Into The Blue – October 27, 2025
Welcome to Into the Blue presented by Penelopey Bourbon. A weekly look behind the scenes of the Tampa Bay Lightning with reporters Gabby Shirley and Ben Pierce. Hello. Did I start too soon, Ben? The music’s just so nice. It’s nice. It is nice. That was a nice little buildup. But I am just so excited to be here with you. Welcome back to another episode of Into the Blue. Gabby Shirley alongside Ben Pierce talking all things Tampa Bay Lightning hockey. And Ben, I bet any Tampa Bay Lightning fan could guess where we are starting our podcast today. Nikita Cooerov, 1,000 NHL points. It all went down on Saturday on home ice in front of all the fans against the Anaheim Ducks. He reaches that mark with the secondary assist on a Jake Gensel goal. It was beautiful. What were you thinking as you watched that moment unfold? I Well, first off, it was uh like how fitting that was it was an assist, right? Like not that anybody would have been upset if he scored a goal, but I think like there’s nothing more than it to be an assist. Um like to me when it happened, I was honestly thinking because it was kind of that weird play where the puck goes in off Gensel skate. My first thought was, “Dear God, do not challenge this goal.” Right? Because the puck’s in the net, the bench is clear, everybody’s mobing cooched. Congratulate him. And I’m like, if they reverse this goal, I am going to lose my mind. Right. And and it was a great play. I think it was the right call. You know, it’s not like against kicked it. He just uses his skate as he’s allowed to to direct the puck into the net. But that my first thought was, “Dear God, please no. please do not challenge this goal. And uh luckily the goal stood, no challenge was uh presented. But that was honestly my first thought was please no, not on the 10,000th point. Uh but it was pretty cool. You could see how much it meant to Cooch despite being a guy that we know obviously is uh typically more about the team and and winning than the personal accolades. Like he uh he said as much postgame. I think honestly especially for me and I think you and I kind of joked afterwards it might have been the longest media answer we’ve ever seen from Nikita Cucharov right we know how determined he is and focused and uh like but hearing him talk about how much it meant to him and hearing when you hear a worldclass player like Nikita Cucharov say the words I never thought I would accomplish this like I never thought this was going to be possible for me to hit a thousand points like and it was gen like it was genuine. You could tell he really meant that and it makes you pause. It does like like it really makes you reflect on how hard all everybody always talks about how hard he works, right? And you hear so much about it and I wrote a story after he hit it talking to tons and tons of people and everybody said like the number one thing is how hard he’s worked. But like when you hear him say it, a guy who again doesn’t really talk much about himself, he doesn’t like to to gloat or say, you know, I believe I’m one of the best. You’re never going to hear that from Nikita Cucharov. So to hear him kind of say like it means a lot to me because I never thought I’d be here. That kind that was honestly the biggest thing for me was like wow like this it meant a lot. And I think for everybody in the room on a great night for for all parties uh getting the first home win heady 800 points and and you throw in the cooch 1000 300 like it was incredible. And then of course again like we talked about nothing more cooch than it being an assist. Is there anything more Nikita Cooerov than getting 1000 and then saying okay a th00and was cool. A thousand and1 though is going to be the primary assist on a beautiful pass to win the game with three minutes left on the power play. Like it it was the most Nikita Cooerov 1,000 point celebration you could possibly have. It was it was a perfect perfect night especially because it ended with a lightning win, right, Ben? And then he rolls it over into Sunday scoring that gamewinning goal in OT. So yes, just a Nikita Cuchoff weekend. It was phenomenal. It’s tough for me to pick like a favorite part of the moment. I mean, that was Tampa Bay Lightning history that we were fortunate enough to witness, but of course, when the team swarms him on the ice, that was so cool. I love to see that. And Ben, just going back and looking at all the clips that we’ve posted on social media. I did it just before we hopped on here, and I hadn’t previously seen Ryan Mcdana wearing the mic. He joins that huddle a little bit late, so he’s on the outside, and all he’s saying is, “Where is he? where is he? And then when he gets to him that a boy cooch like congrats all that great work. So that was pretty cool too. Again I watched that clip