Lightning Round: When Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov are expected to return from injury

Let’s start off with the bad news, namely that we have an update on the upper-body injury to Brayden Point. He’s gone from “out indefinitely” to “out 4-6 weeks.” The four-week marker for his injury is Saturday, December 18th, with the six-week marker on New Year’s Day. Meaning there’s a 50/50 chance we get Point back by Christmas, the date directly in between those two.

The timeline for the lower-body injury to Nikita Kucherov was initially 8-10 weeks following his surgery on October 27th, meaning the eight weeks from then would be December 22nd and 10 weeks would be January 5th, 2022. Essentially, Point and Kucherov are on very similar timelines to return, with Kucherov who had a tougher injury getting a four-week head start.

Looking at the calendar, the optimistic side of the diagnosis would mean the Tampa Bay Lightning need to play 12-14 games after last night before they can expect their big guns back. So far, Steven Stamkos has stepped onto the top line and done a brilliant job. Speaking of, here is my recap of the team’s 4-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers where Stamkos had three points. [Raw Charge]

“Stamkos had a vintage night back as the first line center, taking on the other team’s top line, getting kinda kicked in the shot share, but somehow finding a way to score a critical goal at a crucial time and go home with a three-point night. The Bolts needed someone to pick them up and carry them forward, and Stamkos is doing that by taking on those tough minutes and still finding ways to produce.”

The team had a lot to say about Stamkos, but also about fellow veterans Corey Perry and Zach Bogosian, the former of which finally scored his first goal of the season and the latter took home a goal and two points in the win after a great performance. [NHL dot com]

““The amazing thing is [Perry] wasn’t getting frustrated,” Stamkos said. “When you’re a goal scorer and you’re not scoring, if the chances are there, you’re somewhat happy. You’re still not happy with it not going in, but that’s the sign that it’s going to come. He’s had a ton of scoring chances. We know eventually with the player that has the set of hands that he does around the net they’re eventually going to go in.”

Speaking of Bogosian, he and his wife Bianca are hosting the team for Thanksgiving. That should be a fun atmosphere!

Mikhail Sergachev played his 300th career NHL regular season game last night, he has a total of 369 games played when you include all 69 of his career playoff games.

In organization news, it looks like ECHL/AHL goalie Alex Dubeau has left North American for the German DEL.

After initially skirting the request, the Chicago team are going to meet Kyle Beach and John Doe 2 in order to agree on a settlement for their lawsuits against the team. The questions from earlier regarding counselling were part of these two lawsuits.

If you’ve been following the news in the USHL, the governing body have sent executives to the Omaha Lancers to steward the team back on track. Unfortunately, one of the stewards appointed has previous ties to sexual abuser Tom Adrahtas. People within the team expressed concern over this appointment and it is now in review.

We have an update on Connor McDavid’s creepy house! Spoiler alert: it’s still mostly devoid of color and life, but has a dog.