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after a hit to the head from Vegas defenseman Zach Whitecloud, which was initially called a major penalty but was rescinded entirely upon review.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”.
You don’t need a ton of cap space for bottom 6 players. Tampa has a few routes they can take to acquire someone if they choose to do so a couple months before the deadline. Will they?…I’m not holding my breath on it.
Also, their cap space is only $1.35m because of calling up Goncalves which if sent down brings their cap to $2.12m (which alters the accrued deadline cap to around $7.64m).
In addition, they have $850k buried money in Sheary being sent down to the AHL who’s going to be traded at some point during the season if rumors are true as that would alleviate $2m in cap space as well.
And if they remove Goncalves they need to replace him. so it doesn’t save them anything. And in order to trade Sheary someone needs to want him. Upgrades at league minimum either won’t be available, or won’t come cheap. Especially at this time of year.
Gage Goncalves was only called up because of injuries. Tampa was only originally having 21 players on the main roster. So no, they don’t need to replace him if sent down. You’re wrong on that account.
You’re pretty on-the-nose (obvious observation) on the Sheary aspect. Whether anyone is interested in Sheary, who’s to say, but chances are there probably is interest in some capacity but it’s up to Tampa to make a move or not.
Teams are already making trades & looking to make moves. Furthermore, the closer you get to the trade deadline, the more a team overpays in compensation to make acquisitions.
On a side note, Tampa would be better off sending down Cam Atkinson & keeping Goncalves on the main roster.
Correct the Lightning do not NEED to replace him with anyone to try and accrue some additional cap space, but teams don’t optimally run with less than 23 players, sometimes 22 to gain a little space but extremely rarely 21 or 20 (the minimum to skate full lineup). So there would likely be a call up if he was sent back down.
Sheary likely costs them to move him. Likely a pick attached for a lesser pick or “future considerations” that never become anything. Sheary had some use a few seasons ago, but appears to no longer be a full time NHLer.
Teams already making moves or looking to make moves and deals closer to the deadline is true and false. Depends on the teams and contracts. Some teams are looking to dump albatross contracts and depending on the term left it can be a positive or negative return. For example, PIT is willing to move anyone not named Crosby supposedly, many teams would like Pettersen or however it’s spelt, but PIT isn’t selling him as the 4-5 dman he probably really is, but more as a 3. Looking for a higher return because teams would have more than just 20 games to evaluate his future with them. But teams with players with term left who are hoping someone may be interested in a change of location bounceback player are selling them low. ie) Rasmus Ristolainen. Do you think RR gets any return without retention?
Not sure on the contract situations between Atkinson vs Goncalves. Atkinson might get them an extra 200k savings depending on their contracts. But it’s likely Goncalves saves them more. Atkinson is likely on a 1-way meaning he gets paid the same whether in TB or the minors. And not sure 100% how much is affected cap space wise.
Not saying TBL can’t make some shifts, but this early in the season, its tough to make moves on higher level teams without money in – money out happening. But if there is a team to find a wrinkle in the system, TBL and VGK are the teams to look to to exploit it.
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.