The Lightning will be without the services of center Nick Paul tonight in Columbus, head coach Jon Cooper told the team’s Gabby Shirley. The 29-year-old sustained an undisclosed injury against the Penguins on Tuesday and will be re-evaluated when the Bolts return home from their road trip tomorrow, Cooper said.
It’s a tough break for Paul, who’s on pace to have the best offensive season of his career by a country mile. The 6’4″ pivot is part of a Lightning top-six that’s roared to life, posting 13 points (5 G, 8 A) in 17 games. That’s a 0.76 point-per-game pace, shattering last year’s 0.56 career high.
Paul had recently moved to the wing, skating on the second line alongside Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli. Cam Atkinson could take that job after serving as a healthy scratch for the last three games, assuming the Bolts don’t want to make any other lineup changes, although he has just one assist in 11 games with a team-worst -7 rating.
Paul is now in his fourth season in the Bay after parts of seven years with the Senators. The Ontario native has emerged as a crucial middle-six weapon, posting 105 points in 200 games while averaging north of 16 minutes per game and winning 53.5% of his faceoffs.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic Division:
- Maple Leafs winger Matthew Knies is still being evaluated after being pulled by concussion spotters from last night’s win over the Golden Knights but is “feeling okay today,” head coach Craig Berube told Mark Masters of TSN. Knies left the game in the second period after a hit to the head from Vegas defenseman Zach Whitecloud, which was initially called a major penalty but was rescinded entirely upon review. It’s unclear if he’ll be ready by Sunday’s game against Utah – if not, the Leafs are at risk of being down a seventh forward due to injury and would likely dress seven defensemen.
- A 3-5-1 rut in November has the Senators below .500 yet again and at considerable risk of extending their playoff drought to eight years. Don’t expect general manager Steve Staios to make a blockbuster move to bail his club out, though, saying Wednesday that “each individual in the room needs to step up” in order to get Ottawa back on the right track (per Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch). “For us to figure out as a group why that’s our record is what we’re trying to unlock,” Staios said. “For most games, the team looks and feels not only like a competitive team but a playoff-looking team. We’ve proven against good teams.“
Man, that sucks about Nick Paul as he’s having a solid start this season overall. Hope the injury isn’t too serious & that he can be back sooner rather later.
Tampa GM JBB needs to look into adding some additional bottom six scoring depth to Tampa way before the trade deadline as there is plenty of options that will not cost anything high end for Tampa.
With what cap space?
TBL is projected to have accrued $4.76MM in space by deadline day by staying out of LTIR this season
link to puckpedia.com
But they currently only have 1.35M with only 22 of 23 roster spots full. Original post says they need to add “way before the deadline”.
I know leafs homer goggles and all but how that play by whitecloud isn’t a major plus 2-3 game suspension is beyond me. He hit UP into Knies’s chin (which was principal contact) left his feet and leafs get a penalty like how nhl
Because homer glasses. Even the guys on Overdrive, whom are as Leafs homer as they come agreed, it was a clean but unfortunate resulting hit. Principle point of contact is the upper chest, he doesn’t launch himself as feet come off the ice after contact. The force of the hit causes the shoulder to follow thru into the head area and his feet to leave the ice, but the contact was initially made with the chest. It’s an unfortunate result of a fast faced, hard contact sport.