Lightning expect reinforcements Wednesday
One way to help the team keep stacking standings points? Getting back to full health.
Tampa Bay is getting healthier—Zettler on Tuesday said the team expects to have the services of forward Brayden Point as well as defensemen Emil Lilleberg, Charle-Edouard D’Astous and captain Victor Hedman for Wednesday’s game.
Lilleberg has missed 23 games with a lower-body injury, while Point has missed 11 games with an injury of his own. A return for D’Astous on Wednesday would stop a five-game absence due to a lower-body injury, while captain Victor Hedman didn’t play in Team Sweden’s quarterfinal game at the Olympics after an injury during warmups.
“It’s good,” Hedman said of his health on Tuesday. “It’s frustrating and still a little bit of a disbelief it happened before one of the most important games in my career, but it is what it is and now the focus is on this group here. It feels great to be back, and finally starting to feel like myself again. So it’s good.”
Point spoke after Sunday’s practice, also saying he feels ready to go. The forward scored four goals and eight points over the five games prior to his injury, suffered on Jan. 12 against the Philadelphia Flyers.
He looks forward to resuming play and reinforced his belief in the team.
“I think it’s just about the mentality that we’re gonna have to have coming out of it,” he said of the break, “and remembering why we were successful and how we’re just playing good team hockey.”
Olympians Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point and Erik Cernak did not skate on Tuesday with planned rest days, but all three are expected to be available on Wednesday.
Tampa Bay returns with Wednesday’s game against Toronto before a trip to Carolina on Thursday. February ends with a game on Saturday before the sprint that is March—a calendar that includes 16 games in 31 days.
After the Olympic break, the Lightning feel ready.
“We put ourselves in a great spot with the way we played and the kind of consistency we’ve had. It’s been a lot of fun to be a part of and watch from the sides. So we’ve just got to keep doing what we did before the break. We played a lot of good hockey and have a lot of resiliency on this team,” Hedman said.
“The good thing about the break is to get some bodies back, and guys are getting closer to playing again. So that’s the exciting part, that we had a couple of weeks here to kind of regroup, and guys who weren’t playing at the end are getting closer to playing now. It’s a good atmosphere in here, and it should be.”