Adding injury to insult after a 2-1 overtime loss at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes yesterday, the Tampa Bay Lightning learned today that defenceman Erik Cernak may be out “weeks… with the upper body injury he sustained in that game.
For a Lightning team that is already rather shallow on the right side of their blue line, the loss of Cernak is significant. It’s significant not just because Cernak eats lots of minutes, but also because he has turned into an incredibly effective player over the last few seasons. Consider that, among Bolts skaters who have played at least 150 five-on-five minutes this season, only Anthony Cirelli has a higher on-ice shot attempt share than Cernak (Natural Stat Trick). And, among the Lightning’s top four defenders, Cernak ranks second in five-on-five expected goal share (NST).
With his steady hand and reliable playing style, Cernak has established himself as one of Jon Cooper’s go-to guys on the blue line. That’s not half bad for a player who many viewed as a throw-in when he was acquired in the trade that sent Ben Bishop to the Los Angeles Kings back in 2017. With the benefit of hindsight, that trade might go down as one of the best in Lightning history. Turning the crease over to the best goaltender in the world and landing a top-four defender in the process isn’t a bad day at the office; it’s a big reason that the Bolts can call themselves back-to-back Stanley Cup champions.
The challenge for the Lightning now is how they go about replacing those very valuable Cernak minutes. They’re lucky that Zach Bogosian is preparing to return to the lineup after a month out of the lineup with an injury of his own. While the gap in quality between Cernak and Bogosian is not insignificant, Tampa Bay can’t afford to be all that choosy these days. If Bogosian can provide serviceable minutes as he did during his first tenure with the team, that should help them to weather this Cernak-less storm.
With a run of high-quality teams on the horizon in their schedule, the task for Tampa Bay is tall. Nothing is going to come easy on this quest for a three-peat.
As always, thanks for reading.