Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev was fined by the NHL yesterday for a cross-check on Buffalo’s Johan Larsson. The offense came during Saturday night’s game in Buffalo. Sergachev and Larsson weren’t exactly getting along during the game.
Tampa Bay’s Mikhail Sergachev has been fined $2,403.67, the maximum allowable under the CBA, for cross-checking Buffalo’s Johan Larsson.
— NHL Player Safety (@NHLPlayerSafety) January 13, 2019
That Buffalo game sure featured a lot of x’s and o’s.
Ho-hum. pic.twitter.com/KV6jBIFLKF
— Mike Gallimore (@mikegallimore) January 13, 2019
The dust has settled on the Lightning’s trade with Chicago that took place Friday night, one that sent Slater Koekkoek to the Blackhawks organization in exchange for defenseman Jan Rutta. Rutta is expected to spend most of the rest of the season with Syracuse (he’s currently day-to-day with an injury). Yesterday, Geo put together his thoughts on Rutta’s potential future within the Bolts organization.
But the Lightning will have an opportunity to watch Rutta in the AHL for the rest of the season and get to know him. I think at some point, we could also see him in Tampa this season as the rest rotation continues and with the ever present threat of an injury. Since he has cleared waivers, he can be recalled and spend up to 30 cumulative days or 10 NHL games played, whichever comes first, before requiring waivers again. As we come down the stretch, if the Lightning are still comfortably in their playoff position, we could easily see Rutta come up and play a handful of games in the last couple weeks of the season even if there are no injuries.
The Lightning were in New York last night, facing the Islanders. Both teams were playing their second game in two days, so the game was a bit of a question mark in terms of how the effort was going to go. Game day started with the news that the Lightning were resting a trio of players: Ryan Callahan, Dan Girardi, and Danick Martel.
Cooper said Callahan, Martel and Girardi are all healthy scratches, “resting” tonight. He said it’s probably good for Callahan to rest on the second half of a back to back having re-aggregated an injury a few games back.
— Caley Chelios (@CaleyChelios) January 13, 2019
Here’s a further explanation of Callahan’s scratch:
Jon Cooper said Girardi, Callahan and Martel will sit tonight. No injury reoccurrence for Callahan, just the nature of his previous injury makes playing both halves of a back-to-back a difficult proposition. #Bolts #TBLvsNYI
— Bryan Burns (@BBurnsNHL) January 13, 2019
Uh, speaking of that whole effort question mark…The Lightning lost the game 5-1.
Stralman on the loss: “We weren’t hungry enough in that 1st period, and that’s been the case for a while. It’s been a lot of slow starts. It just gets you in trouble. Usually, we find a way to dig ourselves out, but tonight we weren’t and that’s something we have to work on.”
— Bryan Burns (@BBurnsNHL) January 14, 2019
The bigger news of the game was the injury to Victor Hedman. The defenseman was hurt colliding with an official during the game, left, and did not return. Originally fans were worried about a concussion, but coach Jon Cooper told the media Hedman didn’t go through concussion protocol.
Nikita Kucherov is good, y’all.
Nikita Kucherov is scoring at a ridiculos pace of 1.66 PPG this season. pic.twitter.com/ThQFEgnCxY
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) January 13, 2019
The Syracuse Crunch has found themselves in a bit of a slump. The AHL team lost their fourth game in a row Saturday night. Justin addressed the frustrations in his post-game recap.
Much like in their losses to Cleveland and Binghamton, the Crunch did a lot of good things against the Comets. They just didn’t do enough of them, and when they were able to string a few chances together, goaltender Ivan Kulbakov was there to turn them aside.
Organizational forward Cory Conacher posted an exciting update to his Twitter yesterday. Conacher has Type 1 diabetes, and has used different methods over the seasons to help balance his sugar with his athletic lifestyle. He has found some new technology to assist him.
After 1 week of using the MiniMed670G pump and the new SmartGuard technology to control my sugar…. it’s been game changing! I can’t thank Shelley Evans, Melissa Louis, Josh Tarini and Dr. Jeff Lang for helping me get set up! This will change people’s lives! @MDTDiabetesCA
— Cory Conacher (@conhockey19) January 13, 2019
The Toronto Maple Leafs signed forward Trevor Moore to a two-year contract extension yesterday. Moore originally signed with Toronto as a free agent on July 26, 2016.
Although he retired as New York Ranger, Rick Nash started his career with the Columbus Blue Jackets. He was drafted by them and spent half of his professional playing career with them. Columbus was, perfectly enough, playing the Rangers last night, and the pre-game festivities featured a touching tribute to the forward.
Honoring a true #CBJ legend. Thank you, Rick! pic.twitter.com/jPlkcbRPrB
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) January 13, 2019
Nash and his family was there to do the ceremonial puck drop, too.
Rick Nash and the entire family in the house for puck drop! pic.twitter.com/37TY1DRisV
— NHL (@NHL) January 13, 2019
The LA Kings had a very special guest in the booth Saturday night: Snoop Dog. It’s classic.
The LA Kings had Snoop Dogg in the booth doing play-by-play tonight and it was amazing pic.twitter.com/SbyFc8U4LF
— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) January 13, 2019
Fans going to the Boston Bruins game tonight are going to get a very neat poster at the door.
All fans at tomorrow’s game will receive a poster presented by @TDBank_US that features the B’s wearing vintage suits in the style of the television series, Peaky Blinders, as worn when entering Notre Dame Stadium on New Year’s Day.
Get tickets: https://t.co/lWTrVAVrJY pic.twitter.com/jtl6lE9BiU
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) January 13, 2019
It’s time to start looking towards the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Apparently? Well, Kevin Power thinks so, anyway. He took a peak at those players who might fall beyond the coveted top two positions.
Although World Juniors has been over a bit now, some reflections are still coming in across the net. Yesterday, Elite Prospects covered Sweden’s disappointing exit and how it reflects lack of offensive depth.
After the win over USA, Sweden got in trouble when five players were hit by a stomach flu and needed to be quarantined, including some team leaders. In the last group game Sweden had an unimpressive win over Kazakhstan playing with only three lines. It set them back prior to the quarterfinal and they played poorly against Switzerland. The underdog Swiss didn’t just win with a heroic defense and goalie, they also created the best scoring chances and even led the shot clock after two periods. Sweden played better in the third but could not score, losing 2 – 0 in their first quarterfinal loss since 2006, which also happens to be the last time the tournament was held in Vancouver.
