This is probably going to be an unpopular comment but we have a lot of guys rocking high shooting percentages. I'm not necessarily down on the team but I do have this nagging feeling that they're going to hit a huge wall of regression at some point, Not regression overall as a team but in scoring goals, definitely. That's why I'm so glad the team's defensive game is coming along and Demko is finding his form again. They'll need to be able to play those tight games if and when the scoring goes dry.
TB in the past 8 drafts since 2016 has traded the 3 that they used, Howden and the Foote brothers, and traded their other 4 picks to secure McDonaugh, Goodrow, Hagel (even used the JT Miller 1st we sent them to get Coleman. Last use of a 1st was in 2022. And owe their 2024 1st to Chicago. Sooner or later the well will run dry. It's hard to find and develop 3rd rounders and onwards.Tampa looks like their window as a legit contender has closed. Kind of reminds me of the Hawk teams from 5 years ago where Kane (Kucherov) was winning scoring titles still but the depth and blueline were gutted and they lost in the first round every year. The crazy depth that the Lightning had 3-4 years ago has disappeared and that roster looks Chicago/Montreal-esque past the top few players.
Stamkos looked absolutely cooked last night and his horrific ES numbers all year would seem to indicate that this game wasn’t a one-off.
Darren Raddysh - a 27 y/o career minor-leaguer with 21 career NHL games heading into this season - is TB’s #4 defender with everyone healthy. I’ve said before that we tend to overestimate the defensive depth on ‘contending’ teams relative to us and this is another example.
The back to back trades where Vancouver traded Beau for a pick and then used the pick, a future third rounder and the cap space to acquire Zadarov just gives me so much confidence in Allvin and our pro scouts. Lafferty for a fifth was another great one.Zadorov is getting better every game, such a great player
TB in the past 8 drafts since 2016 has traded the 3 that they used, Howden and the Foote brothers, and traded their other 4 picks to secure McDonaugh, Goodrow, Hagel (even used the JT Miller 1st we sent them to get Coleman. Last use of a 1st was in 2022. And owe their 2024 1st to Chicago. Sooner or later the well will run dry. It's hard to find and develop 3rd rounders and onwards.
Taylor Raddysh, Stephens, Katchouk were all like 2nd rounders by TB who were on Can's JR team and have they really developed into that quality bottom 6 guys in the NHL?
And TB has done very well with developing guys and having that effective yet cheap depth. But, realistically, when you are developing a 4th rounder, they will either finish their NCAA years at 22, then play like 2 years in the A and come up as a regular at 24. So you get 3 cheap years before they hit UFA and want to earn the big money. That's the situation with Ross. Had to move him.
Now, they are paying so many guys top end money. Vasi, Hedman, Serg, Kuch, Point. Stammer is a UFA to be and likely need to let him walk. Hagel is signed.
Well will run dry at some point for the prospect pool. Majority of the players who go onto to play 200 NHL games or 50 games for a goalie, come from the first 2 rounds (though some guys get to that 200 game mark simply due to draft position). Averages out to like 55-60 players each draft who hit those marks. Can't expect that kind of run for a long period of time of finding a few guys in the later part of the draft like that.They’re going to have to let Stamkos walk but most of the money saved there is going into the Hagel extension.
The weird thing is that Jeannot was already starting to look like a pumpkin for Nashville last season and they still severely overpaid. Looking like a rare miss for Brisebois.
oh come on, lafferty is trash did you not learn a thingThe back to back trades where Vancouver traded Beau for a pick and then used the pick, a future third rounder and the cap space to acquire Zadarov just gives me so much confidence in Allvin and our pro scouts. Lafferty for a fifth was another great one.
Allvin’s making a number of these smaller trades that are net wins while the rest of the NHL is having trouble making a single trade.
The back to back trades where Vancouver traded Beau for a pick and then used the pick, a future third rounder and the cap space to acquire Zadarov just gives me so much confidence in Allvin and our pro scouts. Lafferty for a fifth was another great one.
Allvin’s making a number of these smaller trades that are net wins while the rest of the NHL is having trouble making a single trade.
Rewatching the highlight package for this game two things stand out to me. The first is that the blueline was not soft. Everyone not named Hughes was getting big pieces of Tampa forwards. Cole, Zad and Juulsen led the way but Hronek and Myers also got some licks in.
The second is that Hoglander is a menace. He's getting in on the defense and coming up with lots of puck. On the first Boeser goal Segachev felt the pressure and threw the puck away with Hoglander bearing down.