a couple times just moments ago. Um so if you haven’t seen it go Tampa Bay Lightning Instagram account. It was fantastic. So, obviously, Ben, we had to start there, but we bring it up because we want to make sure everyone is aware that the celebration for Nikita Cooerov and his 1,000 NHL points will take place on Thursday on home ice. So, anyone who has tickets to that game, anyone who wants to get tickets to that game, make sure you’re in your seats early. It’s going to be awesome. It will be. And for everybody who was kind of freaking out like, are we really going to celebrate, you know, are we going to play this game last night on Sunday against Vegas without recognizing Cucharov? They played a video in bull when he hit the the milestone on Saturday against the Ducks. And the reason for that everybody is the gold stick that gets presented to the players with the backtoback, especially with that early start time of 5:00 PM. there just was no way for them to get that stick made because if you remember from last year when Vassie got his silver stick and we talked about this and Hetti too with uh a thousand games like or not Hetti sorry Mac like when you when you get to these numbers they have to carve into these sticks the date the game the score the opponent. So it’s it’s not like they just pre-make them and then ship them when they hit. like it’s it’s all very personalized and there was no way for that turnaround to happen in the matter of 12 hours in order to get there in time for the uh the second half of the back toback. So yes, Nikita Cucharov will get the full massive wonderful ceremony like every other player does. It just had to wait until Thursday, which good news for you fans means if you want tickets, you will be able to attend. So in some ways uh you might have just lucked out in that regard, but he will be celebrated as is much deserved. Thursday, Benchmark International Arena before the Lightning play the Dallas Stars. All right, Ben, our second topic, some new faces on this Tampa Bay Lightning team. Nine games into the regular season, three players have made their NHL debut and one player has returned from injury. In quick summary, game one versus Ottawa, Curtis Douglas NHL debut. Game seven versus Chicago, Dominic James NHL debut. Game eight versus Anaheim. Let’s see if I can get the pronunciation correct. Shaled Wisa Dustu NHL debut. And that is also the game ZGis Gergensson’s returned from that upper body injury he suffered in the final game of the preseason. So Ben, for starters, those three new players, obviously excluding Gergensson’s, what have they brought to this team? Well, honestly, like when you when you look at this team, Coupe mentioned it last night, like he they’ve made a difference and uh this team depthwise with the injuries that we saw to start the year and some of the opportunities that have been there. Like James in particular, by the way, we almost saw his first NHL goal last night, right? He had that twoonone with Cucharov. He hits the post on the 21, but he’s a menace out there. He’s had some chances with Hegel. Like it’s it’s coming soon. Well, and and he like the biggest thing that that been mentioned multiple times by other people and and even just watching you can tell the speed flies off the ice with Dominic James. And I think that’s a big reason why he’s stuck so far. why he continues to play is he brings a dynamic to this team that really isn’t there honestly outside of maybe Brandon Hegel and Braden Point is he is crazy crazy fast especially on the forche he’s made a difference last night we saw some grit you know he’s thrown the body around a little bit and I mean rookie play his third game he flattens Mitch Mner twice in one shift right like he’s talking about No but you’re talking about an all-world player coming to hit him and he flattens Marner right I know Mitch Mner isn’t a huge massive guy But like he’s making an impact. Bold. And uh you know what the other thing with uh James is he makes the small simple play. I would say probably 99% of the time it seems like. And I really like what I’ve seen in his first three NHL games with James. Like there was one point the other night where they’re kind of fiddling with the puck in the neutral zone. And sometimes I think one of our big things with the Lightning we’ve seen is they try to get too fancy, right? If they don’t like the perfect zone entry, they might circle back to their own zone. Mhm. There was one point on Saturday, James gets that puck at the red line. He kind of gets clogged up with a couple defenders and instead of turning back towards his zone, he’s surrounded by a couple of Anaheim Ducks. He chips the puck into the offensive zone, slips through the two ducks, and then all of a sudden he’s in on the for check one-on-one with the defenseman. And it’s the