A precious gift from Andrei Vasilevskiy, and is Tyler Motte a trade target? Five Lightning observations

VANCOUVER, B.C. — Andrei Vasilevskiy was a busy man in net Sunday night. But the Lightning star goaltender was also the center activity in the hallway afterward.

Vasilevskiy had just backstopped the Cup champs to a 2-1 victory over the Canucks to snap a season-long three-game losing streak. He and his teammates had landed in Vancouver at 2 p.m. local time after their flight from Edmonton late Saturday night had been cancelled due to mechanical delays.

The netminder told head coach Jon Cooper: “It was better we found out when we were on the ground and not in the air.”

When the Lightning were on fumes, the Conn Smythe winner made sure they didn’t lose with a vintage, 35-save performance.

After the game, Vasilevskiy was greeted by former Lightning teammate Luke Schenn and Schenn’s soon-to-be five-year-old son Kingston. Kingston loves Vasilevskiy, pretending he’s the Russian goaltender in mini-stick battles with his dad. So, Vasilevskiy brought Kingston a special gift, the white Bauer glove he wore in the game. He signed it with a message:

“To my friend, Kingston.”

“He’s one of my biggest fans,” Vasilevskiy said, smiling.

Then came former Lightning winger J.T. Miller, the only player to beat Vasilevskiy on this night, early in the third period. Vasilevskiy also robbed Miller several times, including a pad stop on the winger’s drive to the net in the net. The two embraced in the hallway and chatted.

“I was all over you tonight,” quipped Miller, who had a game-high eight shots.

A lot of Canucks were. The Lightning, having started the game with brand-new lines, played their best first period in weeks, taking a 2-0 lead. But as the game got deeper, and Vancouver — fighting for a playoff spot — pushed, Vasilevskiy was there, including making 14 second-period saves.

“Sometimes you’re playing a world-class goalie, arguably the best goalie in the world,” Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We had some really good chances, but we couldn’t get it by him.”

You look at both of Tampa Bay’s wins in the five games of this six-game, 12-day trip, and Vasilevskiy was a difference maker. Cooper called Vasilevskiy’s performance against Chicago a week ago was one of the more remarkable ones he’s seen in a long time, and that enabled the come-from-behind victory. Vasilevskiy saved 2.15 goals above expected Sunday, according to Evolving-Hockey, giving him 11.4 for the season, ranking eighth in the league.

There’s a reason that, even when the Lightning lost several key forwards this offseason and was facing a historic three-peat challenge, players kept saying: “As long as we have 88 in net, we’ve got a chance.”

Vasilevskiy is the great equalizer, the trump card Tampa Bay has for a lot of their challengers.

I was talking with an NHL exec this week and he said while Tampa Bay is a bit of a different team, they’re still ‘the frontrunners’ to win the Cup because of their experience, their talent, and, of course…

“Your goalie is everything,” the executive said.

Vasilevskiy isn’t worried about the team’s uneven play in recent weeks, part of which has been masked by finding ways to win. “I feel like every season, we have a little stretch like this,” Vasilevskiy said. “Nothing crazy, just a few unlucky games, unlucky bounces. Through hard work, we’ll be able to overcome it.”

Vasilevskiy was made available Sunday, but, like the team’s other Russian players, will only be answering hockey-related questions at this point.

The Russian netminder credited his teammates for bouncing back, noting how everyone was in a good mood in the room before the game. With the long trip, all the changing of time zones and border crossings, coach Jon Cooper talked to the group about not “mailing it in” Sunday and the veteran-laden group responded. The same goes for Vasilevskiy, who wasn’t happy after giving up a combined nine goals his last two starts.

“I didn’t play my best the last few games, and I needed a game like that to step up and help our guys out,” Vasilevskiy said. “I’m happy I was able to do that.”

Here are some other observations from Sunday.

Mikhail Sergachev and Tyler Motte (Bob Frid / USA TODAY)

2) The trade deadline is a week away, and it’s been unusually quiet around the league. That should change in the coming days as all it takes is one deal to get the market moving. The Lightning faced off one of their potential targets against the now-injured Andrew Copp in Winnipeg last Tuesday. They’ll play Seattle, who have both Calle Jarnkrok and Colin Blackwell, on Wednesday.

Another intriguing option was on the ice Sunday at Rogers place: Canucks forward Tyler Motte.

Motte, 27, is everything you’d want in a bottom-six forward. He’s fast, relentless, hard to play against. He’s an elite penalty killer, known for being able to catch opponents on the counter. He’s reliable in a matchup role. Schenn compared him a little to former Lightning forward Blake Coleman (albeit smaller at 5-foot-10) in terms of how he plays, what he can do on the PK.

As our Canucks writer Harman Dayal points out, Motte is the team’s best forward at suppressing 5-on-5 high danger chances.

“He’s a very solid player. Fast, penalty killer, tenacious,” said former NHLer Ray Ferraro. “He’s not as big as Coleman or (Barclay Goodrow), but when you bring his name up, I thought of that role in Tampa. I can’t imagine he’d cost much.”

