The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 333: Yeah, I'm Thinking I'm Back

Episode Date: January 9, 2020

Alan Wells joins the show to discuss the Tampa Bay Lightning's slow start, how they've come on since then, and how this year's version stacks up against last season's juggernaut.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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And Joy, name is my good buddy, Alan Wells. Alan, it's been a long time, man. How's it going? Yeah, it's good to be, good to be back on, and I guess we'll talk some lightning hockey. We're going to talk some lightning hockey. I'm excited. I've been waiting to do this for a while. You know, the lightning, as you well know, have had quite an interesting season. It started a lot slower than I think people thought. And it felt like maybe just because of the expectations that they'd set for themselves with their regular season last year, people expected them to, kind of replicate that or just hadn't grown accustomed to seeing them struggle or lose as much as they had early in the season. So it felt like the panic meter was kind of unfairly being ramped up and pressed by people and everyone was citing all those stats about, you know,

there are still on the outside looking in and we're six weeks into the season. And I don't know if it was like that actually with fans and with people covering the team or whether they were a bit more level-headed about it. And what was the sort of reception to the start? of this lightning season when they were like hovering around 500 and sitting on the outside of the playoffs. I mean, I think there was, there's kind of two, two basic groups there. There's, there's sort of one group that is so disinterested in the regular season, uh, this year that it, it, it almost didn't matter. Um, and then I think there was people that, uh, there was another group of people that kind of carried over that frustration from the way the season ended last

year and then this this season sort of starting the way it did was was just felt like sort of more of the same and I think you know that there's always a sort of you know kind of reactionary part of the fan base but there was there was certainly a lot of frustration and people wanted to see changes whether that was you know on the coaching staff or on the roster or yeah there was a lot of a lot of people who were looking at this team seeing the amount of talent seeing how last season ended, seeing them continue to kind of lose more games than you'd expect from a team with this much talent and being frustrated at that. So I think there was kind of a mix, but there was certainly a vocal part of the fan base that was not happy up until a few weeks ago.

Yeah, it's always an interesting balance because on the one hand, especially in small samples to start a regular season, people can really get overly reactionary and panic too much. And then we've seen as the season goes on and as the sample grows, things typically level out. And people both are on an individual level and also on a team level kind of revert back to their historical norms. There's certainly going to be outliers at both levels each season. But with this lightning team, I just kept kind of preaching patience or preaching caution because it just felt like there was too much talent involved to work itself out. But just I think maybe just because of how last postseason had ended in sort of the historical. context or consequence of it.

Maybe I think people were led a bit astray because they just thought that there was like something not physically, but more so like psychologically or mentally broken with the lightning in terms of like recovering from that quick exit at the hands of the bluejacket. So I think that was certainly part of it. But I just felt like especially with some of the injuries they had out of the gate and then with the trip to Europe and having these games in hand, like it felt like it was an especially wonky start that was out of their control. So that was kind of the thing for me that gave me the most reason for patience or caution.

It was just like, let's kind of let them catch up in games. Let's let them get healthy and see what they're looking like when they're firing at all cylinders and then reevaluate. And here we are. And it kind of looks very similar to what we saw last season. Yeah. And I think even, I mean, after like the first couple weeks of the season, all the numbers were good, all the underlying numbers were good.

they started to climb an XG share they were like a top 10 team for most of the year I think they're like second in the league now last I look but they they didn't have the profile of a non-playoff team for the majority of this season and really the issue that they had was was goaltending and then

they had some some kind of bad luck kind of one goal games they had a really weird thing where they had a really good goal differential but a bad record because they were they were winning blowouts and losing one goal games for a while. And I mean, that kind of stuff tends to level out. And so, you know, eventually you sort of get what you've gotten from them over the last, you know, eight games, which is a bunch of wins.

And then as the goaltending has come around to at least, like, reasonable in the most recent stretch, then they've started to rack up points. And that's really, you know, realistically over the last, you know, before this winning streak the 10 to 15 games before that, the only thing holding them back was the play in net as much as some folks don't want to hear that, especially about Vasilevsky, who just, you know, won that Vezina last year and was nominated the year before. That's been kind of a contentious point in the fan base and in the media around here. But yeah, that was really the one thing that you could point to in terms of results that was

that was kind of driving down their place in the standings. I don't know if you agree with this, but I've given it, you know, the more I've thought about it over the years, I feel like there's the most confirmation bias when it comes to goalies, especially with fan bases where if a goalie is sort of an established proven guy that, as you mentioned, with Vasilevsky has been in the Vesna conversation, is generally considered to be one of the better goalies in the league. when their numbers dip and when they're struggling, it feels like people just as kind of like a defense mechanism,

always blame it on what's going on in front of them and just automatically their retort is, oh, well, what's he supposed to do when they're giving up all these chances, even if the numbers don't necessarily back it up, whereas if it's a goalie who's more unproven, like let's say a Darcy Kempter or something, we immediately just give all the credit to the defense. And if they're struggling,

then we just were quick to jump on them and blame them. It feels like with goalies, that confirmation bias, of like you head into it into the exercise, the valuation exercise, with an idea of how good that goalie is. And then you kind of work around that as opposed to actually kind of stepping back and divvying up both credit and blame where it's deserved. Yeah, I mean, I think it's the area where people are most prone, like even me to kind of going off the deep end direction or the other.

