Prior to their game against the St. Louis Blues the Tampa Bay Lightning announced that they had recalled forward Gage Goncalves from the Syracuse Crunch. With Brayden Point’s status in doubt for the game, the Lightning were down to ten healthy forwards.
In four games with the Crunch this season, Goncalves has four points, all assists, bringing his career AHL total to 149 points (43 goals, 106 assists) in 216 games. He had a slight delay to the start of the season as he was sidelined by an upper-body injury suffered during training camp.
This is the second time in his career that the 23-year-old has been recalled to the NHL, following a call-up in January. He appeared in two games for the Lightning without recording a point before being re-assigned to Syracuse. His stint for this recall will be determined by the health of Point who left the Bolts most recent game after just six shifts.
Considered one of the Lightning’s top prospects (we had him ranked 6th in the latest Top 25 Under 25) Goncalves follows the typical mold of prospects in that he can be trusted up and down the ice. He is a skilled playmaker who has a slick one-timer that he should probably deploy a little more on the ice.
During his two games with the Lightning last year he was credited with one scoring chance (and it was a high-danger one) during his 19:55 of ice time. He was teamed up with Conor Sheary and Tyler Motte for the majority of his time on the ice, and will likely fill a similar bottom-six role if he does get into the line-up tonight.
It is likely that Point could be a game-time decision, and that Goncalves’ recall was just precautionary. One of the advantages to having a little cap space to work with is that the Bolt’s can make recalls like this prior to placing anyone on injured reserve.
Update:
Per Gabby Shirley, Goncalves was on the third line for the morning skate with Conor Geekie and Cam Atkinson.
