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Whenever you think things are shaping up for the Tampa Bay Lightning to get back on track and put their first positive run of the regular season together, it seems as if something else goes wrong.
Add a significant injury to forward Ondrej Palat to the list of 2015-16 woes, as the team announced on Monday that the top-six winger will miss the next 3-to-5 weeks with a lower-body injury.
The loss of Palat, injured in a collision-and-fall with Minnesota’s Nino Niederreiter on Sat. night, will be yet another obstacle that the Lightning are forced to overcome a month into the year.
“He’s an extremely valuable player to our team, plays in all situations,… Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said of Palat following Monday’s practice. “Our depth will be tested now.…
Palat, one of Tampa’s alternate captains, has skated in the Bolts’ top-six all season, and was most recently shifted off the Triplets Line and up to the top line with Steven Stamkos and Valtteri Filppula.
“It’s an opportunity for other people to play important minutes, because [Ondrej] Palat plays all the hard and all the important minutes,… Cooper noted. “He’s a leader in our locker room. He may not be the guy that’s vocal all the time, but his work ethic and way he plays the game -- he’s as honest a player as you’re going to find in this league.…
In 16 games, the 24-year-old has recorded two goals and seven points while averaging 18:12 per game, while Tampa Bay has a 5-1-1 record on the year when Palat records at least one point in a game.
The silver lining in all of this is that the club did see the return of winger Jonathan Drouin on Sat. night, and that he’s an easy plug-and-play into the club’s top six in Palat’s absence. Of course, Drouin cannot replace the shorthanded role that Palat has played with the club since his arrival. It’s tough to imagine any player coming into the mix and instantly replacing Palat’s 18-minute nights.
Fortunately for Cooper’s club, the Lightning will begin a three-game homestand against rather bad teams -- the Buffalo Sabres, Calgary Flames, and Florida Panthers -- on Tuesday.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.