And it's, you know, we're seeing it in Montreal right now with Carrie Price. And we saw it with Vasilevsky and Tampa. and it was almost, the timing was almost comical. I wrote a big article a couple weeks ago about how much he was struggling and how, you know, just showing pretty clearly that, that, you know,

in terms of our ability to measure expected goals right now, that him giving up way more goals than you would expect was the thing that was causing them to lose games. And then I think they had a national game that night in Canada, I think on Sportsnet and the panel was talking about how, you know, the defense has been leaving him out to dry and all this stuff. And then you go look at the numbers and the lightning have like, you know, a top five expect the goals against rate in the league.

And it's just, it gets kind of silly with sort of the, the people just struggle to kind of double check themselves and, and make sure that you're not sort of fitting, fitting a narrative around the results, you know, and then combining with that with sort of your preconceived notion. to arrive at what must be happening because especially with goalies, man, that performance can change quickly and you can see one thing for 40 games and you see one thing for 40 games or a full season with a skater and you can have some

confidence that that means something. You see one thing for 40 games or a season with a goalie and you still got to be checking back in regularly to make sure there's still that player because the performance just fluctuates so much. Yeah, it feels like we talk out of the both sides of our mouth. And I love myself into this as well. I think I'm certainly not without blame here. And I think the best example of this right now going is probably what's happening

with Sergey Bobrovsky in Florida where the other day I tweeted out some of his stats. And, you know, he's the second highest paid goalie this year behind Carrie Price. And he's like 55th out of 59 qualified goalies in pretty much every performance indicator we look at for net minors. And a lot of people were kind of like laughing at it and making jokes and like, oh my God, this contract's going to be a disaster. And then there was a certain, you know, combination of Panthers fans, but also just, I think, people who have followed Bobrovsky's work over his years in Columbus that pushed back and they're like, well, what's he supposed to do behind that defense? And I think there's certainly some fairness to that in the sense that going from a really

underrated Blue Jackets team with a stingier John Chorderell defensive system in front of them to this kind of laxadaisical offensively oriented Panthers team with a porous blue line. Of course, it's going to be tougher for him. But at the same time, then, why are you paying a goalie $10 million premium to come in there if he's going to post these numbers? Right. Like, we think of goalies as the ultimately equalizer. And we see that whether it's John Hines or Pete DeBore or Peter Labielette, if you're not getting the goaltending, chances are the coach is going to be the first one to be blamed and fired for it. And so the goalie performance can make such a big difference, but at the same time, why I say we talk out of both our sides of our mouth

is because if it doesn't fit our narrative, like, we think Bobrovsky's a really good goalie, then all of a sudden it's, oh, no, it's not actually his fault. He's not playing poorly. It's the defense in front of them. And so there's kind of an imbalance there for me in terms of how we evaluate the position and the performance and sort of who's responsible for what. Yeah, and it's really, it's really the cruelest part of the sport is that easily the most important player on the ice in terms of impacting the outcomes of games. Like, it's not even close. Like, by far the most important player is the one that we have like the least ability to have any confidence in, in our ability to sort of assess their talent level, right? Like, that's a,

that's a, that's a really difficult thing from an, from an analysis perspective is to say, okay, this is the most important thing, but also I don't understand it at all. And, and that just leads to bad takes in all directions and from media and fans, and it leads to bad decisions from front offices because it's a really hard thing to do. I think it's, I think it was fairly easy to look at that Bobrovsky contract and say that's not, that's not going to go well. We, you know, there's, there's no reason to think that that he's going to be, you know, a major outwire in terms of his performance as he ages and things like that. And, and we know that that goalies, that peak tends to be really short and he'd already, you know, been the best goal in the league for

probably three or four years. And so, you know, you can't expect that to continue much more than a couple years if that. And, you know, for them to make a huge, a huge bet like they did, that was always going to go sideways for them. I think it's a little bit unfortunate maybe that it went sideways this quickly and maybe he can still bounce back and they get, you know, a couple years on the front end of that deal that are worth it. But yeah, that was always going to go bad. And it's just gone worse than could even be expected, which is unfortunate for them because they have a pretty

interesting, fun, young team, and it's going to be tough for them to make much out of that if they can't get good play in net, and then they have all this money from a cap perspective wrapped up in a player that they can't really contribute. Yeah, when they put pen to paper this summer, I don't think, they

envisioned Chris Dreger playing as big of a role as he's been playing over the past handful of games for them. So, we'll see. But yeah, with Vasilevsky, I think it was easier to preach patients or expect that he'd bounce back just given the age, the fact he's only 25 and the physical ability and barring some sort of an injury that was unreported, it was very easy to kind of be like, all right, well, you know, he's struggling. He's struggling if a forward was playing this way. We chalk it up to an early season struggle with goalies. It's kind of

tough to sit through that because of how instrumental they are in the team's success. But we've already seen over the past couple weeks that he started to round into form. And I wouldn't surprised at all that if we look up at season's end he has very similar numbers to the once he had last here despite the whole he created for himself but anyways we'll get more into the actual individual players i want to talk more about the lightning as a whole here and i've been workshopping this idea in my head and i'm going to present the case to you now i'm going to i'm going to test it out uh you're going to be my audience we're going to put it out into mass consumption i think it's ready to go um i've been nursing it in my head slowly workshopping it but i think it's ready so i'm going to

tell you it and then let me know what you think i i don't even know if this is necessarily a huge hot take. But I think this year's Tampa Bay Lightning team, based on what we've seen from them pretty much for the entirety of the season, but let's say especially since mid-November, so the past 20, 25 games, I think this version

of the Tampa Bay Lightning are better than they were last year. Is that a hot take, do you think, or do you think there's some merit to it? I think, yeah, I don't think it's a super, I don't think it's a super hot take. I think there's, I think you could justify that. I think, um,

