#AskBurnsie: What happens when 91 and 86 return?

TampaBayLightning.com beat writer Bryan Burns will answer readers' most intriguing questions in a regular mailbag feature. Be sure to tweet questions to @bburnsnhl and include the hashtag #AskBurnsie to have your question answered in a future mailbag. If your question wasn't answered today, resubmit it and we'll attempt to get it in for another edition. Have fun with your questions too; the more off-beat the query the better.

Does home ice matter anymore? The Bolts won being on the road for 2 months. I feel everyone has home ice this year being bubble free. (@SethKush)
I was curious about this myself, Seth. With arenas only around half full for the playoffs - the Lightning will welcome approximately 7,000 fans to AMALIE Arena for the First Round, about 37 percent capacity - you wonder if the raucous, hostile environments we've come to expect from the playoffs will be there this season.
And, if not, what does that mean for home-ice advantage?
So, I asked Lightning players and coaches their thoughts, and the answers were, well, mixed.
Alex Killorn thought there was still an advantage to owning home ice for a series. You get one more opportunity to sleep in your own bed. There's less potential travel involved. The home team always gets last change, so coaches have the ability to match lines, which can be critical to playoff success if you need, say, your shut down line to eliminate the opposition's best offensive line.
Pat Maroon, however, had another take, and as someone who's won the last two Stanley Cups, it feels like he might be a bit of an authority on the subject.
Maroon relished being the bad guy going into another team's arena, feeding off the hostility and using that to fuel him and his team to quiet the crowd and send them home unhappy.
Sometimes, being the home team means you're dealing with family and friends who've come to town for the festivities. There are numerous ticket requests. Players can be pulled in different directions that can be distracting from the task at hand.
On the road, it's just you and your teammates. Easier to close ranks and focus on the game.
Lightning head coach Jon Cooper recalled Maroon's Stanley Cup Final experience two years ago when asked whether home ice is really an advantage this season. Maroon's St. Louis Blues were up three games to two in the Cup Final versus Boston with Game 6 at Enterprise Center and a chance to close out the series at home.
The Blues were soundly beaten by the Bruins 5-1.
Three nights later, the Bruins hosted Game 7 at TD Garden.
The Blues scored twice in the first period and two more goals midway through the third to win 4-1 and lift the Cup for the first time in franchise history. And they did so in a notoriously difficult barn to win in.
Clearly, home ice didn't mean much in that series. And the Lightning have experienced it too. Cooper recalled he's won plenty of playoff series where his team had home-ice advantage and lost some too when they had it.
So, to answer your question: Does home ice matter anymore?
Who knows?

With Stamkos and Kucherov coming back who sits? I'm guessing ABB and Colton but I hate to see the 4th line lose him. And how do the lines work out if so? (@KNBurress)
Tweet from @DoubleOhMark: With an inevitable lack of time to reacclimated, do you think Cooper throws Kuch and Stammer straight back in with line configurations similar to last season's playoffs? And who is dropping out when they come back?
With an inevitable lack of time to reacclimate, do you think Cooper throws Kuch and Stammer straight back in with line configurations similar to last season's playoffs? And who is dropping out when they come back? (@DoubleOhMark)

Do you think Stamkos will go on the Kucherov and Point line or will they keep Palat on that line since they were amazing in last year playoffs? (@NoccoMannen)
Got a lot of questions all basically revolving around what the Lightning lineup will look like with Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos returning, so thought I would answer them all in one shot.
Assuming Kucherov and Stamkos are ready to go for Game 1 of the playoffs, and all indications are they will be, here's how I see the lines breaking down. I think Kucherov goes back on the top line along with Ondrej Palat and Brayden Point in a reprisal of the deadly combination that was so dynamic during Tampa Bay's run to the Stanley Cup in 2020. The chemistry between those three is undeniable, and it seems that would be the best way to re-acclimate Kucherov back to playoff game speed.
I think Stamkos goes on the second line along with Alex Killorn and Anthony Cirelli. Those two have been really good defensively for the Lightning this season and will get the assignment of shutting down opponents' top offensive lines at times. But they haven't been as big a threat offensively as in seasons past. Adding Stamkos to the mix should give them a little more punch. If nothing else, the threat of Stamkos should open things up a bit more for Killorn and Cirelli.
The third line of Yanni Gourde, Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman would be the same, but Goodrow is out indefinitely with an upper-body injury. His injury is probably the most concerning of all the Lightning have sustained over the final week of the regular season because it's the only one without a timetable for a return attached. Ross Colton got a turn on the third line in the regular season finale Monday at Florida. If Goodrow can't go in the playoff opener, I could see Colton getting a shot with that group as his tenacity and determination would play well with the group. Tyler Johnson might be in the mix there as well.
The fourth line would stay pretty much intact with Pat Maroon and Mathieu Joseph on the wings. If Goodrow can play, I think Johnson gets the first chance to center the fourth line. His playoff experience is invaluable and would think the coaching staff would want to start a veteran who's been through the playoff wars before over a rookie getting his first taste of the playoffs.
If Goodrow plays, I think Alex Barré-Boulet and Ross Colton come out of the lineup to make room for Kucherov and Stamkos. Colton could be re-inserted on the fourth line if that group struggles without him. He gave that line an identity when he was brought up from Syracuse, and, for a couple weeks, that line was the Bolts' main driver of the offense. Barre-Boulet could start later on and bring an injection of offensive skill if the scoring dries up.

