Gionta, who lives in Rochester, New York, attends around 20 games each month between the NHL and AHL across the Northeastern region of teams. He tracks prospects and creates reports to follow every pro player in the region, including those who could become trade targets and players approaching free agency.<\/p>\n
He sees plenty of Lightning AHL prospects on the Syracuse Crunch roster since they\u2019re so close. With the Buffalo Sabres and their AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans, also nearby, he catches frequent viewings of players facing those teams as well.<\/p>\n
Gionta also travels outside New York to catch teams in other states across the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to fit the puzzle in each month and see throughout the Northeast and fit in all those teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
He joined the Bolts in 2019, just before back-to-back Stanley Cups and some major trade acquisitions.<\/p>\n
Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow and Brandon Hagel all came to mind when Gionta was asked of recent additions that stand out in his mind. He also pointed to Pat Maroon and Kevin Shattenkirk.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not always the top six, top line guys. Sometimes you need those, but sometimes it’s tweaking around the edges to find what suits and what makes you a deeper team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blake Coleman was one player Gionta got to see often in his region while the former played for the New Jersey Devils. Gionta called that pickup a no-brainer with Coleman\u2019s contract and production, and the trade acquisition helped the team win two Stanley Cups.<\/p>\n
\u201cColeman, we thought he could be a potential top six, top nine guy and give us 20 goals. And if he’s playing a significant role for that money, that’s huge value. And then obviously there\u2019s Hagel. We all loved him, but him coming in and becoming the player he is, that\u2019s icing on the cake, right? We saw something in him. He\u2019s a Bolt, right? And sure enough, that’s exactly what we got plus some.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is there one thing all of those players share? In Gionta\u2019s eyes, it\u2019s a \u201chigh-end compete level\u201d, a trait all players must possess in order to be considered by the Lightning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don’t have the ability to compete, whether it’s one-on-one or whatever the situation, I think that’s something that stands out right away. That, \u2018Hey, that guy competes like someone that we want. That guy’s going to help you win championships based on how he competes.\u2019 And there’s different ways of competing, right? It’s not always just physically. It’s you’re still winning your battle, how are you winning the puck? How are you competing to help us win? And guys do it differently, but that is something that’s highly valued within the entire scouting world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The once undrafted Gionta carved out a pro hockey career of nearly 800 games. Now he’s built a new path\u2014one he never saw coming\u2014in Tampa Bay\u2019s scouting department.<\/p>\n
His playing days are over. But his drive to keep winning? That hasn\u2019t lightened at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re watching hockey for a living, and you’re in an organization that wants to compete every year and that is competing every year to win, and that drives that competitiveness,\u201d Gionta said. \u201cWhile I’m not on the ice anymore, you\u2019re still highly competitive in the regard that you want to try to put the best team on the ice to help those guys succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gionta, who lives in Rochester, New York, attends around 20 games each month between the NHL and AHL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-348939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}