In last night’s game against the Colorado Avalanche, Nick Paul played sparingly in the second period and then not at all in the third period. Following the game, Coach Jon Cooper did not have an update on his status, and following today’s practice, it appears things are still a little murky.
Neither Paul nor Tanner Jeannot were on the ice for practice in Tampa and now it looks like they both might miss Saturday’s game against the Florida Panthers.
The odd thing with both players is that there wasn’t an “a-ha” moment when there was an apparent injury. Both skated to the bench at the end of their final shifts without any obvious injury before missing the rest of the their respective games.
Prior to the game against Colorado, Coach Cooper was vague about whatever was ailing Jeannot, stating that the injury wasn’t the same one that had kept him out for more than 10 games in January, but there was a “correlation” between the two. According to the information from Mr. Encina in his tweets, Jeannot might be out a little longer than Paul.
If that is the case, chances are the Lightning will call up a player from the Syracuse Crunch. As to which player that might be, it will depend on how Coach Cooper swizzles the second line. For most of the third period it was Mikey Eyssimont who jumped up with Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli, but over the final few shits it was Brayden Point who played on the Best Friends line.
Paul is a bit of a streaky player and draws some heat from fans when he goes through one of his scoring slumps, but has put together a solid, middle-six type season at regular strength while more than filling in for Alex Killorn’s production on the power play.
Hopefully, Paul is back shortly and Coach Cooper doesn’t have to worry about his second line, but if that’s not the case than Eyssimont or Alex Barré-Boulet might get first crack on that line. Should that be the case, and Jeannot does miss some additional time, then it wouldn’t be shocking to see Waltteri Merelä get the call up from the Crunch. The only silver lining with Mikhail Sergachev out long term is that the team has plenty of options in making their recalls and won’t have to worry about going over the salary cap.
Should they want more of an offensive option that could open Gage Goncalves, Cole Koepke, or Max Groshev up to a recall. If they’re also looking to reward a Syracuse player for working hard and improving their game, why not Joe Carroll? It would be pretty sweet to give him a taste of the NHL life for a game or two after he’s forced his way onto the Syracuse roster.
Filling Jeannot’s spot on the bottom-six isn’t quite as concerning as Barré-Boulet would likely continue to draw in. Playing on a line with Luke Glendening and Mitchell Chaffee has could spark his offensive game a bit and he could settle in on the second power play unit as well.
The other option would be for the Bolts to run 11/7 on Saturday and hope that Paul, Jeannot, or Austin Watson are good to go next week. It will be a bit of a busy week for them as they do have four games next week with a back-to-back on the road over the weekend. The good news is that the weekend games are against the Devils and Islanders so a recall from Syracuse could happen quickly if they chose to wait that long to bring a player up for the games.
It’s a shame that the Lightning won’t be at full capacity as they finish off this stretch of three tough games in a row with a match-up against the red-hot (and first place) Florida Panthers. Wins against Boston and Colorado have shown that they can grind out playoff-style wins, especially with Andrei Vasilevskiy back to his old shenanigans of being one of the best goalies in the league.
These are the types of injuries that expose the weakest part of the current Lightning squad – the lack of depth. Prior to the break they were able to make their way through similar issues as the young players from Syracuse stepped up and filled in for the injured veterans. We’ll have to wait and see if they can do it again if needed.
