Lightning Round: The player that has to perform in order for the Lightning to succeed

Over at Sportsnet, the staff put together a list of players on Atlantic Division teams that had to perform in order for their team to “hit, or exceed, their goals”. For the Tampa Bay Lightning they listed Tanner Jeannot as their spotlighted player stating that, “Now with a two-year extension, Tampa is going to need more offence to go with Jeannot’s bump”.

Sure, it would be nice if Jeannot, or any of the new players for that matter, provided some secondary scoring to help out the big guns on the top line, but they kind of galaxy-brained this question. Jeannot could score 30 goals and it wouldn’t matter if Andrei Vasilevskiy has a pedestrian season. The Lightning need the Big Cat to be on the top of his game in order to hit their goal, which is to win the Stanley Cup.

We saw what happened last season when Vasilevskiy was, for lack of a better description, normal. The Lightning were a good, but not great team that were bounced in the first round. If they want to finish on top of an even more competitive Atlantic this season, then they need Vasy to find that top level we’ve seen in the past.

With the graduation of a couple of key players from the Gophers program, Kurth could be inline for a bigger role in his second year at the University of Minnesota.

“I’m a mad dog whose only concern is winning” — Charles Barkley

Have you been harboring a lifelong desire to be a mascot? Where now is your chance.

The six franchises in the new league are allowed to sign up to three free agents prior to September 10th. Then following the September 18th draft, they can resume signing players. Our friends at PPP have started a page tracking all of the signings. As of now, the salaries of the players has not been released to the public.

It’s that time, when we switch our focus from our fantasy football teams to our fantasy hockey teams. Dom over at The Athletic put together a handy-dandy cheatsheet to help out.

Connor Bedard is the odds-on favorite, but there is some competition. You never know what might happen, after all, the best player in hockey, Connor McDavid, was hurt in his rookie year and finished third in voting (Artemi Panarin won).

Speaking of rookies, 34 of them skated around the ice at the MedStar Capitals Iceplex in their team’s jerseys.They had a brief scrimmage and took part in some video shoots. More importantly they also posed for photos that will likely adorn their Upper Deck rookie cards in the next couple of years.