Victor Hedman skates on one foot after injuring his knee./STEVEN MUNCIE
Friday 2 a.m.
Victor Hedman has led the Lightning in ice time./STEVEN MUNCIE
For a half of a season, the Tampa Bay Lightning has taken your breath away. Now, the Bolts find themselves holding their own.
Victor Hedman, the rock of the Lightning's defense, limped off the ice in Thursday night's 5-1 loss to Calgary. Hedman played only 10 minutes; for the season, he's averaging 25:56 for the season.
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Cedric Paquette comes up short in penalty shot against Smith./STEVEN MUNCIE
Hedman, recently named to the NHL all-star team, had a knee-to-knee hit with the Flames' Garnet Hathaway.
“It’s a lower body injury," said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. "He’s going to get tested tomorrow, so I guess we’ll see the extent of what’s wrong. It was pretty
Andrei Vasilevskiy had an off-night for the Bolts./STEVEN MUNCIE
deflating. Not so much when it happened, but when we went into the break after the second period. There’s a lot of concern, but we don’t know. There’s concern because it’s unknown. There’s no point in speculating so let’s just wait until tomorrow. This break’s coming at an extremely good time for us. We’ll just have to wait and see. There’s nothing we can do now.
“We have some elite players on this team, but on the back end he’s kind of our rock back there. He plays nearly half the game in all situations so he can help dictate a lot of the play of how we’re doing things. It’s not like we haven’t lost him before. I guess the big worry would be if it’s long-term, but it’s hard to say.
Alex Killorn gets into a fight with Brouwer early in the game./STEVEN MUNCIE
If he’s out for a bit, it would probably have a little impact on our team.”
The Bolts were midway through the second period when Hedman was hurt, but Calgary took over afterward.
“I don’t know if (Hedman leaving the game) was a factor, but it was just one of those nights where maybe the score didn’t dictate the actual play," said Lightning captain Steven Stamkos. "It happens. We’ll go on break a little peed-off with that game and look to get some rest here, because we have played a lot, and recoup.”
Anton Stralman shoots the puck for the Bolts./STEVEN MUNCIE
Stamkos did, however, stress the importance of Hedman to the Lightning.
“He’s arguably the best, or top-three, or whatever you want to call it, defenseman in the league," Stamkos said. "He’s a huge part of this team, a huge part of this locker room and it’s unfortunate to see him go down like that. You can’t replace a guy like that, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
Said Anton Stralman: "“I didn’t see the situation. I don’t know what his status is. It’s always tough losing him more than any guy on our team, especially with the way he played and has been playing lately and the amount of minutes he’s plays. That was a tough loss.”
The Bolts only goal came from Brayden Point.
Tampa Bay fell to 31-10-3 (65 points) on the season.
The Lightning has a week off before facing the Las Vegas Knights on Thursday. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m.
Nikita Kucherov and Backlund race for the puck./STEVEN MUNCIE
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