biggest thing is he doesn’t turn the puck over. So instead of the Ducks going two-on-one the other way, you’re just living to fight another day. And it’s not going to be a quote unquote win on the stat sheet, on the event sheet, but it’s a small small play that at the end of the day, you make that play 10 times in a game. They add up and that’s the biggest thing for me. And Dash Stew was a bit of a surprise for us, too. But uh he’s got a heck of a story as well. Going back to James Ben, I’m giving a little uh story away here. I was saving it for the broadcast, but that’s okay. Fans can hear it twice or on either platform. Uh, James, you mentioned his speed. So, of course, like, hey, Dominic, how did you learn to skate this way? Like, what went into this? And he’s from Michigan. And he said for the past 10 years, he’s been working with a power skating coach. Her name is Kim Mure. Um, she has been in this role for about 35 years, so she knows what she’s doing. He said she is very well known in the state of Michigan. It was very easy to find countless articles on her. Then she started off figure skating and again has evolved um to help players of all levels of hockey work on their skating. James said it was always group lessons never pucks and the lessons always stuck to her motto which is can’t skate can’t play. So he credited her and in addition Ben he said which I had to like think about it on the translation. He’s like before I was skating like I never did not have rollerblades on my feet. I was playing roller hockey all the time outside. I was in organized roller hockey. And I don’t know if it’s true, but my dad would always tell me like sometimes he would go from a roller hockey game when he got a little bit older to an ice hockey game. And he said constantly tell him like, “Oh yeah, because you were skating around in those roller skates like that’s why you’re so fast out there on the ice.” Yeah. I love it. I love it. That was like a good backstory there. Right. Because it is his speed is so noticeable. I also asked him, you know, what else has helped you get here? And he says his mentality, Ben, which you kind of touched on with him putting big hits out there, like not caring who it is. He is very confident and like has that swagger, which is awesome to see from a younger, newer guy. And he also talked about his shot, which I know Brian Anglam, Dave Randolph have mentioned in our broadcast, like he can really shoot the puck. Yeah. Well, and and James has been noticeable and and I think what people don’t always realize is like this guy, as we talked a little bit about last week, he was a free agent, right? Like this was a guy who didn’t sign with Chicago, the team that drafted him, comes in, makes his NHL debut against Chicago, the team that drafted him, which even that alone, the fact that that lined up is crazy. Did John Cooper know, right? That’s what I mean. Like what like what are the odds that that happens? And I’m sure there was a little bit of planning maybe on Coup’s part for that, but but you know what? When you look at that and when we talked to Dominic James ahead of that, like Dominic James told us point blank, there were other teams interested in Dominic James. It wasn’t like the Tampa Bay Lightning were the only team interested in signing this guy. He picked the Tampa Bay Lightning. and he told us for the reason that he likes the fact that they develop players and he saw an opportunity for NHL playing time, not necessarily this year, he said, but he he saw a road to the NHL in Tampa Bay. It obviously came less than 10 games into that following NHL season, which was sooner than maybe he anticipated. But he signed here for a reason. He said like the fact that this is here now, it it validates every decision that I made over the last six months, including not signing with the team that drafted me and picking Tampa Bay. So, it it was a real we hear this term all the time in hockey, another cliche about the full circle, but it’s worked out for Dominic James. And uh you talk about another full circle experience. Charlotte Ward Dastu, man, at 27 years old makes his NHL debut. And for a guy who has just absolutely grinded away at his hockey career, was an absolute stud in the ECL. I mean, he was a defenseman scoring 50, 60 points, 18, 20 goals. Like, he was an offensive weapon as a defenseman in the ECL. Plays in the AHL, was a monster. Leaves uh the United States to go play in Europe. Yep. Makes the jump to Europe. plays in one European league, wins the defenseman of the year, and says, “Okay, great. But I want more.” Goes to the Swedish hockey league last year, wins the defenseman of the award, wins the league player of the award, player of the year award, and then earns a contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning, starts the year in