I think the addition of like Kevin Chattonkirk who got into like a time machine over the summer or like did some like cryogenically frozen something to come back as like a different person this year. I don't I don't really understand how that happened but he's he's having one of the best years of his career. And so that's that's obviously huge for them on the blue line, which was an area of weakness. and the only player that they really lost that was an impact player was J.T. Miller, but they're so stacked it forward that he was at

times playing on the fourth line last year. And so they lost from a position of strength and added to a position of weakness, and I think maybe that makes them a more kind of well-balanced deeper, more complete team. So yeah, I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility.

but I do think that I think maybe a hotter take that I might even that I might say is that I think there's a very high likelihood that this might be the best Tampa Bay Lightning team of this sort of era even looking forward because the cap situation that arises next summer is going to be such a challenge that I don't know that they can ever get this kind of collection of talent back together again so I think and I think that adds to the pressure of this season season is yeah, this is a stacked team. They've had two years in a row where they've had, you know, they've had Sergeyev on an entry-level deal and Vasselowski, you know, on an early career deal and some other players,

Soirelli and Eric Chernak contributing on entry-level deals and Braden Point on a lower deal last year and stuff. So as all those contracts, as all those players kind of hit that next level, it's just going to get harder and harder. And so I think last year's team was really impressive. this year's team is showing, I think like you said, that they can be as good or even better, that last year's team was,

I think they finished the year 8th or something, an expected goal share, somewhere in there, so from a shot metric perspective, you know, a top 10 team, but not dominant, more, more reliant on their finishing ability and Vasilevsky.

So if they can, if they can kind of hang around as more of like a top five team and show improvement and still have that, all that shooting talent and if Vasclavsky can get back to you know, at least being above average, then yeah, I think they are a better team than last year. Yeah, I mean, listen, clearly they're not going to, despite even with the whole, they created for themselves to start with the sort of pedestrian record, even if they had started off hotter,

they were never going to win 62 games again and have 128 points and take home every single imaginable individual regular season award, basically release nominations. And so, you know, throwing that out the window, I just think that the sort of underlying resume we've seen from them where I think for the year, their third and 515 shot share, first and chance share. I think they're even first and expected goals. The power play is just as good as last year. If not a better, I actually think they're converting at a slightly higher rate in terms of goals per 60 there. And, you know, if you look even closer, I know that it's a bit of an arbitrary cutoff from December 1st on.

And they've had a certainly easier schedule over those games. You know, the 13, 4 and 1 in those 18 games. And they're basically like 57 or 58 per year. in all of those five-on-five underlying metrics. And that's a mark of a team that isn't just, they're always going to be an above-average shooting percentage team because of the talent and because of their playing style. And, you know, what guys like Kuturov do in terms of that passing across the

Royal Road and the types of chances they create. But for them, especially for Kutrov, too, who's, you know, not replicating the points he had last year, although he's still quite good. But he's gotten back, and I know you wrote about this recently, to more of that play-driving juggernaut that he had been earlier in his career. And so it seems like a much more sustainable formula where even if they do go through a slight rough patch towards the end of the season or heading into the playoffs in terms of not converting

as many of their shots into goals, the volume is so much higher than it's been in the past that it does seem like a more sort of potent or sustainable formula to weathering some of those storms, no pun intended, when the balances aren't going their way. Yeah, for sure. And I think some of that is due to getting some kind of different player types up in the lineup. I think Anthony Sorrelli's emergence and he's been playing, you know, center on the second line. They've had Stamcoast on the wing. So him, him kind of moving up and being, you know, less of that kind of elite playmaker finisher profile and more of just that kind of dogged puck hound, get the puck in the all the time. type of player, I think that's helped them tilt the ice a little more. And I think Andre Palat getting healthy and kind of recovering his form. He's another guy who plays just a really solid, well-rounded game and can be a play driver on a line with guys who are playmakers and finishers.

So I think there's, yeah, I think that that ability to not just finish but control the game and make sure that it's taking place where they want it to take place has been improved this year and the addition of Pat Maroon at the bottom of the lineup. And so they just have a little bit of a different profile, a little less relying on the elite skill and a little bit more ability to dominate the territory. You know, kudos to them. Kudos to Julian Brisewold and John Cooper for staying the course.

