Morning skate update vs. Nashville

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
January 5, 2017

TAMPA, Fla. – It was a light load around the Lightning locker room on Thursday as Tampa Bay prepares to face the Nashville Predators (7:30 p.m. Fox Sports Sun, 970-AM) with a very optional morning skate.

In fact it was so light on the ice, the goaltenders outnumbered the skaters by a 3-to-1 ratio.

But that’s not a big surprise as the standard situation is when the team has a full practice the day before a game, the game-day skate is optional. And with back-to-back games this weekend, rest is a weapon.

There were, however, a few updates on who might be playing.

The only skater on the ice was {mprestriction ids=”1,2″} Ryan Callahan, who had a scheduled off day on Wednesday to try and avoid any more flare ups with his hop. Callahan was on the ice for about 20 minutes before coming off and is expected to play tonight.

Cedric Paquette, who has missed six games, will be back in the lineup as well.

Among the goaltenders, Ben Bishop was on the ice going through some drills as he continues to recover from a lower body injury suffered on Dec. 20. His timeline remains on track, which was 3-4 weeks from the time of the injury and the expectation is he will be able to return when the team heads to California to start a six-game trip later in the month.

Adam Wilcox, called up from Syracuse of the American Hockey League on Wednesday, was also on the ice and will dress in his first NHL game as the backup to Andrei Vasilevskiy tonight.

Head coach Jon Cooper indicated that this swap was primarily made to ensure that Kristers Gudlevskis, who has been practicing with the team since Bishop’s injury, gets in some playing time this weekend with the Crunch. But he didn’t rule out Wilcox seeing some action as Tampa Bay has two more sets of back-to-back games in the next week – Saturday and Sunday in Philadelphia and Pittsburght, then Thursday and Friday next week against Buffalo and Columbus.

These were the Lightning lines from practice on Wednesday (though Bournival has since been sent back to Syracuse)

Lines at #tblightning practice
Palat-Johnson-Kucherov
Namestnikov-Filppula-Drouin
Killorn-Peca-Erne
Bournival-Paquette-Brown

— Erik Erlendsson (@Erik_Erlendsson) January 4, 2017

Here were the morning lines for Nashville, with James Neal absent as he was given the morning off:

#Preds morning skate lines:

Forsberg-Johansen-Fiala
Watson-Fisher-Sissons
Jarnkrok-Wilson-Arvidsson
Zolnierczyk-Ribeiro-Smith#NSHvsTBL

— Thomas Willis (@TomAWillis) January 5, 2017

Jon Cooper pregame media session

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