Quick Shifts: The 'fire' that burns through the Toronto-Tampa rivalry

A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep. Sources say, it's early. Insiders confirm, don't panic.

1. Mikhail Sergachev isn't much for biting his tongue.

The defenceman used the phrase "pissed off" to describe the Tampa Bay Lightning's reaction to 2023's first-round elimination at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs on their own ice.

If pushed, Auston Matthews will admit that the Atlantic Division's other blue-and-white team has probably become Toronto's greatest rival right now, surpassing Boston, Montreal, and Ottawa.

Saturday night.

A pair of conference powers off to middling starts. Plenty to prove. More to avenge.

"There's a little fire in both teams. It was a long summer for us, for sure. A little bit shorter for them — but not by much," Lightning coach and wily master of the passive-aggressive turn of phrase Jon Cooper told reporters Friday.

"We still feel like we're one of the kings in the East, and we're gonna act like that."

As they should.

The lazy narrative is that the Lightning — architects of a mini dynasty and inventors of the Stanley Cup boat parade — have maxed out, capped out. That a training camp injury to all-world goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy will serve as a death knell to a team already thinned by roster restrictions, weakened by wear and tear, and challenged by increased divisional parity (we see you, Detroit and Buffalo).

But the pride of a two-time champion won't drift quietly. The margin of getting outscored by Toronto 23-21 and coming up a little short over three overtime games in last spring's playoff is too thin.

"It just wasn't our turn. Toronto played well and knocked us out, and we were crushed. Because we felt we played a pretty good series," Cooper told Missin Curfew. "So, it was like, 'Now what?'"

Examining the six-game set — no doubt affected by a human-looking Vasilevskiy and a key injury to defenceman Erik Cernak — in retrospect, Cooper realized his group needed a break from physical wounds and "mental battering" of three consecutive max-length postseason runs.

June vacations for everybody! (Including Steven Stamkos's agent, apparently. We kid. We kid.)

Cooper flew to Italy, then dipped to Greece with his wife. Away from the rink and the madness.

When he began clocking back in at the office, never had the coach seen so many players back on the practice ice a month before training camp. A longer-than-desired summer had given way to renewed energy.

After their first early exit in four years, Cooper and his staff flew to Idaho for team meetings and asked themselves: "How do we need to evolve with this game?" Because it's hard to sell systemic changes to your ring-bearing stars after you've reached three straight finals.

And yet?

"We've got to keep up with the times," Cooper thought.

Both Tampa and Toronto fancy themselves championship contenders, yet neither has asserted themselves as such out of the gates. The Leafs and Lightning rank bottom-eight in both goals against per game and save percentage. Holes abound.

So does pride.

"We felt we played them hard," Tanner Jeannot told the scrum Friday. "Coming in [Saturday], you remember that feeling, getting knocked out early like that. A lot of the guys remember that feeling, and they're going to be bringing a lot of passion to this game."

Adds Cooper: "Anytime Toronto and Tampa get together, they're fun games."

Giddy-yap.

2. A little/big story about John Tavares and his character.

The season is 2014-15. The New York Islanders captain is battling tooth and nail with Sidney Crosby and Jamie Benn for the Art Ross Trophy, an honour that has forever eluded him. Every point matters.

On two separate occasions, Tavares looked at the game sheet or caught a replay and believed he had been credited with an assist he didn't deserve. It didn't sit right with the player, to be rewarded for something unearned.

Both times, Tavares brought the error to the attention of Islanders communication VP Kimber Auerbach, requesting he notify the NHL.

"The NHL heads of statistics were baffled when I went to them to check the goals. They told me they had never been asked by a player to take points away," Auerbach wrote for an article on how humility breeding confidence, an assignment for his master's degree at the University of Missouri.

"I remember Tavares’ teammates asking him, 'Why are you taking points away when you’re in this scoring race?' His answer? 'Because I don’t care about the individual award, but if I do win it, I don’t want to have in my mind that I didn’t deserve it.' "

Fascinated by this story, I followed up with Tavares.

