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Quick Strikes: Andrei Vasilevskiy steals the show on #VL4 night in Tampa Bay

Thank goodness Vincent Lecavalier wasn’t traded to Toronto?

The Bolts

Andrei Vasilevskiy is the MVP and anyone telling you any different is wrong. [Raw Charge]

What more needs to be said about this kid? He’s been the team’s MVP this season—and it isn’t even close (sorry Kucherov and Stamkos). The roar of cheers after Vasilevskiy made one last pad save on a Drew Doughty one-timer with .5 seconds left perfectly illustrates what the fan base thinks of him—they love him. Tampa needs to address the defensive issues that are plaguing them because wasting the season Vasilevskiy is having would be a tragedy.

Mikhail Sergachev was forced to leave Saturday’s game after taking a knee-on-knee / slew-foot from Dustin Brown of the Los Angeles Kings. [Raw Charge]

Brown was issued a five-minute penalty and and a game misconduct. Brown, who has a history of fines for his less than clean play, was recently fined $5,000 for boarding Pittsburgh’s Justin Schultz in January. He was suspended in 2013 for an elbow he delivered to Minnesota’s Jason Pomminville.

Sergachev did miss the rest of the second period, but did return to play in the third period.

I can confirm that some members of Raw Charge cried during the reading of @mattesteves89’s soliloquy of Vincent Lecavalier, his playing career, and his number retirement ceremony. [Raw Charge]

Oh, and the Tampa Bay Lightning won 4-3.

Not to ruin a good moment, but the Vinny trade that almost happened. [Tampa Bay Times]

That’s what makes it crazy to think back to how close Lecavalier came to being traded to Toronto in 2001. Instead of being one of the franchise pillars, his tenure would have been a footnote, akin to Jonathan Drouin.

”We were a trade conference call away,” said Jay Feaster, the Lightning’s assistant general manager at the time.

The Prospects

The Syracuse Crunch topped the Laval Rocket by a score of 3-2 in a thriller of a game. [Syracuse]

Alexander Volkov opened scoring before Cirelli doubled the lead in the first period. The Rocket climbed back to even the game, 2-2, but Olivier Archambault netted an unassisted game-winner in the third to snap a four-game skid and move the Crunch to 27-17-2-3 on the season. Syracuse sits at 3-2-0-1 in the eight-game season series against Laval.

Nice tape, boys.

It barely took 10 seconds for Taylor Raddysh to score in his return to Erie. The Soo would go on to win their 45th game of the season in 53 tries.

Friday nights junior hockey action was pretty quiet for the Lightning’s prospects. At least Otto Somppi got a goal. [Bolt Prospects]

Somppi scored the Mooseheads’ first goal early in the 2nd period to knot the score at 1-1, but Ostap Safin (EDM, 2017 4th round pick) and Robbie Burt (undrafted) both scored twice and added an assist to pace the Sea Dogs to a big win at home over Halifax.

The Game

The New York Rangers did a nice thing for their emergency back-up goalie while scrambling to get him ready in case he needed to go in. [SB Nation]

Guy in orange almost manslaughters an opponent. Line brawl. Goalie fight. Hockey.

We have a second five-point night in as many tries. After Islander Mathew Barzal threw up five assists in a crazy win over Detroit, Maple Leafs winger Mitchell Marner scored twice and had three assists in Toronto’s 6-3 win over Ottawa. [Pension Plan Puppets]

A +23 corsi is pretty damn incredible.

Highlight of the Night: Erik Karlsson staring through your soul. [Reddit]

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