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Lightning enters Capitals matchup donning “lucky” nicknames and jerseys

The locker room was decorated with dark green and gold name plates and special jerseys for St. Patrick’s Day.
 
Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy (88), with the nickname Big Cat on his back, for warmups.
Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy (88), with the nickname Big Cat on his back, for warmups.
Published March 16, 2019|Updated March 17, 2019

TAMPA – The Lightning got into the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day a little early as its locker room was decorated with dark green and gold nameplates and green jerseys.

But it wasn’t the typical names that donned each player’s name plate like normal – each one had a lucky nickname. Some were more obscure than others, but still fun nonetheless.

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Mikhail Sergachev’s stall was decorated with the name “Sugar,” the ‘S’ being Superman’s logo. Ryan McDonagh wore his “MacTruck” nickname while Dan Girardi had “G$” above his stall.

Andrei Vasilevskiy went with his typical “Big Cat” nickname while Steven Stamkos’ name plate was decorated with “Hammertime.”

One of the more interesting nicknames in the room was Yanni Gourde’s “Greyhound.”

He wouldn’t elaborate on what the nickname was for or where it necessarily came from, but he said it was something Hedman started after Gourde got called-up his first year.

Related: River O'Green: Bob Buckhorn's shamrock leg-acy

The Lightning players donned their nicknames on the back of St. Patrick Day-themed jerseys they wore during warm-ups.

The green plaid jerseys were decked out in spirit with shamrocks and gold numbers on the arms of both sleeves. The numbers on the back were outlined in gold with green shamrocks taking up most of the white interior of the number.

The jerseys are being auctioned at tampabaylightning.com/jerseyauction to benefit the Lightning Foundation.

Here’s a complete list of the nicknames:

Ryan Callahan “Tony”

Erik Černák “Drago”

Anthony Cirelli “Rocko”

Braydon Coburn “Coby”

Louis Domingue “Sweet Lou”

Adam Erne “Big Ern”

Tyler Johnson “Johnny”

Mathieu Joseph “Joe”

Victor Hedman “Heddy”

Alex Killorn “Killer”

Nikita Kucherov “Kuuuch”

J.T. Miller “Billy”

Danick Martel “Marty”

Ondřej Palát “Pally”

Cedric Paquette “Frank”

Brayden Point “Pointer”

Jan Rutta “Rutts”

Anton Strålman “Strals”

Contact Mari Faiello at mfaiello@tampabay.com. Follow @faiello_mari.