Motte is a pending UFA with a $1.25 million cap hit, so he’d be a rental. The only question, however, is whether the Canucks would actually trade him. If they can’t re-sign him, it makes sense to get some assets for him, but Vancouver is also only three points out of the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

As for what Motte might cost, this is how Dayal puts it: “I can’t say that I know Vancouver’s specific asking price, but a second-round pick or equivalent prospect feels like it’d be reasonable market value should the team decide to move him. I know Tampa doesn’t have any 2nds to play with, but maybe there’s a prospect around that worth the Canucks covet. I’m sure Cal Foote would be intriguing to them, but obviously that’d require Vancouver adding more piece(s) than just Motte, if that’s possible in the first place.”

3) Cooper isn’t shy about putting his lines through a blender, and Sunday was a major example. It was a bit surprising in warmups to see how Tampa Bay’s lineup shook out:

It certainly seemed to work in the early going, with each one of the bottom six lines helping produce a goal (Maroon setting up Victor Hedman on the first, Corey Perry setting up Ross Colton on the second). By the end of the game, the “School Bus Line” of Maroon, Bellemare and Perry reunited, with the kids (Joseph, Colton, Raddysh) back together. But the top two lines each were over 50-percent Corsi-For percentage (Stamkos line at 59.09 and Point line at 52.00). The Point line looked like another attempt at a shutdown line, with the trio all strong two-way players and among the leaders in terms of minutes in high-leverage situations this season.

The reunion of Kucherov and Stamkos was interesting, especially considering their success together a few years back. You could see the chemistry come back quickly, with Stamkos getting a grade-A chance in the slot in the first period. Stamkos also had a goal taken away due to a successful offsides challenge. Tampa Bay has had some issues scoring 5-on-5 as of late, relying on their power play, so perhaps the top two lines can stay intact for Wednesday’s game against Seattle.

“Kuch has played with pretty much everybody, he’s got a good vibe with Pointer and Pally, but we’ve been struggling to score goals,” Cooper said. “It’s our job to see if we can put guys in position to score.”

4) Congratulations to veteran winger Alex Killorn on playing in his 700th career NHL game Sunday. It’s been a year of milestones for Tampa Bay’s core. Ondrej Palat recently played in his 600th game, with former center Tyler Johnson also playing in his 600th last Sunday against the Lightning.

Killorn, a third-round pick in 2007 (the year before Stamkos was taken No. 1), is one of the most significant players in franchise history. He’s top-five in career goals for Tampa Bay, and has established himself as one of the key leaders on back-to-back Cup teams.

“It’s crazy,” Killorn said. “I got a lot of texts after the game. Crazy how time flies. I feel very fortunate I’ve been able to be with one team, I really do, to be in Tampa, to call Tampa home, is really special to me. It’s just amazing how fast it goes.”

5) Some quick hits:

I know it was in a losing effort, but what a tremendous performance by backup goalie Brian Elliott Saturday in Edmonton. The Lightning gave up a season-high 49 shots, but the veteran gave them a chance with 45 saves, especially some timely ones. We wrote early in the season why Elliott was a great complement to Vasilevskiy, and he’s lived up to that, posting his best goals-against average (2.51) since his 2015 All-Star season in St. Louis (2.07). What’s been most impressive is that, despite lengthy layoffs, Elliott picked up points (and three wins) in his previous four starts, which spanned from New Year’s Eve to Mar. 4. He’d go nearly a month between games, but it didn’t matter.

“The unique thing with Brian is that he can come in cold and be ready to go,” former Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. “He can play infrequently and still keep his game in line. He’s a guy that’s done the split, and it doesn’t seem to affect him. He’s able to keep his concentration and do it anyway. He’s a guy who you could always trust you were going to get his best.”

Elliott is 6-3-2 with a .912 save percentage so far. With the Lightning in a stretch of 31 games in 60 days, expect him to get at least a start a week, so keeping that type of performance up will be key in them solidifying their playoff seeding…

For those who care about such things, there were scouts from the Leafs, Canucks, Stars, Oilers, Penguins, Canadiens, Senators and two from the Golden Knights at Sunday’s game. A lot of these visits were pre-planned, or by scouts who live in the area, but I know people try to read the tea leaves so close to the deadline. The same two Vegas scouts were on the list Thursday in Calgary. Not sure if you want to read too much into that, as the Golden Knights aren’t necessarily a seller. They do have pending UFA Reilly Smith, but he has a $5 million cap hit…

Vasilevskiy had one of the funniest lines of the night when talking about his sprawling pad save on Miller.

🤯🤯🤯 pic.twitter.com/DxPy5mf1F7

— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) March 14, 2022

I asked Vasilevskiy what his approach was on the save, with him first trying a poke check.

“Like I said before, I try not to think too much during the game,” Vasilevskiy said. “I just try to play the moment. He made a good move actually, I made a good push.”

Then Vasilevskiy asked, “I don’t know what happened. Did he just miss it?”

I told Vasilevskiy he got his pad on the shot.

“So, good for me,” he said. “He scored anyways. It was a good save, I guess.”

A great one.

(Top photo: Jeff Vinnick / NHLI via Getty Images)