Darren Raddysh’s breakout with Lightning a top story of 2025-26 season 

The Tampa Bay Lightning look like potentially the strongest Stanley Cup contender in the Eastern Conference, and now over halfway through the season, they’ve taken a peculiar road to get there.

Victor Hedman, Erik Cernak and Ryan McDonagh have all missed considerable time with injuries, testing the team’s depth on defense and leaving them without several crucial pieces.

One of the players who has stepped up the most has been Darren Raddysh, who has unlocked new offensive upside with 39 points in 39 games of action this year. In just over half the games, he’s already set the career-high mark of 37 points he set in 73 contests a season ago.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed Raddysh’s ascension and how he’s helped steady an injury-plagued Tampa Bay blue line.

Tyler Yaremchuk: One comment in here about Darren Raddysh and the season he’s having on that Tampa Bay Lightning blue line… He’s not dethroning Cale Makar for the Norris, but I do think he’ll get some votes, and I just wanted to throw a few numbers out there for the type of season he’s having. Him and J.J. Moser, they might be one of the best pairings in the entire NHL, Hutts. They’ve played 422 minutes together at 5-on-5, and when those two guys are on the ice, the Tampa Bay Lightning are outscoring the opposition 26-4. Think about that.

Carter Hutton: It’s insane, and the best part is kind of out of nowhere in the sense of I don’t think anyone saw this coming. We talked about injuries… They’ve found a way to get it done. J.J. Moser was a great pickup, and you look at that trade for Utah, Sergachev going out and Moser coming in. I had a chance to play with him in Arizona; he was a really good player but green… Now this team becomes dangerous.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…