Lightning ‘starting to find their way’ after sluggish start, Coburn says

Braydon Coburn thinks the real Tampa Bay Lightning have shown up in the past 2 1/2 weeks, and their success in that time is a sign of what's to come for the rest of this season.

The Lightning (8-5-2) have won seven of their past eight games (7-1-0) after going 1-4-2 in their first seven. They host the New York Rangers at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, TNT, TVAS).

"This team had way too much talent, experience, pedigree to have the start they had," Coburn said on this week's episode of the "NHL @TheRink" podcast.

Coburn, who joined the podcast with co-hosts Dan Rosen and Shawn P. Roarke on Wednesday, is a former NHL defenseman who played 350 games with Tampa Bay from 2015-20. He is now an analyst on its television broadcasts and a regular co-host of "The Block Party," a Lightning-specific podcast.

"I think sometimes with teams, especially veteran teams, it can take a little bit of time," Coburn said of the Lightning's ability to pick up their game after a slow start. "This team is significantly different than they've been in the past. There's a couple new pieces in the lineup and I think they're just starting to find their way. You can see with a Jon Cooper-type of system, sometimes it takes time for players to really grasp what's going on. But the hockey they've been playing the last 10 games has been fantastic."

However, forward Brayden Point is off to a slow start with just three goals in 15 games for Tampa Bay, including one in the past 11. Point scored the fourth-most goals in the NHL the previous three seasons with 139, an average of 46.3 per season. He's on pace for 16 this season.

Coburn addressed Point's slow start and pointed at the power play as being a culprit.

"The power play last year was clipping at around almost 26 percent; this year, they're down to 18 percent," Coburn said. "I was looking at the stats today and I had to go down to the 60th player in the League to find where Nikita Kucherov was in the League leaders. I'm used to seeing him on the first page or at the top; he has five power-play points. This is a guy that's had 99 power-play points over the last two seasons. Is it a point where we're worried about Brayden Point and are we worried about the power play? To a certain extent, but I also understand the skill and the world-class ability of these guys to figure out the problem and get the ship back on track.

“When they do, it's going to really help this team push themselves over the edge. They've had 10 one-goal games this season; you think about adding a power-play goal here and there, it really puts them in a different perspective as far as whether they're chasing the game or padding the lead. I think that part of their game will definitely show up here in the near future."

The conversation with Coburn wasn't limited to the Lightning; he also talked about the growth of young players across the NHL and expressed his admiration for what he's seeing from defenseman Matthew Schaefer, the New York Islanders’ 18-year-old rookie.

Coburn said part of Schaefer's game with his speed and ability to recover from mistakes reminds him of Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman.

"'Heddy' is a player that is able to push the boundaries of play sometimes and there will be mistakes he makes, but because of all those attributes that he has, the intangibles, his recoveries are fantastic," Coburn said. "I see a lot of that in Schaefer."

In addition, the podcast features conversations about the upstart Anaheim Ducks and their sustainability, the Colorado Avalanche and if they're the best team in the League, and if there is room on the Canadian Olympic team for both Macklin Celebrini (San Jose Sharks) and Connor Bedard (Chicago Blackhawks).

The "NHL @TheRink" podcast is free and listeners can subscribe on all podcast platforms. It is also available on NHL.com/multimedia/podcasts and the NHL app.