In their last regular-season game, the Tampa Bay Lightning did something that is believed to be an NHL first.
On Monday, the Lightning deployed Daniel Walcott, Mathieu Joseph and Gemel Smith for the opening face-off, thought to be first all-Black starting forward line in the history of the NHL. Despite increased efforts by the NHL in recent years to add to diversity within hockey, only 3% of the league’s players are Black.
Walcott was making his NHL debut, Smith was in his fifth game of the season and Joseph has been in the lineup for all 56 of Tampa Bay’s games in 2020-21. The trio did not find out they were going to be starting together until just minutes before the puck was dropped against the Florida Panthers.
“First of all, they’re all in the NHL for a reason,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said following Tampa’s 4-0 loss to Florida. “They deserve to be here and have worked their tails off. To have them all together, they had a little chemistry. Moving forward in the league, you hope it isn’t a story anymore and will be the norm. It was a pretty cool moment for all those guys.”
Despite losing the game, Joseph said it was “great” starting alongside Walcott and Smith. “A step in the right direction,” he said. “It was fun to have some progress and it was great to see and I was glad I was part of it … Any players of color in this league want to showcase to our families or other people of color. I thank the coaching staff for doing this.”
In addition to the team’s three Black players, Tampa Bay also has two Black coaches: video coach Nigel Kirwan and goaltending coach Frantz Jean.
They’ll all have their work cut out for them moving forward as the defending champion Lightning will take on the Panthers in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs starting later this week. Courtesy of their win against their intra-state rivals on Monday, the Panthers will have home-ice advantage for the series against Tampa Bay.
Winners of seven in a row entering the series, the Panthers (37-14-5) will look to continue a season where they had the best point percentage, best home record and best road record in team history. “It’s a fresh start. It’s a whole new ballgame,” said Florida coach Joel Quenneville. “We should be excited about the way the season went for us in a lot of ways.”
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