He still remembers one of the assists rightly belonged to Thomas Hickey.

"I was fairly confident I didn't touch it, and then once it went to the league, when I asked them to review it, they confirmed it. Especially when guys are in [the race], you feel like that's the right way to go about it. They deserve it, right?" Tavares said.

Those two assists proved the difference.

Art Ross champ Benn defeated Tavares 87-86 in the points race. (Tavares had 38-35 edge on Benn in goals.)

"That year it wasn't meant to be. I moved past it a long time ago," Tavares shrugged.

"I just don't think that's good karma."

3. Technology makes things easier, not necessarily better.

Workplace camaraderie and team unity has suffered with the advent of the work-from-home model, just as hip-hop posse cuts lost some energy when rappers stopped sharing studios and started sharing beat files.

And don't get me started on offside reviews.

Now the NHL is polling its 32 clubs on the proposal of a decentralized draft. The idea being that front offices can save time and money on flights and hotels traveling to a major event and instead hole up in a local war room and upgrade to the premium version of Zoom.

Another one of our in-person, look-you-in-the-eye traditions is at risk of extinction.

The draft is the one event on the hockey calendar in which all the executives and media gather. The access to people, stories, trade chatter, and rumours is off the charts. It's also a juicy nugget to offer a member city that has been missing out on revenue-generating outdoor games or all-star weekends.

We're not foolish enough to believe technology won't drive this change, nor do we believe the draft as a TV product can't be tightened up. (Let's just assume every team wants to congratulate the Cup champs and thank the host town, shall we?) And while the draft, slated again for June 28-29, does run tight to free agency, the NHL should think hard about starting its season earlier and alleviating the late-June traffic jam.

We can't help but think the human touch has taken another small loss here, in the name of convenience.

Dog walks are on the rise, though.

4. Connor Bedard hasn't quite reached Taylor Swiftian levels of economic impact, but the Blackhawks' box office has felt an immediate lift since his arrival in Chicago.

According to ticketing technology company Logitix, Blackhawks fans are shelling out nearly twice as much on the secondary market for Saturday's home opener at United Center compared to 2022. Not including fees, fans have paid $241.94 per ticket on average this year compared to $123.45 per ticket for last year's opener.

5. Messing around toward the end of practice Wednesday, the Maple Leafs held an informal shootout contest.

To the delight of many, 40-year-old Mark Giordano pulled an Evgeny Kuznetsov, approaching goalie Joseph Woll at a snail's pace, stickhandling all the way.

"That's what I'm doing! If Keefer ever puts me in, I'm doing that move," Giordano laughed when I asked afterward.

We'd love to see it.

But where is the 40-year-old defencemen on Toronto's shootout depth chart?

"I was trying to think of that the other day," Giordano replied, looking around at the nameplates around the dressing room

"I went once in my[1,106-game]career so far. I want to say it was at least double-digit rounds, like 10 or 11 for sure. I hit the post. I'm 0-for-1 in my career. So, I don't know if I'll be going anytime soon. On this team, I'd be like 17th, 18th." Another hearty, self-deprecating laugh.

Patience is a virtue, but is Kuznetsov's strategy fly against the spirit of the skills contest?

"I think it's great. It's smart. Freeze the goalie," Giordano countered. "It's like the ol' freeze 'em. I'm like, 'Could you imagine being a goalie and having a squat for that long, waiting to see with this guy's gonna do?' "

Here's Kuznetsov himself (via Slippery Ice) on his shootout move: “Well, firstly, it irritates the goalkeeper, and irritates everyone, right? I used to drive faster and often hit the post. And then I realized that when you go fast, the goalkeeper can keep up with you and simply catch the pace. But here it’s different. It’s easier for me to hit.

“When you are driving at (your) speed, everything is clear for you. And when you drive slower, you troll (the goaltender) a little bit. He stands there for two hours, catching, and then they throw this kind of crap at him. It’s psychology.”