Like basically, if your most sort of reactionary move to losing in the playoffs is bringing in a Pat Maroon type who ultimately isn't that consequential, you're really not paying him much and and you know whatever he gives you is basically file money and he can still play despite sort of his size and the ability to drop the gloves on occasion like we've seen teams many countless examples in the past but even most recently like i'd say what happened to calgary this summer where they just like freaked out after losing in round one unexpectedly to colorado and all of a sudden they're trading for milan luchich and and they're you know they've got zachronaldo in the lineup and they're doing all this crazy stuff and it's like

we've seen time and time again teams just completely lose their minds after postseason failures and kind of ironically get in their own way as this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy whereas maybe I guess with this team it is a bit easier after you were as dominant as you were last year to sort of talk yourself into bringing you back and talk yourself into just being kind of a fluke and that it'll never happen again but at the same time I think this could have gone much differently under the supervision of sort of the wrong hands or the wrong eyes Yeah, totally agreed. And I think that there's been some really encouraging kind of quotes out of the front office,

even going all the way up to ownership, you know, with Jeff Finnex sort of talking about, you know, how much, you know, luck and variance is involved in the sport of hockey and how you have to, you have to kind of understand what you're trying to do from a process perspective and stick with it. And Breezeball has been really open kind of in his discussions about the team and saying that, you know, that they have a plan and they're going to stick to it. And, you know, a four game, no, nothing that happens in any four games is going to change, is going to change that plan. And it goes all the way down, I think, to the team and to the coach.

And Cooper gave a couple quotes over the last week about how well the team had been playing before this winning streak and how they knew that their results would come. And I think he's bristled a little bit at some of the criticism. And they, I think, internally have felt really good about where, the team was at all year and and and weren't necessarily worried and anytime breesbole's been asked about you know john cooper's job security he's pushed back on that pretty hard so yeah there's there's been a lot of stuff that's that's that's that's pretty willing and to acknowledge that yeah there's going to be results fluctuations in in small numbers of games and we're not gonna we're not

gonna overreact to that i'm really this might surprise listeners who listen to pedo cast because it is much more of a you know an analytical podcast and we talk about stuff we can't quantify but that does mean that I'm not fascinated by that sort of behind the scenes, psychological element and getting in the headspace of Cooper and Breezoan and Vannick, where it's like when you bounce back from something like that and then you head into this regular season and you mentioned earlier that that part of the fan base that doesn't care ultimately about this regular season now because they've basically seen the absolute highs last year and what it ultimately netted was zero playoff wins and it was due to disappointment and left everyone heading into the summer with a bitter taste

in their mouth, how you sort of bounce back from the perspective of handling the regular season, because especially in the Atlantic, you can't really kind of take it for granted with, you know, even Florida bouncing back and then obviously Boston and Toronto there. So you have to still kind of go at at full speed. But I'm sure even the most rational mind would have to kind of recalibrate from the perspective of like, well, let's maybe use these 82 games as a bit more of a sort of breeding ground for different ideas, different line combos, different experiments. Obviously, we don't want to run guys into the ground. I think they've once again done a really good job of keeping Headman's minutes in check,

much like last year where he's not playing those 24, 25, 26 minutes per game. It's much more reasonably managed. And so I think from their perspective, I'm sure it's a lot of, obviously we want to win as many games as possible, but there must be a certain element of like taking the long view and playing the big picture and just making sure that you're healthy, that you have all your ducks and all, you have all the optimal line combinations, and you're ready to go come to playoffs,

because ultimately, like we just saw last year, I mean, regular season success doesn't necessarily guarantee you anything. Yeah, I think that's one of the key things, and this is a hard thing to know, whether this is something they're doing consciously unless they talk about it publicly. But I think one thing I wanted to see from them this year is,

is they've typically been a team, and this is usually a good thing to sort of say, you know, we have our approach and we play our game and we think our game's going to be good enough to win most nights and we're going to stick to it. But I think there was a sense in that series against Columbus that if things start to go really off the rails for you, that it'd be nice to have a plan B and a plan C and some different stuff to try and to, like you said, shake up your combinations and take some different approaches from a systems perspective. and so I think this regular season is a good time to mess with your breakouts and try some different forechecking approaches and just have some stuff in your back pocket if you get caught in a playoff series against somebody who seems to have your number in the first two games. So yeah, I think that's something that they should be wanting to do. And it's tough to tell if they are. But yeah, that's something that you want to see, especially given how last season ended.

And I think you're right that they've taken, you know, they've always done a good job of managing minutes and kind of, you know, rolling their lines and making sure that, you know, they're not overworking anyone. They went through a stretch where what would be considered the fourth line was consistently getting like the most 5B5 minutes for a while. They were running that Pat Maroon, Yanni Gord line for like 15 minutes a night. And they were kind of leading the way with everybody else slotting in around like 12, 13 minutes. So, yeah, they've done some interesting things. The other stuff I think I've noticed with them is they've been super conservative with injuries this year. Anybody who takes any kind of a knock during a game, they're pulling guys out, they're staying out the rest of the game and maybe missing one more game and then coming back.

