"Very excited with those guys coming back, Stamkos and Kucherov," said McDonagh, who also missed the final two games with an upper-body injury but was a full participant Thursday. "They've worked extremely hard to be as prepared as they can. I think they're just anxious to get out there, help us in certain situations all over the ice and, especially for Kucherov's sake, he hasn't played hockey in a long time. That guy's passion for the game is pretty incredible. We're anxious to have them back here and thankful we get a few days here to really get some good team practices in and work on some different things. In the end, those guys are elite players and know what they need to do, and they've been working hard on their own to get prepared for hopefully a long playoff run."
The only absence from Thursday's practice was Barclay Goodrow, who suffered an upper-body injury in the penultimate regular season game May 8. Goodrow is out indefinitely, and it seems the Lightning are planning on not having him for at least the start of the postseason.
"There's been a plan all along for guys," Hedman said. "Whoever's going to get the nod to start the first game's got to be ready to go. I can only talk for myself, but it's exciting to be out there and see everyone pretty much ready to go except Barclay. Guys are eager to get going and we had some really good pace today during special teams practice and when everyone was going together. It's exciting times, and obviously we have that feeling of last season with us too. We have a big group that went through that together, so we know what it takes and we know what we need to do come playoff time. Everything is set aside, it's about the team and we've got to play the right way. The coaches have done a good job of putting together the pre-scouts on our opponent, where we can exploit them, what we can and cannot do. We're super excited."
