Lightning victory marred by loss of three forwards to leg injuries

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
March 9, 2017

TAMPA, Fla. – Just as the Lightning appear to have things heading in the right direction, Thursday’s 4-1 victory against the Minnesota Wild left them feeling bewildered.

Nikita Kucherov’s three-point night, his fourth of three-or-more points in the past eight games while reaching the 30-goal mark for the second-consecutive season, was overshadowed by the loss of three players to potentially long-term injuries. Tyler Johnson, Vladislav Namestnikov and Cedric Paquette all had to be helped off the ice after suffering left-leg related injuries during the game.

That left Tampa Bay with nine forwards on the bench – which counts converted defenseman Luke Witkowski – for most of the third period.

When any of the three players might return is unknown, though it doesn’t sound promising.

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”I would say it looked like . . . it doesn’t sound encouraging for any of them,’’ Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “But, it’s not my job, I don’t know exactly. I think everybody saw the replay on Ceddy’s, that didn’t look good at all. But we’ll see (Friday), they all have lower body injuries. And if we got one of them (ready) for Saturday, that would be a blessing. That’s where we are at, but we’ll see what happens.’’

Things were rolling along for the Lightning against the top team in the Western Conference as a power play goal from Kucherov at 8:53 and a Victor Hedman wrist shot from the left circle at 11:01 of the first period gave Tampa Bay a quick 2-0 lead.

Then at the 3:18 mark of the second period, Namestnikov was skating up ice with Zach Parise and the two got tangled up in the neutral zone close to the boards. As Namestnikov tried to get up, he got his left leg twisted and fell to the ice, where he stayed, face down, for several moments before he was able to get to his skates. But Namestnikov was unable to skate under his own power and required help to get back to the locker room.

The Lighting were able to shake that off when Andrej Sustr’s second goal of the season at 4:37 of the second period that put Tampa Bay comfortably in control, for the most part.

But at the 8:04 mark of the period, Johnson crumbled to the ice when he was checked in to the boards by Nino Neiderreiter as the Minnesota forward appeared to drive his knee in to the side of Johnson’s left knee in the corner.

Johnson stayed down for several moments while being attended to by medical trainer Tom Mulligan, And for the second time in the game, a Lightning forward required help to leave the ice and head back to the trainer’s room, though he was spotted leaving the arena under his own power after the game.

”It’s never fun to see or watch guys in pain being carried off like that,’’ defenseman Victor Hedman said.

Despite the loss of the team’s current No. 1 and No. 3 center, Tampa Bay carried momentum along in to the third period, holding the three-goal lead. The Lightning continued to push along in the third and still did not look in much danger of losing control of the game.

But then Lightning struck for the third time in the game when Paquette, who had lost his stick, grabbed Nieddereiter from behind and pulled him to the ice. As the pair were falling back, Paquette had the blade of his left skate dig in to the ice, forcing the leg to twist awkwardly. The play looked similar to the situation involving Anton Stralman last season when he suffered a broken leg against the New York Islanders late in the season.

Despite the loss of another player in the game, the Lightning hung on despite giving up 18 shots on goal in the final period with Andrei Vasilevskiy stopping 17 of them and 32 for the game.

”I think we had some good things going. I think everybody was just kind of focused on the game,’’ Stralman said of the mood after the injuries. “We didn’t want to change anything. It’s always tough when you lose players and you have to switch around the rotation and all that stuff, but I think we just moved on and we just played together. Everybody was fighting for each other and it was a good team effort.’’

Maintaining that focus in the swirling storm around them proved critical. As the Wild pushed, breaking Vasilevskiy’s shutout bid with 3:58 remaining in the game, Tampa Bay held its ground and withstood the Wild surge and improved to 9-2-3 in the past 16 games, keeping pace in the push for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference standings.

”We are still a long way away,’’ Cooper said. “The good thing is we’ve been pointing here. The more teams you can knock behind you, the less you have to worry about ahead of you about winning. You start limiting the number of teams you can put your sights on. The teams in the division, the teams you’re trying to catch, you’ve got to win those games. We’ve got a huge one here Saturday (against Florida). We can’t hang our hat and sit here and say, ‘Well we gained three points from two quality playoff teams.’ That’s behind us now and we’ve got to focus on getting points from Florida.’’

Postgame notes: It was a milestone night for D Victor Hedman who set a new career high with his 44th assist and 57th point while tying his career high with his 13th goal. Hedman also moved in to a tie for seventh place on the all-time franchise scoring list, even with Fredrik Modin with 286 career points. “Well I play with good players,’’ Hedman said of reaching the milestones. “I obviously work a lot throughout the year and throughout the summer to always try to get my game to another level. I want to be good in both ends of the ice. For me, it’s all about getting up into the plays and creating offense, but at the same time playing good defensively and joining the rush whenever I have the opportunity. Today was another one of those days where you want to be a difference maker out there, especially in these big games. You want to contribute and it was obviously nice to get it going there in the first.’’ … C Greg McKegg and RW J.T. Brown were both scratched. … RW Yanni Gourde recorded his second career point with an assist on Nikita Kucherov’s empty net goal. … LW Ondrej Palat recorded his 199th career points.

My three stars:
1.Lightning G Andrei Vasilevskiy – Came within three minutes of a shutout, stopped 32 shots

2.Lightning RW Nikita Kucherov – Two goals, assist, plus-2

3.Lightning D Victor Hedman – Goal, assist, plus-2

Postgame reaction from Victor Hedman, Anton Stralman and Brayden Point

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