So I think they're taking guys out for stuff that they wouldn't have. In the past, there was a game where Stamcoast, I don't know, some kind of lower body injury, but he just stayed on the bench for the rest of the game. just didn't put him back in and he wasn't hurt enough to go back to the locker room, but they weren't taking any chances. And so he just hung out on the bench. And then I think he played the next game. So they've just been,

they've been real measured and how they're using guys, not taking any risks from a, from a player and minute and injury perspective and trying to get themselves, I think, in their right spot come the spring. Yeah, I guess it's a lot easier to do that when you have, when you're afforded the luxury of the depth that they are. I mean, the fact that they had, J.T. Miller, as you mentioned, playing on the fourth line on occasion or third line for a large

stretches of the season, and then he goes to Vancouver, and he completely blows up playing with Alas Pedersen just speaks to the overwhelming riches they had up front. But, you know, they have it once again, and part of it is internal development from young players. Part of it is getting healthy, you know, the thing that I've noticed from Cooper that kind of lays credence to my idea of them using the regular season as a testing ground for certain things is we have seen a lot of tinkering and experimenting and he certainly hasn't been um you know shy or or or nervous about doing that in the past but what i've noticed is uh you know like last year for example he really seemed reluctant to throw that kutrov stamcoast point juggernaut together i think they played like 40 or so minutes

five on five total all of last year and then we saw it you know when they were kind of throwing the kitchen sink at columbus in in game four um but this year they've already played over 100 minutes. They were playing a bunch in their most recent game against Vancouver. And I think clearly it's not the most optimal way to build out your lineup. You want to separate those guys to sort of throw different wrinkles at your opposition. And it helps having a guy like Stampcos, who's so versatile from bouncing around to the wing to the center. He can play with pretty much anyone. I mean, he's played 40 plus 5 and 5 minutes with eight different forwards at this point. And it seems like it's just a rotating cast around him and speaks to his greatness that it doesn't affect him at all.

but I think being able to put those guys together and knowing that you have that in your back pocket is such an interesting sort of a break in case of emergency option for Cooper. And so I love seeing stuff like that where for a team like Tampa Bay, you're not taking the regular season success for granted and you're placed in Atlantic, but you know you're probably going to be there by the end of the regular season. So why not use this to really kind of test everything out and figure stuff out? Because you're obviously not going to be able to do so come to playoffs when every single shift in every single game matters. I like from that approach that it seems like they are handling the regular season the right way.

Yeah, for sure. And they definitely have been going to that kind of nuclear option line a lot more this season earlier in the year. And it's been it's been working for him. And that's, and I think Cooper has wanted Stamcoast to play more on the wing for years. And he tried, he tried once a few years ago. And it didn't go great. And he and he moved him back. And then they, they had that. line when Nemesnikov was playing was playing center and Kutrov and Stamco's were on the wings and that was working pretty well for them and so now he's he's going to it again this year and Stamco seems to be maybe a little more comfortable with it a little more kind of bought in and sort of understanding that the coaching staff's goal was just to put him in positions to succeed and to score goals and and they had that he had a goal against Vancouver where he was on the wing and Braden Point was taking the face off and he won the face off and dropped it back to him and he

scored right off right off the face off so that that had to be a pretty good feeling for him in terms of understanding you know that there's he can have success from anywhere on the ice and and like he said he's been he's been playing with a ton of different players he's played played a bunch with Anthony Sorrelli and Alex Corman and that's not kind of the typical profile of a line that you would think he would play on but it's it's been working for him and Surrelli's been picking up some assists because of it which is great for him Yeah, does anyone have a more diverse natural statrick teammate page than Stephen Stamco? It goes all the way from like Carter, Berhei, who I guess I should put some respect on his

mouth on his name after that hat trick he just had, but it's like him and Matthew Joseph and Alex Bolkov, and then it's like, oh yeah, Braden Point and Nikita Kutrov. And he's basically like both extremes, pretty much every single lineup, every single player on this lineup. If you're a forward, you've probably played at least some minutes with Stephen Stamcoe's this season. Yeah, for sure. And we spent some time talking about like soft skill kind of stuff on this, on this podcast. And I think that that kind of speaks to, you know, that I don't know that they would have done that with Stamcoast, you know, three or four years ago when when they would have been very focused on making sure that he was in kind of exactly the right situation so that he could, he could find success. And I think that's part of his sort of maturation and his, him, you know, growing into his leadership role as a captain and they feel comfortable pretty much doing whatever with him and sometimes putting young players with him because they want them to get that experience and they want him comfortable playing

up and down the lineup with everybody. And yeah, it's been, it's just been, it's been cool to see kind of his role evolve over the years from, you know, sort of a very kind of one dimensional, but a great dimension, but, but very focused on that one thing to sort of doing a lot of different things up and down the lineup for the team. Yeah, kudos to him. I think that definitely goes overlooked. It's not necessarily the sexiest story, but there's so many players in this league who,

whatever they do, like they do one thing really well. And then if they lose it physically or the league catches up to them, they just cannot find another way to be effective or as effective. And all of a sudden they start playing down the lineup. They're quickly out of the league. And, you know, for him to handle all this in stride and prove himself to be so versatile Kyle and so useful in many different ways and categories of a player of his caliber who has 60 goals, seasons under his belt at this point of his career, is really a testament to what a great player he is.

And it was interesting because, you know, now that we're in 2020, there was so much end-of-decade wrap-up stuff. And I really, when I was thinking about it, he was a name that kept sort of popping up in terms of, you know, you'd think of the obvious guys like old Etchkin and Krazi. being Malkin and Kane and so on and so forth. But it was really interesting to see how he was talked about because I feel like there's no consensus opinion. Maybe it's because of the injuries. Maybe it's because of the fact that his role has changed so much or that he hasn't been

as consistent in some of those other guys. But, you know, the highs were so high and now they're still high just in a completely different way, which is really interesting. Yeah, something we talk about at the site at raw charge of a fair amount internally is just how much those injury seasons, like right and right in the heart of his prime, how much they kind of depressed the counting stats and kind of removed him from the conversation for extended periods of time and things like that. And I think it just, it really heard him from a historical perspective in terms of kind of stacking

up because if you look at his numbers, you know, as a rate, you know, in terms of like goal score, and goals scored above expected and as a shooter. I mean, we ran an article on the site that Gio wrote last year that I think demonstrated pretty definitively that he's been, you know, the best, the best shooter of the kind of the modern stats era. You know, Patrick Lina was up there but didn't quite have as much of a track record and I, Ilya Colchuk, obviously. But he's just got that super dominant skill set.

