Sam Hitchcock: Hedman's Injury Provides Opportunity for Positive Changes

Personally i want them to keep Stralman/Serg as first pairing, Girardi/Koekkoek as second and a combination of abomination Coburn/Dotchin/Sustr as third. None of them has looked good this year, for Dotchin atleast recently.

A guy like Sbisa could be brought in, but I do think a 3rd pair of Girardi/Koekkoek will be good enough for the playoffs. Depth is always nice, but when a guy like Koekkoek are eating popcorn the majority of the time it seems like depth is not an issue.

If Koekkoek doesnt get a fair chance to play quality minutes now, I will start the campaign #WhereIsKoKo.

And I hope you do know that Brown was the common denominator. Sad to see him leave, but the lineup will not suffer from it and now lots of young guys can get a shot. We have seen rookies come up late in seasons before and contributated in the playoffs. Hopefully Erne, Peca or Cirelli can be that guy this year.

Good read. Would love an analytic review of Koekkoek .

Great article and write up!!! Some thoughts for the rest of the year:
1. Life with out Hedman. These 3-6 weeks will be challenge but a good one. If the Bolts can learn to win without Hedman, just think how the team will fare when he comes back. Excited for Koekkoek. Hope he takes advantage of this chance and makes Coburn expendable when his NTC is gone at the end of the season.

2. When Hedman returns and if he can return to full form by the playoffs, I feel like the Lightning are still missing a piece on Defense. Hedman, Stralman and Serg are top 4 defensemen while I view Dotchin, Coburn and Girardi as bottom 6. Koekkoek has some proving to do. Sustr is pointless. Bolts need a right handed top 4 Dmen.

3. Now that Brown is gone, it's prospect try out time. I see the 1st callup coming this Sunday in time for Tuesday's game which is a back to back game and after the Crunch's Saturday game. If Erne is healthy, I expect it to be him. If not...Peca. Both are waiver eligible next year. Need to find out what they can do.

4. Geeze are we stacked at fwd now in the AHL. Erne, Peca, Joseph, Volkov, Cirelli, Verhaeghe and now ever Stephens (7 goals in 8 games) all deserve callups.

This 2nd half of the year will be entertaining!

Great article and write up!!! Some thoughts for the rest of the year:
1. Life with out Hedman. These 3-6 weeks will be challenge but a good one. If the Bolts can learn to win without Hedman, just think how the team will fare when he comes back. Excited for Koekkoek. Hope he takes advantage of this chance and makes Coburn expendable when his NTC is gone at the end of the season.

2. When Hedman returns and if he can return to full form by the playoffs, I feel like the Lightning are still missing a piece on Defense. Hedman, Stralman and Serg are top 4 defensemen while I view Dotchin, Coburn and Girardi as bottom 6. Koekkoek has some proving to do. Sustr is pointless. Bolts need a right handed top 4 Dmen.

3. Now that Brown is gone, it's prospect try out time. I see the 1st callup coming this Sunday in time for Tuesday's game which is a back to back game and after the Crunch's Saturday game. If Erne is healthy, I expect it to be him. If not...Peca. Both are waiver eligible next year. Need to find out what they can do.

4. Geeze are we stacked at fwd now in the AHL. Erne, Peca, Joseph, Volkov, Cirelli, Verhaeghe and now ever Stephens (7 goals in 8 games) all deserve callups.

This 2nd half of the year will be entertaining!
- LightningMcKing

And if you look a further down to juniors, it looks even better..

Katchouk, Raddysh, Howden, Lipanov.. This club is run very well.

And if you look a further down to juniors, it looks even better..

Katchouk, Raddysh, Howden, Lipanov.. This club is run very well.
- Cloud

Oh I agree! Howden looks like he's too good for Jrs. It looks to easy for him.

Katchouk and Raddysh are lighting up the league and I'm glad they are on the same team/line now!

Lipanov needs to pick it up. Somppi has been an assist machine!

Sbisa had surgery a week ago to repair a torn tendon in his middle finger, and is out for 6-8 weeks. So who else would be looking at? A rental? Someone who'll be around for 2+ years? We don't have any prospects that are burning up the minors, so that means we'll have to look for a trade. The problem that we're running into right now is that there are 5+ teams in both conferences that are still chasing a wild card spot, so they're going to be tough to move anybody that's worth anything.

I think Stevie Y should look hard at Ottawa for a possible Dman. First, forget Karlsson. He's going to want too much $$$ after this year, so he's going to be a rental that will way too expensive for us to get him. Trends show that Stevie Y doesn't like to make rental moves, as he likes to trade for guys who have the potential to stay longer and contribute longer. However, doesn't mean that Stevie Y won't make a rental trade.

The 2 guys on Ottawa I think Stevie Y will look at is Ceci/Oduya for different reasons. I think Ceci would be the primary target. He's a good, young Dman that fits into Stevie Y's mold for what he wants. Also, if I'm not mistaken Ceci was part of some rumors either last year or the year before concerning the Bolts via trade (Matt Carle?). The other is Oduya. While he's a bit older now and is probably a bit slower as well, he can bring tons of playoff experience to the blueline. He's proven that he can handle the pressure with his cup runs with the Hawks.

