Lightning defenseman Nick Perbix will be the first to admit he wasn’t the player he wanted to be last season.
“There were a couple tough patches, and you can call a spade a spade,” the 26-year-old said Friday after practice. “I knew it. ... But I think a big part of it for me has been between the ears. I came into this year just kind of with the mindset of, ‘I’m here. I belong here.‘ ”
As the Lightning exit the three-day holiday break with the first game of a back-to-back at home Saturday night against the Rangers, Perbix has found his confidence, and his all-around game has taken a major step forward.
“His growth has been his ability to turn the page — 100%,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “I don’t know any other way to put it, other than the fact that he used to, at times, have an insecurity about him when he made a mistake and then it would compound. Now he makes a mistake, he goes out there and fights through it.”
When Perbix first cracked the Lightning lineup two seasons ago, he earned the coaches' trust with his quiet and calm style of play. He adjusted well to the NHL game, playing just 14 games in the AHL before joining the Lightning, and he earned a two-year deal .
“My first year, it was just all new, and I didn’t really know what was going on,” Perbix said. “But ignorance was bliss in that case, where I just kind of went out, played hockey.
“And then last year, I realized where I was, and I didn’t want to leave. There’s kind of two routes you can go there, you can go, ‘I don’t want to leave and ... I’m playing super well,’ or it can get to you a little bit at times. Last year, it got to me.”
Perbix said he would worry that one mistake would lead to losing his spot in the lineup. This season, the Lightning had a surplus of right-shot defensemen going into camp, and with newcomer left-shot defenseman J.J. Moser playing on the right, Perbix was rotating in and out with Darren Raddysh on the third defenseman pairing.
“Being in and out of the lineup, in a weird way, it kind of took pressure off me,” Perbix said. “Last year at times I was afraid of getting scratched. And then once it happened, you realize, ‘OK, the world’s not coming to an end.' It’s just another day as long as you keep building. So that’s kind of been my focus this year, just building forward for whenever I’m back in the lineup.”
This season, Perbix has recaptured the reliability with the puck. He didn’t make a lot of mistakes last season, but when he did, they seemed to give the opponent scoring chances.
“There’s some guys that take it and they’ll bury their head and kick the can, and then there’s some guys that say, ‘Alright, well, now I’ve got to dig in and fight for my spot,’ and Perby has done that,” Cooper said. “That’s just stuff I don’t know if we would have seen out of Perby two years ago, and we’re seeing it now.”
Perbix also has found chemistry with left-shot defenseman Emil Lilleberg. And with the Lightning sticking with just six defensemen since Moser got hurt — he is likely out until late February with a lower-body injury — it shows their confidence in that pairing.
“He’s very calm, he moves, he skates very well, he’s very good at deking,” Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said. “Lilly is getting up here a lot, too. Our coaches have been harping on us to get up in the play and get up in the rush. You can tell they’re getting more comfortable and making the reads, who’s going and who’s not. That’s just all you can ask for in a D-pair, create that chemistry of reading off one another without even talking. It’s been fun to watch them.”
Perbix was a forward growing up — “not a good one, a third-line, barely-scraping-for-ice-time forward,” he said — until he moved to defenseman when he reached bantams. And this year he’s been more comfortable jumping in the play and creating scoring chances for himself.
He already has four goals in 27 games — he only scored twice in 77 games last season and had five goals in 69 games in 2022-23 — with three coming over his last 12. He’s also a plus-9 over that stretch.
His breakaway goal against the Blues in St. Louis — Perbix opened scoring with a toe-drag around defenseman Matthew Kessel, then pulled the puck back skating across the front of the goal before tucking it in past goaltender Jordan Binnington — showed Perbix’s ability to make plays in the offensive zone.
And while Perbix always has had a strong shot, he is now displaying an efficient one. His 11.4-percent shooting percentage is in the 97th percentile among NHL defensemen.
“This year was like a reset, a clean slate, and you can just go from there,” Perbix said. “It’s a new year. It wasn’t a new identity, but it kind of was because it’s a new team. Everything, all the dynamics are slightly different but at the same time, I’m still here. They have the confidence in me and I’m still holding it. So just knowing that is nice.”
