Lightning Round: ABB goes back to Syracuse

Yesterday, the Tampa Bay Lightning reassigned forward Alex Barre-Boulet to the Syracuse Crunch. Barre-Boulet has struggled in his latest games and lost the last roster spot to Boris Katchouk after his recovery from injury. If you’re wondering, like myself initially, why he didn’t have to go through waivers this time, check out yesterday’s article by Geo [Raw Charge]

Because the Lightning were the only team to claim Barre-Boulet when the Kraken waived him, he counts as having cleared waivers. The Lightning had the option to put him on the roster or send him to the Crunch right away. With putting him on the roster, the waiver exemption clock started ticking. If the Lightning kept him on the roster for 30 days or had him play in 10 games, then he would require waivers again to be sent to the AHL. Barre-Boulet was coming up on that 30 day mark in just another couple days. By sending him down now, if the Lightning need to recall him later in the season, the team could bring him up for a single day and then be able to send him back down without requiring waivers again.

As the Lightning’s beat reporter Joe Smith confirmed it’s not a paper transaction and Alex Barre-Boulet is actually going to play for the Syracuse Crunch in the next games. Barre-Boulet spent two full seasons in Syracuse, recording 136 (69+67) points in 144 regular season games and winning the Willie Marshall Award as an AHL’s leading goal scorer in his first season with the team.

Meanwhile, the Syracuse Crunch were heavily defeated by the Cleveland Monsters on Friday night. Gabriel Fortier scored the only goal for the Crunch.

Barre-Bouler wasn’t able to play with the Crunch in this game and will join the team later. Max Lagace is in his second game in the AHL this season since getting injured in October.

Hockey News

Two games were played in the NHL last night. The Seattle Kraken were smashed 7-1 by the Colorado Avalanche. The Kraken are so far 4-12-1 in their inaugural season with the worst goals against per game rate in the league.

In the meantime, the Avalanche extended their head coach Jared Bednar for two more years.

The league suspended San Jose Sharks forward Kevin Labanc for one game for slew-footing Tyler Bozak

The Edmonton Oilers placed defencemen Darnell Nurse and Slater Koekkoek on injured reserve and added goaltender Mike Smite to LTIR.

The Ottawa Senators are expected to return to practice for the first time since their games were postponed due to COVID-19 outbreak within the team.