By Michael Wax
Welcome all, and welcome back.
The Tampa Bay Lightning started their regular season on the road in the same place that they ended their preseason, starting their season off with a 4-1 win against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Here are three things we saw from the win:
The Preseason Matters
To anybody who’ll tell you that the preseason doesn’t matter and then that teams should just get going after a week or two of practice, this game is the prime example of why preseason hockey matters.
First off, in his first game of the 2024-25 season, Andrei Vasilevskiy was the best player on the ice for the Lightning. He made several big stops, keeping the Lightning in the game when Carolina looked to pull away in both play and on the scoresheet. Take it back to last year, when Vasilevskiy debuted against these same Hurricanes in the middle of the season following off-season back surgery. Though he only allowed two goals, he struggled in his first game of the year and didn’t find his footing during the season until the playoffs. With the preseason, he’s been able to get his feet underneath him before any of the games start to count, and today proved why he’s the best goaltender in the world.
Secondly, the power play took all preseason to find any semblance of normalcy after the departure of Steven Stamkos. With players like Jake Guentzel and Darren Raddysh taking over those spots, the Lightning tried a trial-by-fire method to find their sweet spot. Fast-forward to today and Brayden Point was first on the score sheet on the power play in his typical bumper spot. Even players who have been on the team for nearly a decade need to have these practice games to adapt to new situations, and the Lightning were able to do that on the power play in their first game.
King’s Court
Despite winning the Art Ross Trophy and becoming the first winger in NHL history with 100 assists last year, Nikita Kucherov was routinely disrespected during the off-season. He saw the Hart trophy go to Nathan McKinnon, he was made fun of at the NHL Awards ceremony, and he was generally forgotten about as one of the best players in the world. In tonight‘s opening contest, he showed everybody exactly what makes him so unique, putting up a hat trick and four points in the win.
Kucherov earned the primary assist on the previously mentioned power play goal from Brayden Point. He used the wall to generate space and divert attention away from Point before feathering a pass to his linemate and power play partner for the game-tying tally.
Although two of his three goals were empty nets, his power-play goal was an absolute beauty. After a face-off win from Nick Paul, Victor Hedman fed the puck over to Kucherov in the right circle, and he made no mistake to give the Lightning a permanent lead.
Fresh off a 144-point season, Nikita Kucherov is now on pace for 246 goals and 328 points after just one game. Sustainable? Not at all. But hopefully this game is the start to the reminder that Kucherov is one of the best players in the world
Making Things Easy
The biggest sticking point last season over and over again was the multitude of chances the Lightning kept on giving up at 5-on-5. A lot of the question marks about scoring at 5-on-5 can be attributed to the amount of time they spent in the defensive zone, giving up a chance after chance. It’s early, but the Lightning combed things down when it mattered at 5-on-5.
While the lightning didn’t play the cleanest game, they were able to clog up lanes time after time after time against a very high-powered Carolina Hurricane’s offense. New additions JJ Moser and Ryan McDonough played excellent games, limiting the Hurricanes to just 21 shots overall.
This was a game that certainly got interesting at times, with the Lightning, taking a few too many penalties and their scoring not coming at 5-on-5. But if they can shut their opponents down like this game after game, coupled with very good goaltending from Andrei Vasilevskiy, they should be just fine this season.
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