We had our first real barn-burner of the Stanley Cup Final as the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens traded goals to get us a 2-2 game and our first overtime. Josh Anderson started the scoring, finishing a beautiful feed from Nick Suzuki, while Pat Maroon tied the game with just over six minutes left in the third period on a beautiful feed from Mathieu Joseph.

It was a game of real dominating flow as the Bolts really dominated the first period as the Habs took over in the second. Tampa Bay got the better of the play overall, as Andrei Vasilevskiy had to make just 17 saves through 60 minutes.

A fantastic second effort from Anderson on a rush with Cole Caufield gave Montreal the 3-2 win and another breath of life in the series. It wasn't Montreal's best game yet, but it is honestly the blueprint for how they need to beat Tampa Bay. Limiting chances would go a long way as well, but forcing turnovers and relying on Price is what they need to keep doing.

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Tragic news from the NHL came across early Monday morning as Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Matiss Kivlenieks died in a very unfortunate accident on July 4^th. The initial report was that he slipped and hit his head on concrete while escaping a hot tub during a fireworks malfunction, but an autopsy revealed the fireworks to be the direct culprit. The cause of death was chest trauma inflicted by a fireworks blast.

There really isn't much to expand upon here. It was a terrible accident and because of that, a 24-year-old with his whole life ahead of him is now gone. Just an awful reminder of how fragile life is. Much love to the Kivlenieks family, his friends, and the extended Columbus Blue Jackets organization and fans. Things like this just shouldn't happen so when they do, it's just an unbelievable shock. Nothing much more to say.  

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An interesting name from recent Montreal Canadiens history is now an unrestricted free agent in Charles Hudon.

Hudon was a player I thought could bring some fantasy relevance every year. He generally has high shot rates – basically the same shot attempt rate as John Tavares from 2017-20 – and put up 242 hits in 125 regular season NHL games despite playing just 13 minutes a night. I thought there was a genuine chance of him putting up 200-shot/100-hit seasons, which he's capable of with enough ice time. Of course, none of that worked out and he's spent more time in the AHL than the NHL the last few years.

On top of the shot rate and the physicality, he's at least passable defensively. I think there's something here, and that's backed up by his 54 goals in 102 AHL games over the last two years. Maybe he just ends up a Quad-A player who is too good for the AHL but can't translate that talent to the NHL. It happens sometimes. I do think a team takes a chance on him, though, and he's worth keeping an eye on. Even in a depth role, he can be valuable because of the hits he brings. But it is an uphill climb for him from here on out.

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A significant hire from the Buffalo Sabres:

Interesting hire by BUF: Sam Ventura from PIT as its VP of Hockey Strategy and Research. Jason Nightingale will be Assistant Director of Amateur Scouting, moving forward.

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) July 5, 2021

For those unfamiliar with Sam Ventura, he has a long history of being in the public analytics sphere and is very well-regarded. What is notable is that he comes from Pittsburgh, where he was hired in 2015 first a consultant, before being promoted to bigger titles. Why is that important? Well, what did Pittsburgh do between 2009-2015, and what did they do after 2015? Post hoc and all that, but it was a very clear delineating point.  

I think where Mr. Ventura can help the most is in two areas. First off is not losing a Jack Eichel trade. This almost has to be paramount, particularly when looking what happened with Ryan O'Reilly. They traded a perennial Selke contender – a bona fide 1C – for a bag of pucks. Doing anything similar to that with Eichel will set this franchise back a decade, on top of the decade they've already been at the bottom of the barrel. Stat Sam will know how to get value out of an Eichel deal.

The second part, and I think this is where he became valuable for Buffalo, is identifying depth value. It is not hard to imagine Ventura being a big reason Pittsburgh brough in pieces like Nick Bonino, Justin Schultz, and Carl Hagelin. All guys were key depth pieces to their back-to-back Cup wins. Yes, obviously, they never get there without Crosby/Malkin/Letang; teams need all-stars to win. But it seems obvious there were some depth pieces added to the bottom-half of the roster that pushed them over the top.

Buffalo is nowhere near the top, let alone getting over the top. But when I look back at the failing Sabres teams of the last few years, it hasn't really been the top of the roster that has been a problem (2021 maybe being an exception). It is the fact that they've had depth that has done absolutely nothing. If Eichel is traded, depth won't matter as this team would truly be in rebuild mode. But whenever they do turn things around, having an experienced guy like Ventura can only help.

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The Wild signed Nick Bjugstad to a one-year, $900k extension. He only has 43 points in his last 108 NHL games so he needs to re-establish himself to earn a longer contract at this point. He may not be very relevant in the fantasy game playing under 12 minutes a night, either.

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Over my last several Ramblings, I have been taking one question from each team to discuss. Today we continue with the Rangers and Wild.

Should we jump on Alexis Lafrenière's inevitable ADP decline?

It really depends on the league, but there is a good chance that Lafrenière was drafted inside the top-150 picks in your leagues this year, or inside 12 rounds of a 12-teamer. His 21 points in 56 games certainly did not return value on that pick. It seems likely his ADP is much lower in September, so the question is: how far should we let him drop?

There are good signs here. He was earning over 15 minutes a night over his final 10 games of the season, compared to 13:36 over his first 46 games. Now, there's a new coach in town, but that isn't a big concern. As long as he keeps playing well, he shouldn't be back down to 13 minutes a night.

The ice time will be a concern, though. It is hard seeing him play 18 minutes a night with both Artemi Panarin and Chris Kreider as left wingers. If I'm not mistaken, they did move Laffy to the right side at times, so that's something at least. But if he's truly third on the LW depth chart, high levels of TOI are an issue.

There is also the power play. The good news is that both Laffy and Ryan Strome play relatively the same position, if on different PP units. Should the Rangers not bring back Strome, it opens up a PP1 role that the second-year player can step into.

Ice time and PP role may be a concern, but I'm not worried about his scoring. He paced for 18 goals in an 82-game season, doing so playing 13:53 a night. This was also his shot map, from Hockey Viz:

At the least, he was able to shoot largely from good scoring areas. Again, I am not worried about his scoring.

We should also note that he posted 43 hits in 56 games. At 16 minutes a night, he could be near a hit per game. That will play in multi-cat leagues.

In all, I will probably be buying as long as Laffy in around pick-200 or later, and I think he will be.

What is Minnesota's centre depth chart?

Seven months ago, some people had Marco Rossi pencilled in as the 1C for Minnesota. I wasn't sure about that, and we obviously never saw what the result would be due to his COVID issues. That led to Joel Eriksson-Ek being their 1C kind of by default, though that's just because he ended up with 17 minutes a game of TOI. There were times Victor Rask or Nick Bonino were de-facto top-line centres.

The fact that Eriksson Ek didn't play 19-20 minutes a night on a team so bereft of centre talent would seem do indicate that Rossi does have a chance at being the 1C in October. My problem with this is that with all the centres playing roughly 14-17 minutes a night, they want to spread the ice time around. No forward played more than Kaprizov at 18:18 a night. It would seem foolish to assume that Rossi will just step into the NHL, on this team, with the way they spread ice time, and plays 18 minutes a night. I mean, maybe he does, as Kaprizov just did that. But Rossi is years younger without the same pro experience.

For that reason, it seems very likely the team goes into the season with Eriksson Ek as the top-line centre. But that isn't to say Rossi can't have a great year playing 16 minutes a night with Kaprizov or Fiala. He certainly can. I am just not sure the ice time will be there to give us a massive first-year performance.