6. As if it's not encouraging enough that the Philadelphia Flyers sit atop the Metropolitan Division after a week or so with a 3-1 record, their first-round pick, Matvei Michkov, is tearing up the KHL.

Since getting banished to Sochi HC, the 18-year-old is a point-per-game (6-7–13 in 13 games) while playing for a mediocre squad and facing grown men every night.

7. Jay Woodcroft is out here dropping F-bombs into microphones, Lindy Ruff is benching a $70-million Timo Meier, and Rick Tocchet is publicly leaning into the Canucks' poor showings the way he used to lean into on-ice battles.

Personally, I'm here for these coaches calling out soft efforts.

That we're still in the season's early days should go without saying. But bad habits or a low standard can get set early. Hold them to task fast.

One wonders how deep Woodcroft and Tocchet's soundbites resonate with their peers. If other coaches around the league see that and think, hey, maybe I too can go hard after my players when they deliver a subpar effort.

8. One thousand, three hundred, fifty. That's how many games it took.

But for the first time in Alex Ovechkin's storied career, the super sniper went consecutive games without a shot on goal.

Ovechkin has just one assist and is a minus-2 through his first 57:19 on the ice, a team-high 14:52 of it on the power-play.

"Everything happens once," Ovechkin told reporters Friday. "You can see something missing. That’s why as a leader I have to lead the way.

“If I would say how I’m playing, I’m not happy with my game. And I think you can see overall as a team. Sometimes we play good, but most of time it’s kind of battling out there.”

9. Luke Richardson's Blackhawks essentially fended off the Maple Leafs for a full — and anxious — four minutes of 5-on-6 as they clung to victory Monday.

Impressive since they had never practised defending a late lead with the opposition's goalie pulled.

"We've talked about it a lot this year. It's hard to practice, both offensively and defensively. How do you practise it properly? Because it's all about blocking shots and being in the lanes. We walked through it a little bit on the ice for the power-play guys 6-on-5, and then 5-on-6 we've just talked about its details," said Richardson, happy to get specific on strategy.

"It's about not getting two guys caught up ice. Forechecking, it's about just having one guy, and having one guy back with the D. Just altering our whole system a little bit. In the D zone, we want to keep the same mindset as our penalty-killing — pressure.

"Don't let them get set up on a face-off. Don't let them get set up after a shot. And the more pressure, then they're not going to be able to get as many looks.

"But if you don't get that puck out right away, you're going to be tired. Then you have to fold to the inside and really try to take away the seams."

10. Cooper dropped a great line on Real Kyper & Bourne Friday when asked about his unlikely tandem of Jonas Johansson and Matt Tompkins, who entered the season with a combined 35 NHL appearances scattered over four years.

"I think there's still a bunch of teams keeping three goalies," Cooper said. "Probably because of us."

Rare that even one or two teams are dealing with the dreaded three-headed crease. Four teams are pulling off that balancing act right now, wary of Julien BriseBois and the waiver wire: Buffalo, Detroit, Montreal, and Philadelphia.

The Lightning are treading water since Vasilevskiy's surgery and their inexperienced goaltending took over, going 2-2-1 despite a 25th-ranked .883 team save percentage.

11. Quote of the Week.

"I hope tomorrow the season is over and I win Hart Trophy." —Evgeni Malkin, who exploded for seven points in three games

12. Wonderful viral moment as Aleksander Barkov gave a phantom post-win high-five to the ghost of Radko Gudas, keeping a tradition alive with his departed teammate.

“He’s one of those guys who you love to have on your team. He’s a great person and everyone misses him,” Barkov said. “But not he’s there, and we’re happy for him.”

Gudas, now with Anaheim, caught the replay and reached out to his former captain.

“He said he loves me,” Barkov grinned.

The Florida Panthers star concedes that he might be done high-fiving ghosts, though.

“I think one game was enough,” he said. “Maybe I’ll find someone else to do that with."