue to manufacture success in creative ways that are going beyond just the traditional means of player, young player acquisition through the NHL draft. I mean, you look at it realistically, other than uh like I'm thinking of notable first-round picks for Tampa. Uh most recently in in our in our lifetime that uh and over the franchise, in the more modern era of the Template Lightning, right? You have Steven Stamcos, Victor Headman, and then after that, right, like Slater Cuckoo. Does that name like tickle your fancy at all? Um, Vladin Mesnikov. And Andre Vasilevsky. Like, those are five, those mentioned five guys there off the top of my head that were, I guess, quote unquote, notable first-round picks that actually played three of those guys, are figureheads of this franchise, pillars of this franchise. And although Steven Slamcoffs no longer plays for Tampa, he will always, once his jersey goes up into the rafters, we still view him as a pillar of the Tampa Bay Lightning franchise. Um, but the other two guys, like you just Slater Cuckoo and Vladimeskov, like Meskoff had what, two or three stints with the Lightning, I think. And like they shipped him off both time both times, and and Slater Cuckoo just never really outside of an amazing name. I loved his name, Slater Cuckoo. Uh, he never really materialized uh for the Tampa Bay Lightning, at least materialized to his draft pick, I guess, in the first round. So the Tampa Bay Lightning have shown over this era that they don't really necessarily need first round picks to generate and sustain success. So, all that to be said, looking forward as well, in terms of talking about young player success, Jacob Peltier won AHL player of the year. This year he had 28 goals and 77 points, five games with Tampa with uh averaging 916 of ice time with four shots on net. And we're gonna kind of get into this here in a second as we do the live puckpedia thing. Smaller player, he has shown to be able to generate success at the AHL level, hasn't really materialized yet at the NHL level, but he did sign a three-year contract with Tampa last summer. So we'll see if he has an opportunity to break through at the NHL level this year. I'm gonna kind of get into reasons why I don't necessarily think it will happen. And I don't uh hate to be a negative Nelly, but I just don't know if it will ever happen for him. Uh good player as he may be at the AHL level. We've kind of seen what that looks like with a name that I'll bring up here in a second. And so let's kind of look into let's kind of look into the Lightning's roster as of today, June 1st, 2026. Let's look at it face value. We'll talk about some of the the free agents that the lightning have, and there's obviously one notable one. So heading into this offseason, uh Oliver Bjorkstrand is going to be a free agent. Uh his last cap hit, according to Puck Pedia, 5.4 million. Look, he played 98 games with Tampa. He had 17 goals, 41 points. Uh this past season, played 80 games, had 12 goals, 32 points. Unfortunately, when we got him uh with Yanni Gore for some for some first round picks, he ultimately, and I hate to say this about a player, but his just performance was disappointing in the fact that you thought and we thought that we were getting somebody who would provide elements of depth scoring at a consistent enough level to warrant him being in the lineup, warrant him being in the top six as much as he was, and it it never happened, right? It just it never meshed for whatever reason. And we tried to put him on the power play, or we Tambay Lightning tried to put him on the power play, it put him in Stamcos' spot, and it never worked, it was it was just awkward because he was not known, he's not known for his his one-time shot. He actually plays in Kucharoff's spot and would use you know snapshot to generate goals for himself and and for his teams. And so if you're asking if the lightning should resign him, I don't think so. Uh, I saw people who said that they believed that, oh, on a cheap deal, look, I I just think that you cut your losses, it didn't work out. He what role is he gonna fulfill here uh when you have you say bottom six, but there are other players who can fulfill his role um probably at a much cheaper cap hit and players that we would want to see. Uh Mitchell Chafey, his last cap hit was 800,000. He'll probably get a bump if he stayed with the Lightning to 850, because I believe that's the minimum this year. Uh he'll he's 28, right? If he's going to be in the organization, I think it's with Syracuse. He does provide good depth down there. Um look, he played 11 games with Tampa this year, had had one assist, one point, but he did fairly well down there at the HL level with Syracuse. Uh Ian Mitchell, who I believe was a I believe he was a trade later on in the season. It was obviously it wasn't a notable trade. Uh Corey Perry, 41 years old. Uh look, when we got him, I I thought it would be good in the sense that you know he would provide those elements of leadership, but truth be told, he just can't skate with this team the way that we would like a bottom six