While everyone, and by everyone, we mean us, was worried about the health of a couple of forwards, it turns out that the big blow to the roster will hit an already stitched together blue line for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yes, Brayden Point is likely to miss a game or three, but Nikita Kucherov appears to be healthy enough to play. So, the Lightning are, for the most part, okay up front. Unfortunately, it appears they will be without the services of Erik Cernak for the foreseeable future, as the veteran defenseman was given week-to-week status by his head coach on Monday.
With their healthy blueline count at six, the Lightning needed a reinforcement. They dipped into the Syracuse Crunch well one more time and recalled Max Groshev, who will be the fourth player to make his NHL debut for the Lightning this season if he gets into a game (so many rookie cards to collect next season). The 2020 third-round pick by Tampa Bay has logged 140 games in the AHL since coming over from Russia in 2023-24.
Most of those games were spent as a fast, excellent skating forward who put up 30 points (10 goals, 20 assists) in 67 games as a rookie with the Crunch. However, late last season, following a ten-game suspension for racially insensitive language, he converted to defense and injected a different dimension into the Lightning’s prospect pool.
It’s been a long time, a very long time since the Lightning had a defender who could outskate forwards with the puck, and Groshev has shown that he hasn’t forgotten how to drive the net just because he’s labeled as a defenseman. He has six assists in 17 games for the Crunch this year while generating 36 shots on net.
There is a fine line between fearless and reckless with the puck, and Groshev has wandered back-and-forth over that line at times this season. Learning how to play defense at the AHL level is tough enough for players that have done it their entire life, so to try it after being a forward for the first 20 or so years of his time as a hockey player is even harder. So, there have been some turnovers and ill-advised attempts, but for the most part, he’s played well.
The recall will give him a chance, at the very least, to step up his game as he practices against NHL-caliber forwards. Even if he doesn’t get into a game, it’ll be a good learning experience for him, and will build on what he experienced in training camp. Those lessons he can take back to Syracuse and work on to become even better with the hopes of earning a full-time spot next season.
One of the positives of his non-traditional path to being a NHL defenseman is that he could play more of a roving role for the team, especially if the Lightning have him play with an 11/7 deployment. Positions are just arbitrary constructs created by humans anyway. What’s to stop a player from rotating from defense to offense based on how the puck is bouncing on the ice at any given time? Could Coach Cooper line him up with a couple of forwards for one shift, and then a defenseman on the next one? He sure can, there are literally no rules against that.
A fast, puck-carrying defenseman adds an element to the Lightning’s attack that they really don’t have. To a degree, Charle-Edouard D’Astous plays that way, but he doesn’t have quite the speed Groshev has. In open ice, there are few in the league that can challenge the 23-year-old once he gets the skates moving, so it will be fun to see how he operates at the NHL level, even if it’s just for a few shifts.