How long do you think it'll take Kuch to get back up to full go when he returns to playing and do you believe the Lightning are the most talented team top to bottom when both he and Stammer return to the line up? (@jxtwj)
This question is one I'm eager to see answered myself.
We won't really know until a few games into the postseason.
At times, I feel like Bolts Nation is expecting too much of Kucherov, a player who won't even be five months removed from hip surgery if he suits up in game one of the playoffs. Remember last offseason when Brayden Point had two hip surgeries and still needed a few extra days at the start of the season to ready himself before returning in the fourth game of the regular season at Toronto? Point was a force. He scored two goals and had three points that night playing on a line with Stamkos and Kucherov. But he was still slowed a bit and wasn't back to full speed until after the NHL pause, his speed much more noticeable once the team reconvened for the restart training camp.
Kucherov will still be a force when he returns too.
How much of one remains to be seen.
We do know this however: Kucherov worked tirelessly to rehab from surgery and get himself back to a place where he could play and contribute in his typical manner in the postseason. He's been skating for over a month now and has been a full participant in practice for the past few weeks.
I think he's ready to be unleashed and will have a monster postseason. You know having to sit and watch this team play without him has been killing him inside, fueling his desire to get back into the lineup. I expect him to take full advantage once he does.
Will be interesting to watch what happens too if he doesn't have success right away. Kucherov notoriously has worn his emotions on his sleeve. In the past, if the game doesn't go the way he wants it too, it's affected his play. He seemed to turn a corner in that regard last postseason where coaches and players alike said Kucherov was one of the more vocal leaders on the team and his parroting of the coaches' message on the bench was a sign of growth in his game. Of course, Kucherov didn't have too many times last postseason when he didn't have success, his 27 assists and 34 points the most ever in a playoff season in Lightning history.
Coming off a major injury and being thrust into the meat grinder that is the playoffs for his first action in over seven months, there are certainly bound to be moments early where things don't go his way. How he responds will be important. The hope is a more mature Kucherov won't let negative plays continue to affect him later in the game.
As for whether the Lightning are the most talented team top to bottom with Kucherov and Stamkos in the lineup, I don't see how they wouldn't be. Remember, this is a team that won the Stanley Cup last season with virtually the same group, and did it without Stamkos for all but 2:47 of the postseason. The Lightning were one of the best teams in the NHL this regular season and got there with Kucherov sidelined for the duration. To have both back in the lineup and playing at the same time almost seems like a luxury at this point.
Heck, just think what the top power play could look like. Stamkos and Kucherov haven't been on a power play together since February 25, 2000, over 14 months. The Lightning power play struggled down the stretch this season without their two main weapons gone.
With them back, the power play suddenly becomes one of the top units in the NHL.

1. What is your opinion of Tom Wilson getting away with almost murder? 2. Did it hurt teams that have not had the chance to play other divisions because some teams look better, some worse than they really are? (@Boltzbang)
Hard to come to terms with Wilson skating away with only a $5,000 fine after putting the well-being of the Rangers' Artemi Panarin in serious jeopardy after slamming him to the ice, Panarin's head without its protective helmet, during a post-whistle scrum while Pat Maroon was given a one-game suspension for breaking away from the officials to go back after Florida's Brandon Montour in the next-to-last regular season contest.
It certainly feels like Wilson should have been punished more harshly, especially as a repeat offender. Wonder what the outcome would have been if Panarin's head hit the ice and he suffered a serious injury?
As for your second question, I think it's going to be really interesting to see what happens once we get to the semifinal round of the playoffs. The first two rounds will still be played entirely within the division, so we still won't see new opponents face off until at least the third round. You wonder how a team like, say, Toronto who's played in what is perceived to be a weaker, more wide-open division will fare when they run into a team like, say, the Lightning that's played in a more tight-checking division that is more in line with the style of game we'll see in the postseason.
Feels like only going up against teams in your own division might mask some weaknesses in a team's game that could have been exposed and potentially corrected were they able to play more than just seven other teams (or six in the case of the Maple Leafs).
For that reason, I think the team that comes out of the Central will be well-poised to hoist the Stanley Cup because they will know how to win those low-scoring, defensive battles that playoff hockey often becomes.

Someone said that any GM would take Tom Wilson on their team. Do you think JBB would take him? (@boltsbucsbabe)
If he could find some magical way to fit him in under the salary cap, I absolutely think he would take him.
I certainly would.
The hope is you could rein him in a bit and try to take some of that dangerous play out of his game. But intimidation is a big part of what makes Wilson so effective, so you don't want to limit him too much in that regard.
I'll answer your question with a question: If you're the Lightning, would you like to have Wilson on your roster for this First Round playoff series against the Panthers, particularly with the animosity we saw between the two teams in the final two regular season games?