Point caps training camp with strong scrimmage performance

Brayden Point is already known for his lethal speed.

But could he have gotten even faster during the pause?

The 24-year-old Tampa Bay Lightning center has been noticeably quicker than his teammates during the Bolts restart training camp, which isn't necessarily uncommon. He did place second at the 2018 NHL Fastest Skater Competition after all, losing out to Edmonton's Connor McDavid by just a tenth of a second.

During the Blue-White Scrimmage at AMALIE Arena Friday, the second and final official scrimmage of training camp, Point, playing for Team Blue, flew past Team White opposition for a pair of breakaway goals in Blue's 4-1 victory.

Lightning head coach Jon Cooper was asked after the scrimmage if Point got faster during the four months away from the rink.

"I would say he got healthy during the pause," Cooper answered. "He had his hips worked on the summer before, things that take a little time to heal. When he came back for the regular season, although he was fit to play, there's still some healing that continues to go, scar tissue and stuff like that. I think when you get a four-month break like that, he came back healthy. Clearly, during that four months, he worked on his explosiveness, his conditioning with our strength people and it's been outstanding so far."

Point opened scoring with 8:46 remaining in the first period after getting behind a pair of defensemen and beating White goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy at the net for a 1-0 Blue lead.

He doubled Blue's advantage a short while later, linemate Nikita Kucherov saucing a backhanded pass through the neutral zone and onto an onrushing Point streaking down the left wing. Point was even with defenders when he received the past but sped past to again score on the break.

"I think Pointer has had a great camp," Alex Killorn said. "He's been skating really well. Today, he manufactured two breakaways when he was skating beside guys who were on the same level as him, he just took off. Playing with a guy like that, it's great because you can just chip the puck and you know he's going to win a lot of those footraces."

Prospect defenseman Cal Foote beat Vasilevskiy with a shot early in the second period to extend Blue's lead to 3-0. Tyler Johnson made it 4-0 later in the period. Leading a 2-on-2 rush into the zone, Johnson's initial cross-ice pass attempt was disrupted by Ryan McDonagh, but he regathered the puck and quickly fired a shot past Vasilevskiy.

"I think today, it was more systems. It felt more game like," Point said. "The first game was kind of more of a scrimmage and we had the time to work on a little bit of the system stuff: neutral zone, D-zone, breakouts, stuff like that to kind of get back into the swing of things. Once you do that the game feels more normal and you're able to create some more chances."

The third period was the Curtis McElhinney show. After Ryan McDonagh broke up the Blue goalie's shutout bid by banking a shot off of him from the side of the net and below the goal line, McElhinney tightened up under immense pressure throughout the final stanza. On one White power play, McElhinney faced four shots in quick succession and comfortably turned aside all four, the pause seemingly doing little to disrupt his tracking of the puck.

In 90 minutes of action over two scrimmages, McElhinney allowed only one goal.

With their final scrimmage complete, the Lightning have just one more day of training camp remaining, that coming Sunday before leaving for the Toronto bubble later in the evening.

After playing against themselves for nearly two weeks, the Bolts are ready to take on an unfamiliar opponent and hit somebody that isn't a teammate for a change.

"We've covered pretty much everything, just about in-game situations when there's a little bit more pressure when it's a little more intense," Killorn said. "I think we've done a good job with the scrimmages of trying to imitate that. I don't think it'll ever be perfect, but with the time we've had, with the amount of people we've had, I think we've done a really good job of preparing ourselves."