the AHL, three points in four games, gets called up and is settling right in. like he’s and he said as much like this is the whole reason that I’ve done my entire career is I wanted to make the NHL undrafted player and now he’s here and I actually talked to Ryan Mcdana yesterday. It was an optional skate which we’ll get to in the question segment here a little bit further on but when I talked to Ryan Mcdana he said it’s obvious when you watch Charlotte Ward DSU this isn’t some kid treading water in his first couple of NHL games trying to figure it out. He said the first time he saw Dasu, he said, “That’s a pro hockey player.” And he said, “Dastu stood out in training camp. He was here for a reason.” And he said he’s helped the Tampa Bay Lightning. He said the offensive skills obviously jump off the page, but he said he knows when to flash those skills. Right. Matt told me he said he has the poise and the patience. And when you hear those two words coming from Ryan Mcdana about a guy who’s played now two games in the NHL, that says a lot. And he said, “Those are two things, the poise, the patience.” And then he also quoted the first pass. He said, “When you typically see an 18, 19, 20-year-old coming into the NHL, they don’t normally have that when they’re making their NHL debut.” But they said, “Du has all of that because he’s 27. He’s played some pro hockey.” He said he’s coming in as a more wellp polished product than you typically see from a guy. And the Lightning have really liked everything they said. John Cooper doubled down on it again last night postgame. So James and Du, they’ve both been tremendous in their limited time here, but uh the Lightning are going to have some tough decisions to make here when more guys are available. I mean, in pretty short order, Ben and they’ve just been lovely to talk to as you would expect, right? They’re coming in. They’re younger. They can’t really say no when you have questions for them. But I had uh Dasu on the bench for a pregame interview on Sunday. And I don’t know, I just try to put myself in their shoes sometimes and it’s his second NHL game and you’re in a trying to figure out your routine. Like maybe you’re a little nervous like still trying to and he comes over smiling, leans on the bench. like he was so cool, calm, collected, like nothing could phase that guy. And again, that’s great to see. I think that does speak to obviously like, okay, I am where I’ve always wanted to be, but also like the confidence that he should be here and the swagger that you need to make those big plays out there on the ice. So, that was great to see. We are we’re really crushing our uh time here, Ben. We’re way over, but we can’t move on until we talk about Zus Gurgensson’s veteran in this league. We know he’s not always involved in the flashy plays, but still he’s an extremely valuable part of this team. Why? Because he does everything. He does all the small things. And uh again, we talked about that big big milestone night on Saturday. And I think maybe the biggest takeaway from the postgame comments by John Cooper that again went unnoticed and and we talked about this last night at at our desks a little bit, Gabby. It it went under the radar because of all the craziness with Cooch and Hedi and and Hags. John Cooper said after that game, honestly, I think the biggest difference for this team tonight was the addition or inclusion of ZGis Gerkinson’s. He said he brought a a calm to this lineup just to have his presence. And when you’re hearing that about a guy who’s going to play 12 minutes, take some faceoffs, block some shots, play on the PK, he just does all of those small things that it’s that winning brand of hockey that Coupe always talks about. The team was pumped to have him back and, you know, he’s made a difference in his limited time back and and you can see it. the hits, everything. The guy who led the the team in hits last year, he’s uh he’s made an impact. Obviously, not on the score sheet yet, but uh they’re pumped to have him back. Great to see him out there. Okay, moving on to special teams. Uh Ben, we’re going to start with the Tampa Bay Lightning Power Play. Currently sits in 20th in the league, scoring 16.1% of the time. Doesn’t sound great, but let’s remind everyone, right, we’re nine games into the season. John Cooper was asked about the power play after that game against Vegas where they went 0 for five and without even missing a second says I mean sometimes your power play is going to go 0 for five. The Lightning don’t seem to be worried about it at all. Um I guess Ben I would say just from my observations last night like that top unit they had a couple different looks with different players. Sometimes Bjorkstrand was out there sometimes Celli was out there. I thought initially he was out there just for the face