The Lightning wrapped up October the hard way and still walked off with a statement win.
Tampa Bay beat the Winnipeg Jets 6-4 at Benchmark International Arena on Wednesday night, tying a franchise record with its sixth home win to start the season and finishing the month undefeated at home. The first two periods did most of the damage, as the Lightning stormed ahead 5-1 through 40 minutes before the final 20 turned messy.
Pontus Holmberg was the headline act. The Swede put together a career night with a goal and three assists, and he was central to the Lightning’s fast start.
Anthony Cirelli also chipped in on the power play, which gave Tampa Bay a goal with the man advantage for the fifth straight game. That matches the team’s longest such run in nearly two years, according to Benjamin Pierce’s piece on the Lightning power play. The surge has come with a simple approach: “just shoot” mentality.
Injuries remain part of the picture, though. Zemgus Girgensons has been ruled out for Saturday’s game in Nashville, and he will not be back for that one. There is also some positive news on Yanni Gourde, whose return now appears to be closer than the original December timeline.
Elsewhere around the organization, the Crunch’s uneven start is still a work in progress. With a little bit of a break in the schedule, Patrick Williams looked at Syracuse’s opening stretch and how the team is trying to bring new players into the lineup.
And on Monday, the Lightning will finally reveal the Hometown Remix jerseys. That one is already set up for a strong reaction, one way or another.
The club’s Top 20 Under 25 countdown also moved closer to the finish line, with Dominic James landing at No. 2.
The 24-year-old forward, who arrived last year as a rookie free agent, has made a strong impression in a short time. The No. 1 spot is still to come.
Around the league, the post-Olympics chaos in Detroit keeps escalating. Connor Hellebuyck got his wish a few days ago when he was traded to New Jersey, and now Dylan Larkin has followed by sitting out for the Red Wings while he pushes for a trade. Detroit has responded by suspending him without pay for failure to play, and the situation has turned ugly.
Larkin will be losing around $40k per day while he refuses to play, and interim GM Horcoff says he is willing to wait as long as needed to make a deal that works for the Red Wings. With Larkin’s 10-team list, that search may take a while.
He is not the only player in limbo there. RFA Simon Edvinsson still does not have a contract as November approaches, and The Athletic explored how both situations could give Detroit a chance to reshape the roster. The Red Wings are doing all of this without a full-time general manager, with interim GM Shawn Horcoff trying to steer the ship.
And if you need one more name to know, keep an eye on Islanders defenseman Matthew Schaefer. The 18-year-old was already fresh off a Calder Trophy-winning rookie season last year, and he keeps piling up firsts this year too. A few nights ago against Nashville, Schaefer played the entire five-minute overtime, the first time that has happened since the league started using real-time data in 2009-10.
In Other News...
Lightning Lineup Change Just Delivered A Huge Early Return
An injury to Zemgus Girgensons gave Jon Cooper a reason to shuffle his lines, and the change paid off quickly in Tampa Bays 6-4 win over the Winnipeg Jets. Pontus Holmberg was bumped into a top-six role and suddenly found himself in a much bigger offensive spotlight, the kind of opportunity that can reset how a coach views a players fit in the lineup.
Holmberg responded with his first career four-point game, setting up multiple goals and adding one of his own in a game the Lightning needed to keep rolling at home. The victory extended Tampa Bays home win streak to six, tying a franchise record, and it also left one question hanging over the next few games: whether Cooper keeps Holmberg in that elevated role once the lineup gets healthy again. [Read more 🡒]
Lightning Cash In As Another Opponent Starts Unraveling
Winnipegs slide kept rolling against Tampa Bay, and the Lightning took full advantage of a team that looked increasingly fragile as the game wore on. The Jets were already in trouble late in the second period, and the loss extended their skid to seven straight after a night that again exposed how quickly things can unravel when mistakes start piling up.
The Jets did show some fight by clawing back after falling behind big, but the gap was too much to erase in the end. Afterward, head coach Scott Arniel and players Neal Pionk and Kyle Connor pointed to mental errors and inconsistency as the issues that kept sinking them, which has become an uncomfortable theme during this losing stretch. [Read more 🡒]