And I think, unfortunately, because he missed so much. time it kind of hurt him but it's been it's been great like you said to see this kind of evolution and it's not a late career evolution he's still well within the part of his career where he's going to produce and and he can contribute a lot it's just it's great to see that game round out and he's even been playing on the penalty kill and stuff lately a lot of times he'll come out to take the face off because they trust him to to win that and then they'll make a change to get a more defensively oriented a player on but on but he's just uh it's it's been cool to see him go from being you know like we said that very sort of hyper-focused single-skill-set player into a well-rounded contributor who's well-established

as kind of the captain and the leader of the team. Well, and you know, I was talking about how Kuturov-Stanko's point and sort of having those three guys together gives Cooper this luxury of a sort of an X-factor or if push comes a shelf, you can throw out together if nothing else is working. And I think the other thing that separates this year's Lightning team from past versions and even last year's dominant team is the Shadenkirk-Serkichov pairing, which is so fascinating me. You mentioned Shadankirk and sort of this bounce back and rejuvenation he's had. I mean, on the one hand, going from playing with, I think his three most common players he played with with the Rangers last year were Freddie Clayson, Brendan Smith, and Jimmy Visi to Surgichet,

headman, and Kuturov. That'll certainly do wonders for players underlying numbers. But he also, I think, seems healthier and seems at least more motivated to kind of get another a big payday and clearly fell into the perfect spot. And kudos to him for sort of betting on himself and tactically coming to a team that could utilize his skill set most. But even with Surgachev, I mean, you know, I think the last time I had you on the show last year, we were talking about how, you know, the talent is so clear and he has these moments of brilliance, but he's still a young player and it still feels like the lightning were kind of painstakingly slowly bringing him along

and spood and feeding him minutes. And he's progressively gone up in year one. He plays. 1522 per night last year 1755 now 1908 and there's still obviously room to grow there but it does feel like he's kind of coming into his own and adding different dimensions to his game and becoming a more well-rounded player and so if there was one weakness to last year's team it was kind of beyond especially with headman banged up you know you have mcdonna there in the shutdown pairing with shernak but having this sort of extra offensive punch from the blue line and kind of throwing those two guys out there and strategically using them and getting a jolt from them as well add such an interesting different dynamic to this

team and and I think that shouldn't go overlooked because that's a clear difference and kind of is one big reason why I do when I said earlier that I think this year's version is better than last year is it's kind of that dynamic that I think of that really separates them. Yeah I think the the Chatt and Kurt thing is is like you said you know big big change in environment obviously um also the there had to be some health stuff going on because he he at the end and or not at the end but for most of the time in new york it it looked like he he couldn't skate at times like he was he was having a hard time getting around and now he gets in tampa and he he looks he looks totally looks like a totally different player um he's he looks like he did at his at his best with the blues

um so that's been that's been great to see that's that's a total steal for the lightning and that's that's a product of the organization that they've built and how good they are. And same thing with Maroon, that's players saying who aren't as focused on the dollar amount for their contract at a certain stage of their career for whatever reason. For Maroon, it's because he's coming toward the end. For Shat and Kirk, it's because he's in this weird situation where he needs to sort of rebuild his value so that he can go get a new big contract next summer. So those are two players who were just because of sort of their situation and because of the last, Lightning, you know, have this, have built up this, not just a good team, but a good culture and a place where guys want to play. They were able to attract both of them.

And so that's a huge win. And I think the Sergachev stuff, I think this would have been a different conversation even like six weeks ago than it is now. He is, he is just emerged over the last, like, you know, a month and a half, two months as like really growing into kind of what people thought he might be as, as a prospect because even earlier this year, I still had a lot of reservations about him in the defensive zone, and he still made some really poor decisions. And I thought he really struggled in the playoffs last year in that Columbus series. I thought the game got really fast for him.

And I thought he really struggled with his decision-making. But the last couple months, he has just sort of grown into much more of a contributor at both ends of the ice. I mean, he, he, the, the, this, you know, his ability to run the power play, um, his contributions in the offensive zone, like that stuff was always obvious. But he's, he's really started to read the game better in the defensive zone and sort to understand what his role is. And, and he's, he's, he's a big physical player and he started to, to utilize that, to, to, to take

space away from, from guys on the other side. And so, yeah, it's, it's been, it's been great to see and has, has me kind of wondering, I've been keeping my eye on it over the last few weeks or so, but it really has raised, or maybe not raised his ceiling, but made me think that maybe he's going to get pretty close to what we thought. His ceiling was, which is pretty scary because that's another super high-end player. It's just going to be about the contract and stuff next summer,