off, but he stayed for a little bit on that top unit and then as we just talked about new faces, um James and Dust Stew, they were out there on the second unit. So again, it doesn’t seem like this team is worried about it. The Lightning won two games ago with a goal on the power play um scored by Celli. So I’m not all that concerned. The numbers don’t look great. Do you have any concerns? No, honestly, like Coop said last night, some nights you’re going to go 0 for five, but this might sound crazy, but we saw Lightning power play on Sunday against Vegas 6 minutes into that second period that really caught my attention. Obviously, no goal because they didn’t finish with a power play goal, but it was probably as good of a power play as we’ve seen from the Lightning. I mean, shots were flying from everywhere. The pressure was there. Vegas literally didn’t know how to defend. The the Lightning players were cycling. the puck was going low to high, getting to the crease and against a rookie goalender who was having to make some pretty incredible saves and he was making them. So, credit to him because it was a great night. But that power play was a fullon attack. Yep. Coupe liked it. The fans liked it. The arena was giving them love even though they didn’t score, which is pretty rare for a power play if you don’t get the goal. Um, they’re going to be just fine, right? It’s they’re going to be fine. the penalty kill. Fourth in the league right now, successfully killing off penalties 90.3% of the time. Whoa. Well, it I mean, if your penalty kills up over 90%. It’s tremendous, right? Like it it’s tremendous. And it truly has been the differencemaker for this team, especially this weekend. Again, we saw some massive massive penalty kill work on Sunday, right? That goal gets called off. Two goals get called off for the Lightning on Sunday, but that goal, it looks like Cooch looks like Cooch gets the game winner originally in regulation, right? That goal comes off and right after all of a sudden the Lightning are killing a penalty in a one-1 game. They get that kill huge and then they hold on to win. Like those are the penalty kills that can win you games. And like listen, they’re going to have to be big this upcoming week. The Tampa Bay Lighting on Thursday host the Dallas Stars who have the NHL’s third best power play this year at 28.9%. Followed by that, they’re going to play the Utah Mammoth next week who are in the NHL top 10 for power play goals and also have one of the NHL’s top scorers right now. Like and then you follow that up next week they’re going to play Vegas again which obviously has the ninth best power play overall and some weapons as well as Washington and the power play weapon that is Alex Ovetchkin. So the penalty kill has been tremendous but it’s going to need to be once again as the schedule continues to unfold and uh we really like what we’ve seen. If they do what they’ve been doing it’s uh they’re going to need it but they’ve been very very good. There’s a very good chance we will be discussing Power Play PK in the coming episodes because as Ben said, it’s uh going to be something that we’ll be focused on. Okay, we are moving on to our blue line segment. Thank you to everyone who has written in questions. You can do that on X. You can call us 813301-6749. Ben, this is kind of um just putting out there the clarifying terminology and just how the scheduling works, but I think it’s a good one because I recall myself being in local news and no matter how many times I covered a practice, a morning skate, like I could have never told you what time it was going to happen. So, here we go. This question is from Emma. It’s a good one. How do morning skates work? Why are some optional and some are not? Why do only some of the players skate on game day? So, I guess I would say first and foremost, morning skate is what we call the skate before a game. You never call it a practice. Practices are non-game days. Morning skate is before a game. For the Tampa Bay Lightning, when they are on home ice, it is always at 10:30. When they are the road team, also when visiting teams come to our arena, it’s always at 11:30. some optional, some not. There is also optional morning skates and optional come to the ranks. So, Ben, correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding optional morning skates, all players are in the building for meetings, treatment, whatever they have to do. Optional come to the rinks. Some players are there, some players aren’t. Um, and that is typically based on I guess I would say schedule, how many games the team has had. Yeah. Recently and or like if they’re doing well. What do you have to add on this whole Yeah. topic? What? And I think the optional morning skate versus optional uh come to the rink. The optional morning skate. A lot of