player to skate. And although he brings intangibles and he's like a coach on the bench and on the ice and good mentor for some of the young guys like Dom Dominic James and uh Connor Gickey, I just can't envision him coming back to play a bottom six role. And ultimately, how I felt about it was after the season ended, and this is obviously in hindsight, after our playoffs ended for the Tampa Bay Lightning, it was kind of a waste of a trade in a sense. It was almost like uh Julian Breesball probably had something else on the table that fell through, so he probably felt like, well, I've got to do something. And maybe that's not true, but that's how I, in kind of looking at it from the outside in. Right? He played 72 games, had 37 points, but and that's between Los Angeles and Tampa. But I I I just I'm not even sure he had above 10 minutes in any of the playoff games this year. And so bringing him back, I just don't know outside of those intangibles and being a coach, like if that's what he's there for to be a coach, like shit, like bring him back when he retires and and let him coach if he's that into it. Um I just I just don't see a role for him moving forward. Uh excellent steward of of leadership and the values of of the franchise for the Tampe Lightning and what you want out of a veteran player, but for me personally, there's a physical element that I think he lacks in his skating ability now, and that's just he's lost his step because he's 41. That happens. And you know, the Lightning are they skate, they move. It's all about movement with the with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and unfortunately, it kind of seems like sometimes Corey Perry's got cinder blocks attached to his back, and he's just can't get there in some spots. Like he has an excellent hockey IQ, but he's gotta get to that, he's gotta get to those points, he's gotta get to those spots, and you know, sometimes other players can beat him to the spot quicker. And the one notable free agent for the Champion Bay Lightning this year is none other than Darren Radish. And look, um he's coming off a 975 cap hit, 975,000. Pug Pedia is projecting him making 7.885 for his next, and it's like five and a half years. So what they're averaging it is five years, 7.85. That that's what the player with his statistics uh would probably be commanding. Look, 22 goals, 48 assists, 70 points. Um here's the big thing. Big right hand shot. I think that the lightning have a number in mind for him. Obviously, with the salary cap going up, maybe that number can change a little bit. Earlier in the year, when we had talked about what maybe Darren Radish could command, and it I've seen the likes of a JJ Mosier style contract. I do wonder if it's somewhere around there. Uh, I have this number in my head, and you know, we can debate it on the socials or whatever, but I have this number in my head that I I I don't envision Julian Brisois going above six million. And and it's it's six million and it's for six years. Now, you know how hockey is, hockey likes those uh symmetrical numbers for whatever reason, like uh one by one, two by two, three by three, and so on and so forth. And Darren Radish is 30 years old now, he's just now having his career year. There is a cause for pause. Like I said earlier in the year, that something about a player having a career year at age 30, here's where it works to Darren Radish's benefit: is that the free agency pool is just not good this year, especially for players, right-handed shot defensemen who can score and who were on the first pair, uh, like he was with JJ Mosier this year and performing really well. Julian Breeswalk came in in the middle of the season and he had a you know a press conference and he said he needed a bigger sample size from Darren Raddish. Now, Darren Raddish proved, right, that he could command um a bigger salary through his play. However, I am a little cautious. I remain a little cautious about just kind of wanting to give a player who's having a career year, his 2930 age year, um, you know, the seven, eight, nine million dollars that maybe he could command from a team like uh Toronto, maybe, or some other potential original six, or some other traditional hockey market, or maybe a team with more cap space, such as San Jose. Um, I just I just in my head, I think Julian Breeswall is gonna kind of lay it all on the table and say, be quite quite frank with him, and say, Darren, look, you had an excellent year. We're not gonna deny you of that, however, you are 30. You're going to make life-changing money regardless of where you go. And look, to us, right, uh the the average person, the average fan, who will probably a lot of us and uh majority of us will never see the types of money that a lot of these professional athletes in the NHL or just professional athletes in general will ever will see. To us, it's like, okay, well, what's the difference between 34 million and 50 million? Yeah, you're probably right in that sense to a player who is dealing with uh different pressures and they're dealing in different realms and we can't imagine