When Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy still says he’d play every game if he was allowed, it’s difficult to tell exactly how much he’s joking.
Vasilevskiy is the workhorse of his era in terms of goaltenders. Take away two seasons ago, when he missed the first 20 games due to back surgery, and he has averaged 62 starts dating to 2021-22. And no one will forget the three-year stretch in which he played 71 postseason games, winning 48 of them in helping the Lightning to three straight Stanley Cup finals.
But Vasilevskiy is now 31, and he’s gradually adapted his training routine, learning the value of rest. He’ll be the first to tell you that a goaltender’s work is no walk in the park, and the older you get, physical ailments continue to creep up.
But he jokes that it would be fun to play all 82.
“I’m not 20 years old anymore, so I need a little bit more here and there, just to, you know, to fill up my tank a little bit,” Vasilevskiy said following Sunday’s practice at Benchmark International Arena. “But still, I will play 82 games. I mean, I want to, to be honest. I want one season when I play 82 games.
“Maybe before my last season in the league I’ll ask to play 82 games.”
A month into the season, Vasilevskiy is playing his best hockey. After going winless in his first five starts (0-3-2), he enters Wednesday’s home game against the Rangers 5-1-0 in his last six, posting a 2.00 goals-against average and .923 save percentage.
Vasilevskiy’s best game of the stretch might have been Saturday’s 3-2 win over Washington when he held off the Capitals in the third period, including two big back-to-back saves on Alex Ovechkin and Jakob Chychrun in the final two minutes.
“I think Vasy has gone the way our team’s gone,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “And when we struggled early, I can’t sit here and say Vasy struggled. We left him out there. But I thought as our team’s game improved, you know, Vas, he’s been good for us.
“It’s the saves in big moments when you need them, and that’s what Vas has done for us. So you can see his numbers are starting to creep into the area they should be and usually are, and that’s a good sign.”
Vasilevskiy rarely practiced during training camp as he dealt with an undisclosed physical issue. He’s going to have to manage some ailments as he gets older and figuring out how is a part of his growing process. But he feels like whatever he was going through in the preseason is behind him.
“I feel like every professional athlete is dealing with some sort of injury and all these minor scratches,” Vasilevskiy said. “So obviously, in my case too, it probably will never get away at this point while I’m still playing hockey. So at this point, I just can manage it. But at least it doesn’t bother me too much during the game now.”
Even when Vasilevskiy was struggling early in the season, he knew he was playing well enough to get a win and “stayed calm” even as the losses piled up. But the Lightning’s recent surge certainly helps.
“It boosts my confidence, our confidence overall,” he said. “… But I don’t think we are playing our greatest hockey so far.”
The Lightning have worked to get more days off for Vasilevskiy, and Cooper has said that this season’s compacted schedule due to the Olympic break will make backup goaltenders more important.
And they have leaned on backup Jonas Johansson, and not just because the schedule included three early back-to-backs. Last week, the Lightning started Johansson for a Monday afternoon road game in Utah to give Vasilevskiy extra time off after playing the previous Saturday night and with the team starting a three-game road trip.
For Vasilevskiy, finding that balance between getting his work in and the right times to rest is a constant work in progress.
“If I’m not playing, just like, it’s just too boring to me,” he said. “Like, I don’t know what to do. And I feel there’s days when, yeah, it’s good to practice. But for example, after the game, I’m usually so exhausted, and I sleep only for a few hours. I struggle to sleep after the game, so that obviously doesn’t help, so sometimes my body feels (bad).”
“I feel like my body is tired, but my brain is just still spinning,” he said about winding down after games. “The adrenaline’s pumping, so I can’t let it calm down like I know it should. …
“I still feel that the goalie is kind of doing a high-intensity job. It’s all 60 or even more minutes on the ice doing all these … stupid splits and stuff. So obviously, it doesn’t really help the body to feel better after the game. But again, I’ve kind of gotten used to it over the last 11 years doing it. So at this point, I can’t complain.”
The Cleveland Browns are off to a 2-7 start, and fans have called for head coach Kevin Stefanski to be fired.
However, it is unlikely that Stefanski will be fired this season. Meanwhile, Browns insider Mary Kay Cabot revealed that he is likely to return in 2026. General manager Andrew Berry is also expected back, according to Cabot.
“The truth is, we have no idea what they are actually really thinking,” Cabot said on 92.3 The Fan. “I know going into it, Jimmy Haslam has indicated, I believe at the owner’s meetings, that he wasn’t holding Kevin and Andrew’s feet to the fire because this was the year they were trying to figure out what they had in one of these rookie quarterbacks. Or, at least at that point, they knew it was going to be one rookie quarterback.
“I don’t think there was this sense of ‘win or else’ this season. It was about fact-finding and figuring out what they had and helping them inform what to do in the 2026 draft. I just don’t think this was a year where the expectations were super, crazy high. But, still, you have to see certain things from your football team. … I do think that Jimmy believes in continuity and alignment in his organization. And, he knows that this is a challenging year with all of the rookies. In a perfect world, he’s going to want to try to maintain that continuity. And, see if they can’t get this thing on the right track with a new quarterback they will probably draft in 2026.
Cabot believes Haslam still has confidence in Berry and Stefanski, and both could very well return next season with a new quarterback.
Cleveland has struggled this season as the Browns are off to a 2-7 start and coming off a disappointing 27-20 road loss to the New York Jets.
Following the loss, Stefanski made it clear that the goal and focus are on turning it around and finding ways to win.
“Obviously frustrated, disappointed on that result yesterday,” Stefanski said on Monday. “And we’re spending time right now watching it with the players and trying to learn from that. You know, hard to win on the road, and certainly hard when you do some of the things we did in that ball game. But we’re committed to this thing, and we’ll just find ways to get better in all areas and we’ll go from there. Big division game at our place this week.”
Stefanski believes the Browns have to be better in all three phases of the game. Despite that being an issue all season, he has full confidence in his group.
The Browns will host the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday in a game Cleveland is a 7.5-point underdog.
Although Stefanski hasn’t been fired, and there are no signs he will be, his name has come up for other jobs.
The New York Giants fired Brian Daboll on Monday after a loss to the Chicago Bears. Following Daboll’s firing, NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky links Stefanski to the Giants.
“The No. 1 name that I would pay attention to if I were the Giants is what happens in Cleveland with Kevin Stefanski,” Orlovsky said on Monday on NFL Live. “If I could hand-pick a guy, it would be Stefanski. He’s an outstanding coach, two-time Coach of the Year.
“I understand people in Cleveland are like, ‘This guy can’t coach’. But there’s a lot of empirical data that would say otherwise. … I would pay attention to see what’s going on in Cleveland.”
Stefanski has been the Browns’ head coach since 2020 and has led them to the playoffs twice.