Pontus Holmberg

Tampa still rolling out Mikheyev, Point, Kucherov, Hagel, Sergachev, Guentzel, Gonsalves, I guess Jansen Harkins, um, Sam Riley I guess didn't make the team, so hooray.

Uh, Jeff Veilleux, Zemgus Girgensons, Pontus Holmberg.

Uh, I suspect the fourth line nominally will operate as it did last year as, like, their third line shutdown unit, but, uh, we'll see.

Uh, obviously the power play one is where we're interested.

You know, we even, I mean, somebody, Greg, like Scott Sabrin can come in, you know, and maybe play a little bit of a physical, maybe second PK support unit minutes if needed.

Um, and obviously Pontus Holmberg is another big guy that the lightning really missed on that unit towards the end of last year after he got hurt.

So, you know, obviously we, we've seen the lightning make intentional moves to really shore up the two way presence of their forward core.

And I think that's going to help tremendously this year.

The Lightning are going with 13 forwards, 8 defensemen, and 2 goalies.

The forwards are Anthony Sorelli, Connor Geeky, Zemgis Gergensens, Gage Gonsalves, Jake Gensel, Brandon Hagel, Jansen Harkins, Pontus Holmberg, Nikita Kucherov, Ilya Mikheyev, Braden Point, Scott Sabrin, and Jeff Vielle.

The defensemen are John Carlson, Eric Chernak, Max Kroeser, Charles-Edouard Destoux, Victor Hedman, Emil Lilleberg, Ryan McDonough, and J.J. Moser.

The goalies are Dennis Hildeby and Andre Vasilevsky.

Here's what I will say about the quote-unquote bottom six.

People who didn't watch the lightning carefully are dismissing the value of Gord Gergensens and Holmberg last year.

And I think that that is a gross mischaracterization of what that line brought to the NHL ice every single night.

So, look, they did account for some goals.

You can make a blanket statement looking at the stats and then come to a conclusion that might not be what the eyes tell you.

When we talk about depth scoring last year, I thought you got as much depth scoring as you were going to get from that court line.

I mean, Holmberg said, was it a career high? Not a career high, double-digit goals.

I think he had 11 goals,

[laughs] By the way, i- in the summertime when you're, uh, when you're on the ice in, in Sweden, any NHLers with you?

Uh, I didn't work with them this year, but, uh, uh, two summers ago, I got Mika Bäcklund and Pontus Holmberg in the same town.

Oh.

So they work a lot s- together.

does look like with Dylan Larkin in it.

I have him on the second line center right now with Brandon Hagel, Pontus Holmberg.

You slide Jake Gensel up to this top line in the absence of Ilya Mikheyev.

You have Gensel, Point, and Kucherov, and that's just an absolutely lethal line.

And then you have Dylan Larkin with Pontus Holmberg.

And Brandon Hagel.

Hagel is a guy who's scoring a lot of goals recently.

You have Ilya Mikheyev in the year of 2026 projected to play on your first line beside Brandon Point and Nikita Kucherov.

Your third line is Pontus Holmberg, Zegmis Gregersen, and Jeff Vielle.

Are we sure that this team is going to be good? And then you look at their decor.

Are we sure Victor Hedman can get back to his other ways? You are relying a lot on 36, 37-year-old John Carlson and J.J.