times she asked why do only some of the players skate on game day when it is a full morning skate. if a player is a little bit dinged up or like the other the other day we saw a full morning skate but it was a backto-back Yonas Johansson had played the night before so we saw Kyle Conan and Andre Vaselki or Andre Vas or sorry forgive me Yonas Johansson was going to play that night so Vassie and Conan were on the ice instead of Johansson so that kind of gives you a tip as to who the starting goalender is going to be but so maybe Johansson doesn’t skate that morning it’s more about rest and recovery as well so sometimes that plays into it uh sometimes a player might not be quote unquote injured, but say they blocked a shot, they’re a little sore the next morning, they might be given the morning off, whether it’s a full skate, an optional skate. When players aren’t going to play that night, 99.9% of the time they are going to be on the ice for the optional morning skate. Now, typically, like yesterday, Gabby, you and I were at the arena very early for a morning optional morning skate, despite it being an early start. uh and we saw everybody on the ice uh that was there did not end up playing. Y but sometimes in those situations you will see a player who has been out for a long time. Obviously we saw a guy like Nick Paul who’s still working his way back from injury and Max Croer uh also working back or his way back from injury. If those guys get closer to playing sometimes they might test it out at an optional morning skate and then that might be the final decision of yes, I’m going to play tonight. So, a lot of it truly is how do I feel? And then it’s also the guys who know they’re not going to play that night, but they want to stay fresh and healthy just in case something happens that day, somebody gets sick, they’re ready to go, or they just want to stay fresh and know that they’re they’re in kind of the top of their game. So, it changes every time. At the end of the day, optionals typically are going to be less bodies and it’s more about just staying fresh and making sure guys are ready to go. Ben, along those same lines, and I’m putting you on the spot, and sorry if this is a ridiculous question, but thanks to Emma, I now have one on this topic. It feels like when there is an optional skate, you and I can predict which players, they are typically the less experienced players, the newer guys, younger guys. Those are the players that we see on the ice. We rarely see a Victor Hedman, a Ryan Mcdana, a Nikita Coutroof on an out there for an optional morning skate. Do you think that is a younger player’s mentality of I want every I want to put out that like I’m dedicated and I want to get practice time or do you think the coaching staff has drills set up for those newer younger guys? It’s probably a combination of both. I think there’s guys that I think the coaches say, “Hey, I I know it’s optional, but I want you here tomorrow.” Okay. And and I think there’s also guys that say, “Hey, I want more ice time, and I want these coaches to know I’m going to do whatever it takes to get more ice time, which means, yes, the morning skates at 8:30. I know I’m not playing tomorrow, but I’m going to be here at 7:30, so they know, hey, this guy’s locked in even though he’s not going to be in the game.” I do think it’s a combination. Love it. Okay, Ben, you want to read the next question? Yes. Vance would like to know, Gabby, and I know you did your homework here, does Kyle, as in Kyle Conan, the Tampa Bay Lightning EBUG emergency backup goalie, get a stipend every time he shows up? Is he given an annual salary or is it just quote straight vibes? So, Charles, are we vibing? What’s What’s the deal here with Mr. Conan? And I hope Mr. Vance is listening. This was not a question he wrote in specifically for my when I requested questions, but he sent it to me on X. Um, so Ben, hopefully I did my due diligence. I didn’t go and read a ton of articles. I just went strictly uh straight to Jeff Tambellini, um, who works right under GM Julian Brisba, and had him kind of explain it to me. So, the current state of the Ebug, the emergency backup goalender, ours is Kyle Conan. There has to be an Ebug in every arena for every game, but that Ebug is not on like a Tampa Bay Lightning salary because he’s available to either team if they need him. And he is paid a game rate. I actually saw Kyle Conan at the game last night obviously because he was in the building. And sorry Vance, I did not feel like it was my right to say how much are you getting paid? Ask him what his hourly salary was on the spot. but he does get a game rate which makes sense because although these games are only in the evenings like they take up a few hours of your time. Um, now the majority of teams have a third goalie. In our case, it