The Tampa Bay Lightning may have won their last two matches against the Washington Capitals, but they are happy that they don’t see them on the schedule for the rest of the regular season. On November 8th they beat the Caps, 3-2, but lost Ryan McDonagh, Victor Hedman, and Dominic James. Hedman and McDonagh haven’t played since. Then, on Saturday, the Lightning won, 5-3, but it cost them Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov.
As of publication of this post, the status of Point and Kucherov isn’t known. Coach Jon Cooper didn’t have a status update following the game and the Lightning had the day off on Sunday. No transactions or recalls were announced by the team on Sunday, so, at the earliest, it’ll be Monday morning until there may be an update.
Kucherov left early in the second period after a hit from Tom Wilson led to the Lightning forward making contact with the official. It looked like his head may have made contact with the shoulder and Kucherov was visibly shaken up as he skated off the ice slowly and had his head down on the bench before heading down the tunnel.
Point’s injury is a little more mysterious. It was reported he went down the tunnel in the second period at some point, but nothing seemed apparent on his final two shifts of the period. He came out and skated one shift on the power play before ending his night.
There is a chance that both were taken out for cautionary purposes, especially if the concussion spotters made the call on Kucherov when the game was 4-1. The best case scenario is that both are good to go after a day off and are back in the line-up against Philadelphia. The Lightning offense was just getting to full health with the return of Nick Paul, and it would be an unfortunate time for them to lose two top-line players at the same time.
The importance of Nikita Kucherov to the Lightning offense is obvious. He’s leading the team with 22 points and when he is on the ice, everything flows through him. Nobody gets more touches than he does, and even if he’s having an off night opposing teams have to respect his ability so he draws a healthy amount of attention.
It might not be the greatest season for the Lightning power play, but Kucherov still has a tremendous influence on their success:
While Point is having a horrendous season in terms of goal scoring, he still has 11 points in 21 games. More importantly, no one carries the puck into the offensive zone more than Point. He is a one-man entry machine which helps the Lightning get set up at even strength and on the power play. Without him, the Bolts will likely have to employ more of a dump-and-chase style of entries into the zone.
As their roster stands, the Lightning could go with an 11/7 line-up if Point and Kucherov are out short term. Jack Finley would cycle back into the rotation and Jake Guentzel would join Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli on the top line. Some combination of Yanni Gourde, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Gage Goncalves, and Dominic James would be the second line and the remaining players would constitute the rest of the line-up. Good thing Nick Paul is healthy or else things would be extremely dire.
Defensively, they do have seven healthy players, even with Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh, and Max Crozier on injured reserve. J.J. Moser and Erik Cernak would probably be the top pairing, but Charle-Edouard D’Astous and Emil Lilleberg would be logging huge minutes as well. It’s not ideal, but the Lightning will have to find a way to play through it.
The bigger questions arise if Kucherov and Point are out long term. The Lightning had the depth to handle injuries to James, Nick Paul, Pontus Holmberg, and Anthony Cirelli. This would be a little different. With the exception of Cirelli, the other players that missed games were bottom-six forwards for the most part. Now the team would have to replace two players that are on the ice for 20 minutes a night each.
If history is an indicator, Coach Cooper will replace those minutes with players already on the roster and then use any call-ups to take the spots of those that moved up in depth chart. However, it could be a chance for the team to see what a couple of their prospects can do with top-six minutes.
The two players that come to mind immediately are Conor Geekie and Jakob Pelletier. Geekie, who has 13 points (3 goals, 10 assists) in 13 games since being assigned to Syracuse could be inserted into the 2C role and given a chance to show the organization he can handle the added responsibility. Pelletier, who has 18 points (6 goals, 12 assists) in 15 games, could find a spot in the middle-six on the wing. Both players also have experience on the Crunch’s power play, and could give Coach Cooper some options on the second unit for the Lightning.
Dylan Duke, Mitchell Chaffee, and Wojciech Stachowiak could also be options, especially if the team decides to fill the roster spots from the bottom of the line-up and push players like Zemgus Girgensons and Jack Finley into bigger roles than what they’ve been doing so far this year.
It’s not the best timing for the injuries either as the Lightning have four games this week, including a back-to-back on Friday and Saturday. Calgary might be the easiest of their opponents, but there is no such thing as an easy game in today’s NHL. With the Eastern Conference as jammed up as it is at the moment, the team can’t afford to throw any points away at this point.
Credit is due to the players on the ice and the coaching staff for not only surviving the rash of injuries over the last couple of weeks, but thriving. Despite having two of their top defenders out, they’ve gone 4-2 since losing Hedman and McDonagh with wins over Florida and New Jersey. Can they survive the loss of two of their top forwards in addition to the defensemen? Only time will tell.
