The Lightning reassigned forwards Dylan Duke, Gage Goncalves, and goaltender Brandon Halverson to AHL Syracuse on Monday, per a team announcement. Tampa Bay was one of four teams on the schedule yesterday, the final day of game action prior to the 4 Nations Face-Off, explaining why these paper moves didn’t take place amid yesterday’s flurry.
The trio of Duke, Goncalves and Halverson join the many other players headed to the minors over the break to get more playing time. In all likelihood, Goncalves will be the only one back on the roster when their schedule resumes on Feb. 23 versus the Kraken. Duke had only entered the lineup recently, making his NHL debut in the Bolts’ final two games before the break. Halverson was up from Syracuse as the replacement for injured backup Jonas Johansson. Johansson enters the break with a day-to-day designation due to a lower-body injury, so he should be ready when Tampa returns to action in nearly two weeks.
Duke, 21, got on the box score in his first NHL try. The Ohio native and University of Michigan alum scored in his debut against the Red Wings on Saturday on his lone shot attempt across both games. Besides that, his performance was hard to judge with minimal usage. Duke skated just 15:43 total across the two contests, during which time the Bolts were out-attempted 14-7. However, Tampa was out-chanced heavily in both wins, so his Corsi share wasn’t too far south of the team average.
The Bolts selected Duke in the fourth round of the 2021 draft, and he’s looking like a good depth pick. The 5’10” winger/center plays a physical game and has transitioned well to professional hockey, leading Syracuse with 13 goals in 36 games in his rookie season. This likely won’t be his last recall of the season as he pushes for a full-time promotion to the active roster sometime over the next couple of seasons.
Goncalves has spent most of the season in the NHL, albeit with underwhelming results. The 24-year-old pivot has 1-6–7 through 33 games and cleared waivers last month, so the Bolts will extend his 30-day clock by ferrying him to the AHL over the break. He should go back to logging heavy minutes in Syracuse, with whom he’s torched the league for 4-10–14 in only 11 showings so far in 2024-25. He’s coming off a spectacular 45-assist, 58-point showing in 69 games last year, although the 2020 second-rounder is still learning how to transition his offensive upside to the NHL.
Halverson only recently signed a two-way deal with the Bolts, a necessity with Johansson banged up and Matt Tomkins standing as the only other goaltender under contract in the organization. The 6’5″ 28-year-old backed up Andrei Vasilevskiy on multiple occasions but failed to enter a game for the first time since the 2017-18 season. He has a .918 SV%, 2.20 GAA, four shutouts, and a 12-7-7 record in 26 games this year.
This was expected so no surprises here. Goncalves will be brought back to the main roster after the 4 Nations tournament ends.
Duke had a good showing for his first go-round in the NHL. Still has some aspects of his game to still work on but he’s not far off from being an eventual main stay on the main roster.
It’s a shame Halverson didn’t get a chance to play but Tampa wanted to put their best foot forward in getting wins in these last 4 games before the break to give them some cushion in the standings as Vasilevskiy was incredibly stout in net. Halverson will get his chance in due time.