is 99% of the time Kyle Conan that they can call and ask him, “Hey, for this optional morning skate, Andre Vasilki is not going on the ice. Can you come and be our second goalie? There’s two nets on the ice. They want a goalender in each one.” I am told that that is on a volunteer basis, which again, Ebug is probably a pretty cool job. Like I think these guys know that and are happy to come in, throw the gear on and skate around with some of the best players in the world. Like that’s kind of cool. Now, next season, which it sounds like things are still being ironed out, but every team will have a third goalie. That goalie will be employed full-time by the team. So, he will have a salary and he will also travel with the team. And this goalie, I don’t have the specifications in front of me, but will have to meet or at least not surpass like certain criteria. So, in other words, there will be a ceiling to his experience. Um, so you can’t just go find the best available goalie like there there are some limitations there because you can’t call a guy that retired last year to come be your your ebook. Yeah, that is correct, Ben. But yes, that is how it will work next season. So, this is all going to change. I think I did ask like is Kyle Conan our guy and it literally sounds like our staff is just focused on the game tomorrow. So they haven’t gotten that far yet. So we will see how that all plays out next season. Yeah. And it’s that whole process is kind of fascinating. It’s something that the the whole NHL is still kind of unpacking. Um, but uh the Ebug thing is is something that I I think both of us will be watching over the next several months and quite frankly the owners and management are are watching too because it is it is new in the NHL this new thing that they’re going to be unraveling. So we’ll see. But uh thank you Vance. That’s a very unique question. We appreciate all of your questions and we’re happy to answer those. Uh, with that, I think we can move on to uh, the plus minus segment after we give a little shout out to Penelopey Bourbon, who is our proud partner of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Whether you’re cheering at Benchmark International Arena or raising a glass at home like I enjoy doing, Penelope brings fans together. That’s one pour, one moment, one win at a time. And you can find Penelopey Bourbon at Publix or right here in the arena at Benchmark International Arena. Go Bolts. And uh as you can see, I am all of a sudden a very big fan of Penelopey Bourbon. And we are fans here at Into the Blue. So, thank you to Penelopey Bourbon for being the sponsor of Into the Blue and San Lighting. Penelopey Bourbon. I will be a big fan when I am not pregnant. I promise. That’s I feel like that’s a good reason to wait. Yeah, I think so. There. And with that, you start us off. Okay. You know what? A great time to drink Peneli bourbon, Charles, when it gets a little bit cooler outside. And uh my plus is that the weather is starting to get a little bit cooler. Hockey season is back and we’re starting to get a little bit of a Wisconsin fall feeling. Wow. And best of all, the Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series is oh so close. And I cannot wait for that. And uh with fall coming, obviously the NFL season is uh going well after a long lead in. My plus is uh speaking of Wisconsin, go Pack Go. And uh Aaron Rogers lost to the Green Bay Packers. So go Pack Go. Charles, what’s your plus? I was wondering where you were going with that. Was it the weather? Was it the You know, it’s got to trickle in a couple of things there. You know, it’s uh I’m feeling good on this Monday. Go Pack Go. That was a good buildup. Okay, my plus. Um, Ben, I’m giving a little teaser. We did two shoots this past week and I think the fans are going to love them. One, without giving too much away, is a shoot for Recharge. So, if you are a big fan, keep watching. If you haven’t watched Recharge, it is our like behind the scenes beautifully crafted show. You can watch it on YouTube every episode. Um we took JJ Moser who is obviously from Switzerland but in Switzerland when we visited visited him this summer can’t talk for both beginnings we realized how much of a Swiss German like there are so many cultures that he has grown up around. So we took him to a German restaurant called Mr. Dunderbox. Hopefully I’m pronouncing that correctly. And had him try some of the food, walk around. They had a bunch of interesting like packaged food for sale and it was magnificent. JJ Moser, great interview. Loves to do these kinds of things with us. Thank goodness. So that was really fun. That will be in an upcoming episode of Recharge. So stay tuned. Little teaser. And then last one, Ben, I am efering more like stories that can stand alone. And we shot part one of a story