Notebook: Bolts hoping for repeat performance from top line

The Tampa Bay Lightning open round robin play Monday against the Washington Capitals from Toronto's Scotiabank Arena, thus officially starting their 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs and bid to hoist what promises to be the most uniquely-earned Stanley Cup in NHL history.

When the Bolts face off against the Caps, they'll likely be powered by their top line trio of Ondrej Palat, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov, which has come together in the absence of captain Steven Stamkos and, at least early in its tenure, proven to be one of the more dynamic lines in the league.

In Wednesday's 5-0 exhibition victory over the Florida Panthers, the Palat-Point-Kucherov line combined for four goals and played a part in all five tallies. The group collected 10 of the Bolts' 14 total points from the contest and, at times, appeared to be unstoppable when playing together.

"Those guys are smart. It's so easy to play with them," Kucherov, who scored a pair of goals in a three-point effort, said about playing with Palat and Point following the win. "We just kind of feel each other out there right away. We just try to have fun and finally play some games instead of practicing."

Point and Kucherov have been paired together for a couple seasons now, and their chemistry has been on full display pretty much since they stepped back on the ice together for the beginning of the Bolts' restart training camp.

But the left wing in the trio has been a revolving door. Carter Verhaeghe got the first chance to play with Point and Kucherov at the start of camp with Stamkos continuing to recover from a lower-body injury sustained during Phase 2 of the NHL's Return to Play Plan. Alex Killorn got a turn toward the end of the Bolts' first Blue-White Scrimmage, and that combination showed promise and stuck for a few practices following.

Toward the end of camp, however, Palat was given an opportunity to show how his skills - smart, two-way player willing to go into the corners and win battles to get the puck to Point and Kucherov - might be effective on the top line.

The early returns have been extremely encouraging, evidenced by their play in the exhibition. Point scored the Lightning's first two goals in the first period, the opening goal a combination play that made it seem like the trio had been skating together for years. Kucherov forced a turnover below the goal line and, knowing exactly where Palat was on the ice, backhanded a pass blindly behind his back toward the left wing. Working a two-on-one down low, Palat slipped a soft pass into the path of Point to take Florida defenseman Mike Matheson out of the picture, and Point cut toward the far post to backhand a shot past Panthers' goalie Sergei Bobrovsky a little less than 14 minutes into the competition, part of a four-point game for the center.

Kucherov scored the first of his two goals on an early second period power play and added an insurance marker midway through the third. Palat provided three assists in the game.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm just standing there and watching them and my head is spinning when they're skating around and buzzing," Palat said before the Bolts' practice Sunday. "I'm trying to just go into the corners, win battles for them and get them the puck. But it's pretty easy to play with them."

Where the Lightning put Stamkos once he returns is a good problem to have. For now, at least, it seems the Lightning have a high-end top line that can go toe-to-toe with any in the league.

STAMKOS TO SIT OUT OPENER: Sounds more and more like Lightning captain Steven Stamkos will not play in Monday's playoff opener for the Bolts.
That shouldn't be surprising, however, as Lightning head coach Jon Cooper maintained all along it would be unlikely to see Stamkos in all three round robin games.

Stamkos didn't practice Saturday after training in three-straight sessions with his teammates in Toronto Monday, Tuesday and Friday.

"We never really in any of our plans had him playing in this first game, so I'm not sure any of that's really changed," Cooper answered when asked if Stamkos could play in the round robin opener.

HEDMAN STILL HEDMAN: Norris Trophy finalist Victor Hedman joined his teammates in the Toronto bubble Friday evening and practiced with the Lightning for the first time in Toronto Saturday after staying behind in Tampa for personal reasons.

Hedman said he skated every day while in Tampa, working out with Lightning director of high performance and strength coach Mark Lambert.

"I pretty much continued Phase 3," Hedman said. "…Nothing changed for me except I was by myself. It was good. It was obviously very tough, but it was good workouts with Mark and I'm happy to be back here with the guys."

Nothing changed with Hedman's dominance on the ice either while away from the team according to Cooper.

"He hasn't really skipped a beat," Cooper said of Hedman's play during Saturday's practice.

OPENING DAY THOUGHTS: The first day of the Stanley Cup Playoffs saw plenty of surprises as the qualifying round, best-of-five series started.

Montreal defeated Pittsburgh 3-2 in overtime, the 12 seed in the Eastern Conference upsetting the fifth-seed Penguins, a team many thought would thrive this postseason with the chance to heal during the four-month pause.

Another 12 seed shocked a five seed in the West, as Chicago blitzed the Edmonton Oilers 6-4.

Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said none of the results Saturday necessarily surprised him, but he did have one major takeaway from the opening games.

"I would say the surprise was you better be ready in the first five minutes of the game because there were some thunderous hits, I would say from the Carolina-Rangers game all the way up, regardless if there's fans or not," Cooper said. "We'd all love to have fans in the building and they energize you as a team, but it looks like guys are pretty energized and into this because I thought the play right from the outset, especially the physicality, was at an extremely high level."