TAMPA — A struggling Lightning team that won just one of its first six games on Monday sent highly touted forward Conor Geekie to AHL Syracuse and recalled defenseman Charle-Edouard D’Astous from the Crunch.
Geekie, 21, had no goals and one assist in the six games. He played on multiple forward lines and averaged 10:02 of ice time.
On a roster without much flexibility, it’s unlikely Geekie’s demotion was entirely performance-based. He was the only player among the regulars who is still on his entry-level deal, so he’s exempt from waivers.
Still, it’s an eye-opening roster shakeup for a team that started well below expectations. The Lightning (1-3-2) entered Monday as one of only four teams in the league with one or no wins and were tied with Ottawa for last place in the eight-team Atlantic Division, based on point percentage.
The Lightning were a bottom-third team in most major categories, ranking 23rd in scoring offense and scoring defense, and 24th in 5-on-5 for/against. They were 30th in shots per game, 29th in shots allowed per game and last in faceoff percentage.
The Lightning don’t play again until Thursday, so more moves could happen before they take the ice against the Blackhawks, the first of three home games in four days.
In D’Astous, the Lightning added a seventh-year pro who has yet to play in the NHL. The 27-year-old is a left-shot defenseman who spent the past three seasons playing in the top pro leagues in Sweden and Finland.
The status of right-shot defenseman Max Crozier is uncertain after he went on injured reserve last week. The Lightning recalled right-shot defenseman Steven Santini to serve as the seventh healthy defenseman for their back-to-back games Friday in Detroit and Saturday in Columbus, but he was a healthy scratch for both games and reassigned to Syracuse on Sunday.
Moser gets more physical after 1st playoff experience
J.J. Moser’s first taste of the NHL postseason taught him something.
“Playoff hockey is a different kind of hockey,” Moser said last week.
The Lightning’s first-round series loss to the Panthers was the first time in Moser’s four NHL seasons he made playoffs — he came to Tampa Bay in the summer of 2024 as part of the Mikhail Sergachev trade with Utah — and even though he expected it to be high intensity, it took experiencing it firsthand to realize the physicality involved in the postseason.
Moser is one of the most introspective players you’ll find, and he focused in the offseason on adding more snarl to his game.
“You think back to like, ‘Why did you lose or whatever?’” Moser said. “And then you’re like, ‘Wait, are [the Panthers] more skilled? Are they better?’ No. Were they probably a little bit harder around the net? Were they a little bit more physical? Maybe. That would be the only thing where you could say, ‘Yeah, maybe they were a little bit potentially better.’”
He’s never going to be the most imposing defenseman — Moser is listed at 6-foot-2, 183 pounds — but he worked to prepare himself better for the toll that playing a more physical game takes.
“Getting bigger and stronger is one part and then it’s the conditioning and the endurance because it takes a lot more energy if you’re engaging more in that physical contact,” he said. “So that was a part of it, and then a big part is just the mindset. A big part is just having that — I don’t know how to describe it — a little bit of a screw-you mentality in some ways. It’s more mental where you just have to just make it a habit in whatever you do.”
Moser’s added physicality is evident. His hit on Florida’s Carter Verhaeghe in the final preseason game is one that he might not have finished last season. And even though it was a heat-of-the-moment hit in the middle of a wild game between rivals that earned Moser one of 16 ejections between the teams and led to a two-game suspension to open the season, he returned to Monday’s game against Boston and displayed a more honed-in toughness.
Moser registered three hits in the 4-3 win over the Bruins, already matching his season high from last year, which he set just twice. He even jawed with former Lightning tough guy and current Bruins forward Tanner Jeannot.
“I thought Mo’s first game back the other night, I thought he was outstanding,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “He was engaged, he was up the ice, he was defending, he was physical and I think you saw that in the preseason, too. … He’s really been engaged and so it was great having him back.”
Moser, 25, won’t be asked to be the most physical defenseman in a group that includes players like Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh, Erik Cernak and Emil Lilleberg, but he’s already one of the team’s most steady defensively, he’s a superb skater and he has a strong head for the game. Adding that next level of physicality can only help him as he reaches restricted free agency next season.
The Lightning also leaned on Moser last week in a 3-2 overtime loss in Washington when Max Crozier went out in the first period due to an injury, forcing the team to play most of the game with just five defensemen. Against a tight-checking Capitals team, Moser skated 25:26 of ice time, the most of any Lightning defenseman and his second highest on-ice total in 61 games with the team.
“In the regular season, you can make your nice plays all you want. It’s all fun and games and whatever,” Moser said. “And then you come to the playoffs, it’s closer to a war than making your nice, fancy plays. So that has been eye-opening. It just changed my viewpoint, I guess.
“You learn, ‘All right, I know it’s different, so let’s prepare for that now.’ Whereas before, you didn’t really have an idea. You heard about it, but it’s always different, where you’re like, ‘All right, that’s exactly what it’s all about.’”
Kucherov reaching rare air with 1,000-point pace
Nikita Kucherov certainly won’t make a big deal about it because he barely acknowledged any of his previous personal milestones. But the star right wing has a special marker coming up.
Kucherov, 32, needs just three points to reach 1,000 in his career. He has played in 807 career games and could become the 17th-fastest player in NHL history to achieve the milestone, ahead of Hall of Famers like Joe Sakic (810), Brett Hull (815) and Mark Messier (822) as well as active stars like Nathan MacKinnon (856) and Alexander Ovechkin (880). He’ll also become the second player in Lightning history to score 1,000 points with the team, joining Steven Stamkos, who took 945 games to reach the milestone.
One thing that might be most special to Kucherov is that he would reach 1,000 points more quickly than current Penguins forward and fellow Russian star Evgeni Malkin (848), whom Kucherov has said is his favorite player in the game.
“What a landmark to get at a relatively young age,” Cooper said. “What a testament to him. … When you look at the big picture and how he looks after himself and how he trains and how he works on his game, this is kind of how it pays off. Now you have to have unique, special talent to be able to be in this situation. But nonetheless, it’s not like he doesn’t work at it. He works at it.”