the types of things that they deal with. They just at a different level. Darren Rash is saying, well, that's a big deal. 36, you know, if I if I could go and get uh, you know, seven uh a seven million dollar contract for eight years, right? In comparison to a six by six in Tampa, if I can go get seven by eight somewhere else or seven by nine somewhere else, you know, why wouldn't I do that? And you know what? He would have every right to do that. Absolutely. He's earned it, he's deserved it, he's deserving of it. I think Julian Brisbane comes back and says, Look, you can go elsewhere, without a doubt. But look at what I'm doing to try to extend our window here to win. You are gonna have a role here. I do, I am curious what that role looks like with what you hope Victor Hedman coming back and having a bounce back year. I don't know how likely that is in terms of he's he's gonna be 36. So, what are you expecting of Victor Headman? Are you expecting 65, 70 points for him again? You know, coming back off a year where he struggled. I don't know if we're gonna get that from Victor Headman. It'd be great to see. Uh, he takes care of himself. The injuries have kind of mounted a little bit over the last couple years. But if I'm Julian Bregebo and I'm looking at Darren Rash and I'm saying, look, man, you're not gonna have anybody else like Nikita Kucharov passing you the puck, right? You're not gonna, those numbers may take a hit. Yeah, you may go get that money, but what are you after? Is that after the money? Do you want to remain competitive with a franchise? And maybe, maybe there's elements of both, in which I do think that for the first time in a long time, the Tampa Bay Lightning can offer. So kind of looking at this, right? So if we were to look at the Tampa Bay Lightning's depth chart heading into next season, right, and so we're gonna do this live Puckpedia thing right now. So I'm on Puckpedia right now, okay, and they have at forward, they have at forward right now uh Jake Gensel, Brayden Point Kucharoff, Hegel Sorelli, they have Connor Geeky up. Okay, they have Dominic James, Nick Paul, Gage Gonzales, they have Homburg, Yanni Gord Gurgensens, they have Jacob Pelchier, and they have Sabron sitting in the press box on defense. You've got Victor Hedman and Mosier, McDonough Chernak, uh Charles Edward Dasteux and Lilleberg with Crozier in the box, and you've got Vasilevsky and Jonas Johansson as your goalies. Um look, I I am really pressed. So right now, I'm I'm gonna get back to why I'm pressed. So right now, with this current depth chart, the lightning are sitting at $13.17 million in cap space. That is probably the most the Lightning have had in years. Okay, so everybody for the Lightning is pretty much returning outside the likes of there were two main players, Declan Carlisle, who is a group six UFA, and that's a whole other deal that I won't necessarily get into. You can look it up yourself. Um, because he hasn't reached the amount of games to I guess not be considered a UFA. I don't know how Group of Six works, I'll be quite frank with you. And then Darren Radish. So I personally don't think that Jacob Pelchier is going to make the big club with the Tampa Bay Lightning. I just what role does he fit? Okay. If I'm kind of looking at it, there's two players right now on that roster in Conor Giki and Pelchie. And for me, I was doing a little research and I kind of wanted to look at Connor Giki's numbers. Okay, so let's do a little comparison here. So Pelchie is listed at 5'11, 180. He's 25, can play center in the left wing. Yeah, he had 77 points this year. But we have seen what happens when a player is able to dominate the AHL and it just doesn't translate to the NHL. Does a name like Alex Bariboule ring a bell? For the longest time, people would clamor for Alex Bariboule to be up with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and it just never. He just couldn't, he just wasn't defensively responsible enough, he couldn't skate well enough, and the scoring that he had at the AHL level didn't translate. The other part of it is that look, the Tampa Bay Lightning are already smaller in the forward department, they lack a bit of weightiness, a bit of heaviness to their game. They don't necessarily have that power forward archetype like we used to have with Alice Calorne and Andre Pilat. And I just don't personally think that Jacob Peltier brings that. That's not to say that he doesn't have a role, but what what role does he have in the top six? Because the lightning, I think, are missing. That power forward element. Here comes where I would like to see the likes of a Connor Geeky take the next step. He's going to be 22 this coming year, right? So in 81 AHL games, he said he has 79 points. Okay. And he plays all situations for Syracuse. He's got 17 points in 66, 66 NHL games. He's averaging under 12 minutes of ice time. So he's he averages ice time like a bottom six player. Okay. Here is there's an intangible that he has that the Lightning don't have amongst their forwards, and there's only one other player that really does. Uh maybe