Sbisa had surgery a week ago to repair a torn tendon in his middle finger, and is out for 6-8 weeks. So who else would be looking at? A rental? Someone who'll be around for 2+ years? We don't have any prospects that are burning up the minors, so that means we'll have to look for a trade. The problem that we're running into right now is that there are 5+ teams in both conferences that are still chasing a wild card spot, so they're going to be tough to move anybody that's worth anything.

I think Stevie Y should look hard at Ottawa for a possible Dman. First, forget Karlsson. He's going to want too much $$$ after this year, so he's going to be a rental that will way too expensive for us to get him. Trends show that Stevie Y doesn't like to make rental moves, as he likes to trade for guys who have the potential to stay longer and contribute longer. However, doesn't mean that Stevie Y won't make a rental trade.

The 2 guys on Ottawa I think Stevie Y will look at is Ceci/Oduya for different reasons. I think Ceci would be the primary target. He's a good, young Dman that fits into Stevie Y's mold for what he wants. Also, if I'm not mistaken Ceci was part of some rumors either last year or the year before concerning the Bolts via trade (Matt Carle?). The other is Oduya. While he's a bit older now and is probably a bit slower as well, he can bring tons of playoff experience to the blueline. He's proven that he can handle the pressure with his cup runs with the Hawks.
- Sojudaddy

The rumor I saw from Kyperos of TSN where he stated Ottawa and Tampa Bay have already talked along the lines of Koekkoek plus draft pick for Cody Ceci before the Hedman injury.

The Lightning are going to get a RD to play next to Hedman for the playoff run. Will be interesting to see who it is. Ceci could use change of scenery, is a young RD RFA you could resign long term on decent cap hit. But he might look to go rull rental route and if he does that I think its Mike Green so long as the ask is not too much.

Hedman-Green(orCeci)
Sergachev-Stralman
Koekkoek-Girardi

This looks pretty good to me, I hope Koekkoek proves he belongs a bolt and they move on from Coburn, I like Coburn but his play has dropped off so much this year, his skating is so slow.

Sbisa had surgery a week ago to repair a torn tendon in his middle finger, and is out for 6-8 weeks. So who else would be looking at? A rental? Someone who'll be around for 2+ years? We don't have any prospects that are burning up the minors, so that means we'll have to look for a trade. The problem that we're running into right now is that there are 5+ teams in both conferences that are still chasing a wild card spot, so they're going to be tough to move anybody that's worth anything.

I think Stevie Y should look hard at Ottawa for a possible Dman. First, forget Karlsson. He's going to want too much $$$ after this year, so he's going to be a rental that will way too expensive for us to get him. Trends show that Stevie Y doesn't like to make rental moves, as he likes to trade for guys who have the potential to stay longer and contribute longer. However, doesn't mean that Stevie Y won't make a rental trade.

The 2 guys on Ottawa I think Stevie Y will look at is Ceci/Oduya for different reasons. I think Ceci would be the primary target. He's a good, young Dman that fits into Stevie Y's mold for what he wants. Also, if I'm not mistaken Ceci was part of some rumors either last year or the year before concerning the Bolts via trade (Matt Carle?). The other is Oduya. While he's a bit older now and is probably a bit slower as well, he can bring tons of playoff experience to the blueline. He's proven that he can handle the pressure with his cup runs with the Hawks.
- Sojudaddy

Hopefully by the trade deadline things will be clearer:
1. We'll know for sure what the Bolts needs are defensively
2. There wont be so many teams in the playoff race.

I'm not a fan of acquiring Oduya because I do not think we need another slow defensemen and he's left handed. Ceci would be my pick from Ottawa but I would prefer a defender with more shot suppression. Also not in love with Ceci's possession metrics. I know...it's hard to have good possession metrics on a bad team.

The rumor I saw from Kyperos of TSN where he stated Ottawa and Tampa Bay have already talked along the lines of Koekkoek plus draft pick for Cody Ceci before the Hedman injury.

The Lightning are going to get a RD to play next to Hedman for the playoff run. Will be interesting to see who it is. Ceci could use change of scenery, is a young RD RFA you could resign long term on decent cap hit. But he might look to go rull rental route and if he does that I think its Mike Green so long as the ask is not too much.

Hedman-Green(orCeci)
Sergachev-Stralman
Koekkoek-Girardi

This looks pretty good to me, I hope Koekkoek proves he belongs a bolt and they move on from Coburn, I like Coburn but his play has dropped off so much this year, his skating is so slow.
- stammerman

Mike Green is my pick of the potential names I've seen. I think Green and Hedman would be a great first line and I'd be willing to give up any prospect not named Howden, Foote or Hajek to get him!

Green would be a good top-4 Dman, but I think Det is going to be asking a pretty price seeing that there's quite a few teams wanting D this year...especially if the rumors are true that Det will eat some salary in a trade. I'm sure SY hasn't taken anything off the table at this point, but I would tend to believe he will look for something in return that's more than just a rental. That's why I was thinking Ceci, but I won't be mad if we got Green. I agree that with over a month until the deadline we might see some teams fall off from playoff contention, and thus might open up other potential players to trade.