puck possession<\/a>, Hagel isn\u2019t surprised to see the offensive production early this season.<\/p>\n\u201cThose are the type of players you want on your team, a player that’s going to accept their role and be really good at it. I think that’s what he’s done. Over the last couple of years, he’s been put in that defensive role and he’s done one heck of a job at it. And then this year, every time he’s got that opportunity, you can tell he’s worked on his offensive side,\u201d Hagel said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2026 \u201cHe’s always had that offensive side to him, but he wanted to have a role on this team, and he really took that to heart and ran with it. Those are the type of guys you want on your team. You’re not going to find many of those in the league, and to have him on our team, I can’t say enough good things about him as a player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opportunity and offense<\/p>\n
Holmberg\u2019s four-point night led the Lightning to their latest win. Cirelli and Hagel each finished with three-point nights of their own, and that line combination is likely to share the ice again on Saturday in Nashville.<\/p>\n
Holmberg\u2019s fit with Hagel and Cirelli was natural, helped by the similarities in their approach to every shift.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hagel compared the Swedish forward\u2019s play style to Cirelli\u2019s blend of defense and offense\u2014those similarities were evident on the 4-1 goal, when Holmberg prevented a breakout by forcing a turnover and his line scored mere seconds later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when Tony came into the league, he had that defensive mindset. He’s always had that offensive skill, and Tony’s really brought that out obviously over the last few years. And I think Holmy\u2019s done the exact same thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it’s showing he’s always had it. That just doesn’t pop out of nowhere. He’s getting more confident. He\u2019s a Swiss Army knife. You ask him to do whatever, and he’s gonna do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lightning signed Holmberg to a two-year deal on the first day of free agency last July. He went on to establish career highs in games played (70), goals (11), points (22) and time on ice per game (13:21) during his first season with the team in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
He quickly became a mainstay on a shutdown line with Yanni Gourde and Zemgus Girgensons a season ago before being injured late in the season, and his absence was felt during the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n
Since returning for training camp, he\u2019s back to full form.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve just kept going from last season,\u201d Holmberg said. \u201cIt was pretty good last season too, so it\u2019s just keep going with that game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gourde continues to recover from offseason surgery and Girgensons is currently out day-to-day with a lower-body injury, so Holmberg finds himself in a new spot alongside Hagel and Cirelli.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s too early to tell after just one game whether it\u2019s a longterm fit. But the\u00a0trio is off to quite the start together, and similar chances for Holmberg could be on the way as soon as Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has the puck a lot because it’s really hard to take it away from him,\u201d Cooper said of Holmberg, \u201cbut he puts himself in these types of spots. Things are going in for him, but he’s making his own breaks. At some point when you’re going to do that, they are going to go in. He’s a prototypical 200-foot player, both ends of the ice, and I’m glad. He deserved this to get these points.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pontus Holmberg\u2019s career night might have opened up another option near the top of the Tampa Bay Lightning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-443328","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\/443328","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=443328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}