The NHL roster freeze may be in effect but it doesn’t prevent recalls, it would seem The Bolts have brought in another forward in Tanner Richard. From the team:
The Tampa Bay Lightning have recalled center Tanner Richard (rih-SHARD) from the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League today, vice president and general manager Steve Yzerman announced.
Richard, 6-foot, 195 pounds, has played in 23 games with Syracuse this season, recording 11 assists. He leads all Crunch forwards for assists. Richard has played in 166 career AHL games, all with Syracuse, notching 15 goals and 69 points. He registered career highs in 2014-15 with 13 goals, 38 points and a plus-12 rating.
A native of Jona, Switzerland, Richard was drafted by the Lightning in the third round, 71st overall, at the 2012 NHL Draft.
If Richard plays tonight, he will be the second Lightning prospect to make his NHL debut htis week (Yanni Gourde being the first). Also of disturbing note is that the Syracuse Crunch are down to 9 forwards to go with 9 defensemen.
Including injured players, the Lightning carry 15 members of the Tampacuse development pipeline (products/alumni from the Syracuse Crunch / AHL who made it to Tampa Bay). That would be 16 players if Joel Vermin was included on the current NHL roster (he’s not — he’s out 6-8 weeks with an injury). Those Tampacuse alumni are: Mike Angelidis, Mike Blunden J.T. Brown, Gourde, Kristers Gudlevskis, Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn, Nikita Kucherov, Jonathan Marchessault, Vladislav Namestnikov, Nikita Nesterov, Ondrej Palat, Cedric Paquette, Richard and Andej Sustr .
Mind you, it’s due to injuries to Johnson, Palat and Paquette which has partly contributed to recalls of other Crunch players. Also of the list, only Blunden and Marchessault didn’t make their NHL debut with the Lightning.