two. He's 6'4-215. There's a bit of heaviness, weightiness to him. He maybe not necessarily the best skater right now, but he can get around. And I am not sure that he's ever had pro long stints of playing in the top six with the Tampa Bay Lightning. If he can do that and get his game to where he's a contributor, like a top six contributor, I think right now, if Julian Breeswall said, Hey, this is our roster going into next season, because he doesn't necessarily have to make moves. So look, if I were to move Jacob Pelchier down to the miners, okay, the Lightning right now would have 14, just over 14 million cap space. Okay, so that's with Scott Sabron and Max Crozier in the press box. Obviously, the Lightning like to keep 13 forwards, but for the sake of obviously maximizing cap space, you know the Lightning like to do that. Let's say for whatever reason Scott Sabron was sent down as well, and the Lightning were only going to play with 12 forwards this year to start the season. Okay, so the Lightning now have $14.895 million in cap space. And that would leave one player in the press box. That would be Max Crozier for the time being. And the Lightning would currently have 21 players out of their allotted 23. Okay, so their projected cap hit would be uh 89 million, and they would have just under 15 million uh left to spend left to spend with whatever they decided to do. So, right now, with those 21 players, Puckpedia has the lines looking like Jake Gensel, Brainpoint, Kuchrov on the first line, Hegel Sorelli, Geeky on the second line, Dominic James, Nick Paul Gonzalez, third line, Homburg, Yanni, and Zemgis Gergensen on the fourth line. Your first D pair is Hedman and Mosier, McDonald Chernak, your second pair, uh, Dastu and Lilleberg as your third pair, and Crozier in the press box. That is very, I mean, if looking at face value, that is what the Lightnings roster is right now. And what you would I would not be surprised to see management look at Connor Geeky and say, look, man, we're gonna give you a chance in training camp and preseason, and maybe early on in the season, this is gonna be your job to lose. We're going to give you an opportunity in the top six. And obviously, I've seen the likes of you know people saying the lightning might be shopping a center to ease the load of Braden Point. We are gonna get into that probably within the next couple of weeks, but I'm just looking at it face value. So if Braden Point were to stay at center, along with Sorelli and potentially Nick Paul or Dominic James, then you have Yanni Gord as your fourth line center. This is what the Lightning's roster construction would be forward-wise. Realistically, everybody returns. Uh, Geeky would be the newer guy in the on the roster in the forward group. Um, and they would I could envision the lightning saying, look, it's year three of your three-year RFA contract with the Lightning. He'll still be in RFA after this year. Uh, and obviously, the Lightning probably will re-sign him unless they look to use him as a trade piece to get somebody else in. I could envision Connor Geeky playing in the top six and management saying, look, this is your job to lose, man. And if he is showing that he can't produce, they may send him back down to Syracuse. And obviously, he has shown that he can produce at that level, and maybe do something like they did with Gage Gonçalves, where it is, look, you're just not ready yet. We believe in you, we have a plan for you, but you still need some seasoning down there in the AHL. And look, the Lightning are known for letting their prospects, I hate to use this word, but marinate in the AHL and let them just develop confidence and round out their game so that way when they get to the NHL, they understand how they kind of fit. Gage Gonçalves has kind of worked his way up and down the lineup this year. And towards the latter half of the season, right, he had believe 30, 32, or 33 points this year, and in the playoffs, like you began to see elements of he could be a good contributing depth piece for the Lightning. And you just kind of wonder if the Lightning kind of take that route with Connor Geeky like they did with Gonzales last year, which was you're gonna start up with the big club, we're gonna give you an opportunity, it's gonna be a trial run. I don't know, we'll give you 20 games. If you produce, you stay. If you don't, we're gonna send you back down and let you build some confidence. Because obviously, Connor Geeky, I think, was lacking that a little bit last year. He just wasn't um and the other part of it is like he's not a bottom six player, I don't think. Um maybe moving him up into a top six role and playing along the likes of Hegel, Sorelli, Gensel, Pointer, Kutrov, however, those lines shake up in the top six, um looking at it right now, maybe that gives him a boost. You know, so I am interested to see how that that shakes out. And that's just looking at the lightning's roster face value right now. Now, if I play around with something here, let's say, let's say the lightning will go to UFA's, let's say the lightning do sign