It’d take a lot to sour back-to-back wins, especially in the fashion in which it was done -- a dominant win over the New York Islanders on Monday and then a late-game heroics win, one led by Nikita Kucherov’s goal with a little more than a minute remaining in the third period of a tied game over the Detroit Red Wings the next night -- but that’s where the Tampa Bay Lightning undoubtedly are on Wednesday courtesy of news from team vice president and general manager Steve Yzerman.
According to Yzerman, Lightning captain Steven Stamkos, injured in last night’s head-to-head with the Wings on a weird collision with Gustav Nyquist, will be out indefinitely with a torn lateral meniscus.
It’s worth noting that Stamkos did score a goal before exiting the game, of course, giving him 20 points in 17 games this season, tied for the third-most in the National Hockey League this year.
But this loss is a gigantic one for a Bolts group that sits in third place in the Atlantic Division by way of their 10-6-1 record through the first 17 games of the season. As the Lightning’s most impactful one-two punch, Stamkos has continued his ridiculous chemistry with the Bolts’ Nikita Kucherov, as the two have combined for a whopping 41 points through the first month-plus of the year.
The production of the 91-86 combo has undoubtedly helped lessen the blow of a Lightning roster that’s experienced some scoring issues from their forward corps, as Valtteri Filppula is the only other Tampa Bay forward not named Stamkos or Kucherov to be in double-digits with points.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper did not have a direct answer to the loss of No. 91 on Tuesday, as you would imagine, and instead rotated several different skaters with Kucherov and Vladdy Namestnikov.
"We are in the process of evaluating options for repair and rehabilitation and will release more information as it becomes available,” Yzerman said in a release.
If there’s one positive the Bolts can take from a prolonged Stamkos absence, it’s that they’ve been here before, whether it was when he broke his leg in Boston back in Nov. 2013 and missed 45 games, or when the Bolts were forced to go through their 2016 playoff run, which made it all the way to the seventh game of the third round, with Stamkos on the shelf for all but one game (their Game 7 loss).
But it comes with a negative, too, as the Lightning are already without Jonathan Drouin and Anton Stralman, two other key pieces of their top six and top four, and adding Stamkos to that list is huge.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010 and has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013. Ty is also the Boston Bruins beat writer for WEEI.com and can also be found in the New England Hockey Journal. Contact him on Twitter or send him an email at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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