that uh focuses on Yonis Johansson, our backup goalender, and actually Kyle Conan, the Ebug, because Kyle Conan has a goalie painting mask business, and he has started painting Yonas Johansson’s helmets. So, you can probably guess where we’re going with this, but we’re going to take you behind the scenes of the design process, how Kyle Conan does it, and uh we’ll be putting out a piece hopefully soon. There’s no uh expected date, but I want you guys to be aware of that because shoot one that just happened at the arena with them discussing the design, I was mesmerized. Sounds fun. I can’t wait. I’m excited. Okay, your minus. All right. So, with the craziness of our quick move that we talked about right before the season began to a new house here uh just outside of Tampa, I still don’t know where everything goes in our new house. Like, uh whether it’s drawer locations, like closets, space, all of it. And then, right when I think everything is unpacked, I find a small box or a bag that was just filled with stuff during the move, you know, to get everything here. And I’m like, “Oh, no.” and and I open it and the bag is like one thing from the kitchen, one thing from the master bath. So I I’m having this realization. My minus is that this week I finally accepted that we will get fully unpacked and settled only it’s going to be by the year 2030. So that my minus is that uh I’ I’ve just accepted that this is going to be a multi-year process and that I’m going to continue to find these minute bags and boxes from the moving process for the next several years. So that’s my minus. Then we’re on the same page right now. My life like topics are Tampa Bay Lightning hockey, being pregnant, and I am moving. And I am also moving. I was really trying hard to think of a minus that didn’t pertain to one of those three things and it just wasn’t coming to me. So, Ben, along the lines of moving, you’ve heard me say we are shopping for everything in this new home that we bought. Um, and I keep running into seeing 10 things, like big furniture items, um, a new bedroom set, like big stuff, 10 things on a website online that like, oh, like I really like that and that and that. Like, one of those could work, but it’s a big purchase. So, I go to the store and you know, every single time I do this, it’s not in stock. I can’t go see it anywhere. I can’t find the swatch of wood that it’s made of. Like, yeah. And it I again I want to give myself credit that it’s not me just being like indecisive, but because it’s such a big purchase, it sounds like so depressing to either buy it and not really like it or buy it and then have to go through the process of sending it back. Yeah, that sounds worse. That sounds way worse. That is my minus right now. And with that being said, Ben, because this has happened so many times, we did just say, “All right, here we go.” And by You bought one. Yeah, we bought one. You pull the trigger. Oh, I can’t wait. This is going to be great. This is either going to be the greatest plus or minus of the year, maybe for the podcast moving forward. I can’t wait to hear how this goes. Gosh, it’s That’s exciting. It’s already stressing me out. So, that’s great. I’ll circle back on. Okay. So, it’s a minus today, but it could be a plus in the future that this has potential. We’ll see potentially. That’s a good minus. I like that. H. Okay, we’re about eight minutes over because we’re very chatty today. Ben, anything else we need to touch on before we say bye? I don’t think so. I, you know, hey, I think we both said last week we could not wait to get some wins under the uh under our belt and we got two in a row. And uh you know for all the fans that were saying it’s a matter of time. Good for you. You know it. Have faith people. This is a very good hockey team. Brandon Hegel said it best last night. You cannot wait for game 60. He can look back at this and and say you know everybody was panicking and we just had to trust the process. So trust the process. The Lightning are still trusting the process and we got a couple wins as a reward. So go Bolts. And we are very excited for next week. It is Monday. We’re recording this Monday morning. The team hops on a plane around 2:00 this afternoon to head to Nashville. So hopefully that will be another win that we can talk about later on. Ben, thank you so much. This was great. I’ll see you soon. Safe travel, Charles.
Tampa Bay Lightning reporters Gabby Shirley and Ben Pierce discuss Nikita Kucherov reaching 1,000 NHL points, the significance of this milestone and the impact it on the team. They discuss new players making an impact like Dominic James and Charle-Édouard D’Astous, the return of Zemgus Girgensons and the power play’s performance so far this season. They answer your questions about the Emergency Backup Goalie and morning skates.
