“It was a great shot,” teammate Corey Perry said of the goal. “We just need more from everybody, and it was nice to see him get that one.”
Offense from outside the top six could help the Lightning win Game 6 at the Bell Centre on Friday, and the team knows it. James has skated alongside Oliver Bjorkstrand and Gage Goncalves recently, and the youngest forward of the trio hopes more offense is coming.
“You dream about it,” James said of his first playoff goal. “It's just so tough that they scored the shift after and we were out there, so it kind of rains on the parade a little bit. But it's obviously good for personal confidence, and I need to do a lot more of that.”
James, 23, is fresh off his first NHL regular season, scoring seven goals and 15 points in 43 games.
The former 6th-round draft pick signed with Tampa Bay this summer as a free agent and was playing in the best league in the world shortly after.
The goal was just his latest mark on the team after some time away from the ice—James required surgery for a lower-body injury in March and missed the final 24 games of the regular season before returning for Game 1 against Montreal.
He’s been taking notes every game as he adapts to the amplified focus required by the postseason.
“It's the little things. It's not always having the puck. You can go out there and make an impact without the puck, and I think that's just it for me,” James said of what he’s learned in his first playoffs. “It's not always going to be making a play. It's going to be getting above a guy or holding someone up when they're trying to forecheck on our defense. I take pride in that. I took two months off, obviously, and I'm still getting my game back, and I feel as though I'm trending in the right direction.”
