Alex Barre-Boulet Should Continue Seeing Action with Tampa Bay Lightning Top Line

Alex Barre-Boulet looks to have finally gotten an opportunity for now and is beginning to take advantage of it with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Barre-Boulet has gotten the chance the skate on the Lightning’s top line over the last two and half games with Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point and the line has probably been the Lightning’s best during their time playing together. Because of this, Barre-Boulet looks like has extended his chance to play with these two high-end forwards.

Barrre-Boulet’s skill has always been a strength of his and the catch has been that he needs to play with other highly skilled players to have an impact. That opportunity has not been there in the past with all of the depth the Lightning have had in recent years. With a top line spot in flux this year, Barre-Boulet has gotten the opportunity and looks like he is going to get the chance to run with it.

Since Barre-Boulet has joined Point and Kucherov, the Lightning have gone 1-1-1 with nine goals in their last three games. Saturday night saw Barre-Boulet collect his first goal of the season on a great pass from Kucherov.

Despite losing to Toronto on Saturday night, one of the biggest takeaways was that Barre-Boulet got on the scoresheet while working with this top line. Barre-Boulet has not looked out of place at all since working with this trio and because he has done well enough to this point, there is no reason to not keep him on this line and see what he can do.

It looks as though Jon Cooper will look to keep this trio together ahead of Tuesday night’s game against Carolina. This line skated together at practice on Monday and should be expected to work together again despite the rest of the forward lines undergoing a bit of a shuffle.

A bit of a curveball will be thrown the Lightning’s way once Tyler Motte is healthy and able to return to the lineup as somebody will have to come out for Motte. Injuries may make the choice easy but if Barre-Boulet becomes a difficult player to take out of the lineup then that will be a welcomed problem for the Lightning.