Darren Radish to that what I think would be a that six by six. If they decided to sign him to that, which I'm not maybe that maybe I'm lowballing him there. Yeah, and I don't know how everybody else feels, but for whatever reason I have that number stuck in my head. Let's say they signed him to that. Okay, the Lightning would now have just under $9 million in cap space, and that being with the likes of Saburin and LCA down in Syracuse for the time being. So if that happens, right now, Darren Radish is, I think everybody kind of gets bumped down some. Uh, I would be interested. I I would envision that maybe Mosier and Radish is your first pair, and where does that leave Hedman? Does Hedman go down to the third pair? That's always a possibility. Uh right, or maybe they don't re-sign Radish, and the likes of you have Hedman on the first power play, and another player who could potentially do it is Das 2, who was running the second power play uh in later the latter half of the season for the Tampa Bay Lightning. So this is just kind of an exercise in what the Lightning look like right now without adding anybody. Okay. That's that's if the Lightning were not even to re-sign Darren Radish. I think, kind of looking at it, it might be a little foolish if they don't, but there is an element of this is a player who's 30, who's gonna have an opportunity to make life-changing money, regardless of where he goes, but he's going to be able to make more life-changing money potentially elsewhere rather than with the Tampa Bay Lightning. So, in saying that, the roster as it's currently constructed for the Tampa Bay Lightning, they have everybody coming back. Um, it's good. Um, and if you were to ask me if is this a contending roster right now on June 1st, I don't know. I I think they're just they're missing something. And we're gonna kind of explore, like I've got a list of potential players that the lightning could trade for at the center position that I'm gonna save for later on. Um and other potential, maybe other forwards that they could look to to get, but I do believe that center was one that they were looking at just to at least from what I saw, ease the load off Braden Point, because Braden Point just doesn't win face-offs at a high enough clip for the lightning to really keep him there. Maybe he's better served off as a wing. That's always a possibility. And then if like if that were to happen, right? Like let's say Braden Point moves to the wing, and I don't know. If Braden Point moves down to the wing and somebody else is a center, like who is it? Maybe I don't know. I'm not gonna say Sam O'Reilly. That's kind of that's far-fetched right now, but whoever that player is, now you just kind of bump forwards down the lineup, and maybe you're generating depth that way. That's also a possibility. So for the time being, this is a good roster in terms of continuity, uh, consistency. There's an element of sustainability in the success and the chemistry. But I do think that they are missing something, and and whether that be at center or that is a forward position in the top six, that remains to be seen how the lightning fulfill it. Uh I I do I do just have a hunch that maybe Connor Geeky, it will be his job to lose to start training camp and the regular season. Now, who knows what Julian Breeswall has up his sleeve. I know people are saying, oh, we gotta get Sam O'Reilly up, or you gotta get Raoult Tianan up. Uh look, guys, what they can do at Finland and in the OHL and in Canadian junior hockey, or junior hockey in general, I'm sorry, that it's a big jump. Braden Point did make that jump, yes, but not every player is the same. And looking at the intangibles of height, weight, and oh, he's he's almost at 60% in winning face-offs, and he's a big contributor, yeah, that's that's fair. He's also 20 years old. Um, same thing with Pritham, who's gonna go to college, right? They're going to be they're going to be older rookies in a sense. Um so kind of temper expectations. The best thing about the likes of what the Tampa Bay Lightning have in these younger guys, and Pritham, O'Reilly, and Rot Tianan, is you know what the Tampa Bay do a really good job of? Finding winners, guys who win. So now they already have a standard of winning. So when they get to the organization on a full-time basis, you don't have to teach them how to win. You're just altering it for how they win in the in the AHL and at the NHL level, how they win puck battles, how they win face-offs, how they go about setting up defensively, how they get up on the fore check, how they do a lot of things. Now it's just little aspects of their game. But the base of knowing how to win is already there. And the Tempe Bay Lightning have always done an excellent job of finding players like that. So, right now, for the time being, we'll see where it shakes up. But I just want to do this exercise just to see what it kind of looks like. And like I said, we'll do this a couple times throughout the season because I am interested to see where it's going to go with the lightning and the moves that Julian Brisbois will make. And so, yeah, I mean, look, I've I've missed uh getting on here and talking. You know, it's been uh it's been quite a while. I've just kind of let some things just settle down, um, and just kind of taking a backseat. Look, I I did see one fan that they that I had an interaction and it kind of bothered me a little bit. Remember what we talked about in the the playoff post-mortem about uh elements of what is it? Um what's the word that I'm looking for? It's just like complacency? There it is. I saw a fan and I interacted with a fan who said that they're not as mad about losing to Montreal because Montreal made it to the conference final. Look, get the hell out of here with that bullshit. Please, no more of this moral stuff with oh, well, we lost to a team that made it to the Eastern Conference Final. Well, if Tampa had did what they should have done earlier in the series, now we're looking at a team like the Tampa Bay Lightning who could be in the conference final playing Carolina, and that would have been an excellent matchup. Uh, would the Lightning have lost? I don't know, but it would have been fun to see. Those games would have been high scoring. I think it would have been it would have been excellent to watch both of those teams uh play in an Eastern Conference final. And we just haven't been able to see that. The only time I think was we got them in the second round a few years ago, and the Lightning kind of beat the brakes off of Carolina. But needless to say, I don't like that talk. I I wish fans would stop doing it to try to make themselves and make everybody else around them who don't have a shred of competitive spirit in them. I wish that they would stop talking like that. Oh, well, we lost to the Stanley Cup champ, or oh, we lost to a team that made it to the third round. That doesn't actually, for me, it doesn't make me feel better. It just pisses me off. So, so it would be great if like some of our fan base would stop talking like that. Like it's just uh it just bothers me because without going on a tangent, just remember, right? This core is getting older, they won't contend forever. Although Julian Breeswall is doing an excellent job of keeping them uh competitive and prolonging it uh smart and creatively. One day, Kucharov, Headman, point, and the likes of those guys will no longer be donning, and Vasilevsky will no longer be donning the Tampa Bay Lightning crest on their jersey. And whether they are here for the duration of their career or not, there will come a time when they will no longer that will no longer happen. So knowing what this core, these guys have done for the Tampa Bay Lightning and the the mountaintop that they've reached twice, and how close they have come many times outside of that, knowing that anytime that the Tampa Bay Lightning don't do it, I hate to be so black and white, but to me it's deemed as a failure. They didn't achieve what they set out to do. We can sit back and have moral victories when this group is gone and the lightning are at a different stage, right? When the standard has to be reset in terms of implementing context and saying, well, this is a very young team, and you know what, they're gonna be successful here, they're gonna struggle here, but that's expected. As Tampa Bay Lightning fans, over this era of Tampa Bay Lightning hockey, we are not expecting to lose in the first round. So this talk of, oh, well, let's just let's just be proud, I don't really understand it. That's still what makes me better. I'm not proud. I'm still very much pissed off because you know, like our guys aren't our golden guys, our golden era guys aren't getting any younger. Right? And although we've done a good job, like I've said before, of restocking the cupboard, it's it sucks knowing that our guys are our household names are one year older, therefore they are one year closer to no longer playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Like I said, whether that be due to retirement or playing for somebody else or you know, whatever else, um you know what what you want to see is them winning. And I know that they can't win every year. I'm not naive. I just getting out of the first round and giving yourself a chance to play into uh late April, early May, and into June is what we all want. And unfortunately, for the past four years, we haven't achieved that. And so I'll tell you what, I've there's been elements of personal growth from a couple weeks ago because right there I would have gone off spitting flames of fire with my mouth, like I was in the playoff post-mortem. So I'll pat myself on the back for that. Anyway, guys, listen, thanks for tuning in. Be on the lookout for some, you know, on the socials for some some questions I'm gonna pitch out. We're gonna do some fun interaction stuff. Uh, I'll try to really record every every seven to ten days moving forward throughout the summer. Like I said, just to keep Tampa Bay Lightning fresh on your mind. We are looking forward to, like I said, the draft, free agency, schedule release, and things like that. But until then, guys, we'll talk soon.