figuring out how to make that work. Yeah, well, they're going to bump into some really fascinating decisions. I mean, if we learned anything from Tampa, over the years and good teams. I think sometimes from the outside we tend to overreact. I guess you know, Blackhawks have, during all those cup years found a way to work around and clearly they had to bleed away a lot of talent, but it never got necessarily as dire. I guess having to give away Table Terele Vinen, who's like top five in primary assist this year for getting rid of Ryan Bickle's contract certainly hurts. But, you know, these teams typically find a way to wrestle out

of it. But at the same time, there's Sergachev and there's also Sorrelli, who I'm not, I think that the lightning will probably be able to get him on a steal of a deal because I don't think his accounting stats are going to explode. But man, I know you're part of the fan club as well. I honestly can't say enough glowing things about this guy. His, what he does out there and sort of how he plays, I think it's only a matter of time before he's a lock in the, in the Selky discussion. And I'm really curious to see what the next stage of his career is as he gets here into his prime into his mid-20s because if he settles in it being this kind of like 20-ish goal per game guy, especially considering he's not really doing any of it on the power play,

that's immensely useful given the defensive ability and how he kills penalties and draws penalties and does all of that on the other end of ice. But if he has an extra gear to his game in terms of that finishing ability and he can get higher into that 25-ish, maybe even touching 30 goal per season territory, I mean, that would be quite a development for the lightning, and I wouldn't pet pass them based on what their player development over the years and his sort of unconventional career arc where when he was drafted, if you would have looked at it and you would have went like, why are they even spending a pick on this guy, his major junior numbers, are, aren't really impressive at all, and he doesn't really break out offensively until his

draft plus two season, and then now he's putting up points in the HL, he's scoring 19, 20 goals in the NHL. So I think the sky's the limit for him, and I'm really curious. to see what the next couple years look like for him as well. Yeah, for sure. I think he's a super interesting player. I think he's a very interesting player type in the NHL right now in terms of players who get most of their value from things that don't get counted in contracts.

So I think, you know, guys who don't score a lot but are immensely valuable defensively and on the penalty kill, I think, like you said, they tend to come at a discount. and so we'll see how that goes next summer. And I think your point about his development is right on too. Like I keep thinking that we've seen his offensive ceiling, and then he keeps every year he comes back better. His skating got so much better in the offseason,

and he's able to contribute more offensively because of it. He's gotten a bunch of breakaways this season. He doesn't finish a lot of them unless he just crashes into the net with the puck and brings himself the goalie and the and the puck in with him. But yeah, if he, if he, if that finishing ability, like, if he got to the point where he was scoring, like you said, like, 25 to 30 goals, he would be like a top line center because of the way that all the things that he can do in the other areas of his game. And he's, he's, like, already kind of getting close to that level.

Like, he's a lock second line center. He's like a high-end second-line center. and if the goal scoring and point production came, he would, it would be the brain point thing all over again, where all of a sudden the Lightning have another one of these kind of top tier players. I don't know that I see that just because I don't know if the hands are there,

but I don't, I'm done doubting Anthony Sorrelli. If he decides that he wants to score like 25 goals or 28 goals or whatever in a couple years, then he'll probably do it because everything else he's decided he wants to do, he's done. Yeah, I don't see the 20% shooting person. an edge 40 goals he's in coming from him certainly but i think just given his ability to uh use his kind of speed and smarts and tenacity to get to the front of the net and on occasions into the net quite physically quite literally physically um i think if the volumes there and you mentioned he's

playing a lot more with like calorn and stamcoes now and there's sort of de facto second line uh even without the power play usage i think i don't think the hands will ever get there i don't I don't really see the finishing ability, but man, what a, what a sort of added benefit that would be for them if you could put that all together. And I certainly wouldn't put it past him or the lightning to do so. So consider him another sort of, you know, third round pick or whatever that winds up blossoming into this star. And ultimately, as much as we're going to concentrate about their cap problems, it's quite a good problem for them to have. And, you know, as we spin this ahead and close out the discussion, I think that's one of the fascinating things for me as well

to see how they approach this, both this season and this summer and beyond, because we also have this sort of extra card to play now with that first round pick from the Canucks that they got for J.T. Miller and, you know, the Canucks don't make the playoffs this year. All of a sudden, it becomes an unprotected first for the 2021 draft. And that's quite the asset to have, given the Canucks propensity for finding ways to lose in recent years. And so You know, they have their first. They have that. And they do have some wiggle room here.

I think they're, you know, considering Vaselowski's extension kicks in next year and they're going to have to pay Sergeyev and Sorrelia. I think they're pretty, you know, cognizant of not taking on any future money. But I am very curious to see whether there is some sort of an added move if it presents itself at this deadline. I just, the issue is I don't really, you know, there's certainly not a, not a perfect team. There is always ways to improve. I'm just not sure what that sort of extra piece would be that would commend.

and such a premium asset going back in return. But as we've seen in the past, they're not unwilling to mix it up at the deadline if the opportunity presents itself. For sure, yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if they, I think a lot of, you know, how they approach the deadline is going to depend on how some of these younger depth forwards kind of progress over the next few months, you know, if Carter Verhege and or, you know, Mitchell Stevens, you know, really settle into regular, you know, everyday contributors that they're totally comfortable

with rolling into the playoffs with. If not, then they may actually look for, you know, they may actually look for forward depth at the deadline. And I do think, you know, whatever they look for at the deadline, I think it's going to have to be expiring, expiring money or a player that they think they can move again in the summer because it's just going to, I think, you know, there's been a lot of sort of people saying for a while now that the lightning cap situation is, is going to be a problem, and they're not going to be able to navigate it, and then every summer they seem to find a way out. But I think for those of us who follow the team very closely, the last summer always seemed

solvable. It was pretty obvious that the Calian contract was going to come out, was going to come off somehow. And that they would sort of, and that, you know, the Braden Point contract would come in, you know, at a reasonable number. And they would figure out a way to make it work. I think next summer is the first time where it really gets bad. And I don't see any easy outs. They've got the Sergei-Cov contract. They've got the Sorreli contract.

They've got a bunch of other depth that they need to fill in around the margins. I think for sure, Alex Clorin is going to go next summer. I don't see how they get through the summer with him. and so his sort of explosion this year from a scoring perspective might be very well-timed in that regard that he could be a player that gets moved, you know, at the draft or at some point over the summer to clear space. And I don't even know if that's enough. They may need to move one more player, you know, whether that's, you know, somebody waiving their no trade, like Tyler Johnson maybe or even one of the younger players, whether they,

we had discussed internally at raw charge over the past couple months about maybe the possibility that Sergachev would be kind of the odd player out. But that looks like you can't do that now because he's sort of become so good that you have to figure out a way to keep him. So I don't know if it's Chernack maybe or what. But yeah, the cap situation really does get ugly. And there's not an obvious kind of, you know, like buyout candidate or any. any big contract that is that is going to be moved. So this is the summer where it really starts to hurt, I think,

and they start losing depth, like reliable depth players like Cawarne or Tyler Johnson. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, yeah, those are like luxury items for them. And I think you'll always find a market for those guys because, as we see time and time again, that, you know, good teams stay good for a reason and bad team stay bad. And for whatever reason, there's certain teams in league that just, don't really understand sort of leverage or opportunity cost. And it's like, oh, this is, you know, this guy plays in a good team. Let's just go get him. And it's like, oh, well, you can have them, you can make them pay you to take him. Like, it's there kind of in a bind here. And now that's not

how it works. But I think like, you know, this year and then I'd say, you know, the next two years, basically the entirety of Braden points deal where he's basically making like 50 to 60% of what he's actually worth in the open market and he'll probably get on his next deal. That's sort of the window here. I think this is going to be their best or I guess deepest team just before they have to make some of those tough decisions. But by the time that point contract comes up, you're basically going to have a ton of money invested in a bunch of guys who are already basically in their 30s. And that's going to become an entirely different kind of worms. But you know, that's a that's a, that's a dolema for for another day. I think if you're saying we're going to get another two to three

kicks in the can with this group, it's going to be a you take your chances with them. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's just that it's it's it's it's the reality of a hard cap league you know if you draft and develop all enough and and players produce then eventually this is this is what happens you start you start losing depth and you have to hope that you're you have young players who are ready to fill those roles and then eventually if you if you end up you end up with a lineup that's top heavy and then they they age and that's the that's the competitive cycle that's that's that's how it works so um it's it's about how well you can manage that and how strategic you can be And I think the lightning have shown at least that they're conscious of that stuff and that they're trying to make, they're trying to make good decisions in that regard.

So it'll be interesting to see them, you know, compared to a team like Chicago who maybe wasn't that forward thinking in that way. It'll be interesting to see, you know, what Tampa's approach is and how they, how they kind of handle those challenges. Well, I'm really going to be following this very closely. I think the Atlantic is going to be so fascinating. I'm not writing off the fact that either Tampa Bay or Toronto could even catch the Bruins at this point because both of those teams have been so hot and the Bruins have been sputtering a bit that they're within striking distance now. But I just, I love the idea. I find it so comical if it stays this way where Leif's,

these fans will be celebrating that they're staying away from the Bruins in round one, and they'll be viewing that as a victory. And they're just going to bump into this Tampa Bay Lightning team, which you could argue is even better and could pose its own set of problems. and I think that would be just a very delicious storyline to follow from the outside looking in. Yeah, and I think that would be a lot of fun hockey too. Those two teams, I think Tampa has been a little, you know, Tampa's a little better defensively than maybe they have been at times in the past.

But it's hard with that much sort of talent to be disciplined and to not turn it into a track meet. So there's going to be, there's going to be some goals scored in a series like that, and it would definitely be fun to watch. All right, Alan. Let's get out of here. I think that's in it for the Lightning for today. I'm looking forward to revisiting this, and we can have you back on before the postseason.

But plug some stuff. What are you working on? Where can people check out your work online? So people can find everything at Raw Charge, where the Lightning blog for SB Nation. So that's where to find all my articles, all the articles that everyone else writes. That's, in my opinion, the best place to keep up with what's going on in Tampa.

And then if you want to follow me personally, I'm on Twitter at Loser Points. But that's not recommended. It's bad over there. Just follow the site account at Raw Charge. That's much better. Give yourself some credit. I enjoy following Loser Points, and I highly recommend everyone listening to this podcast. Does as well as.

This was a blast out. Let's do it again soon. Sounds good. The Hockey PEDEOCast with Dimitri Philipovich. Follow on Twitter. at Dim Philipovic and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdocast.