The Tampa Bay Lighting finished up their two week return to play training camp and headed to Toronto on Sunday afternoon. They did so without the likes of Norris Trophy Finalist Victor Hedman. GM Julien BriseBois confirmed that Hedman would be staying behind to tend to a personal matter. He also stated that Victor will continue the phase three protocols along with Marc Lambert, director of sports performance for the team.
Both are slated to join the Lightning at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Friday. Hedman will continue to skate at Amalie Arena and participate in off-ice workouts until he joins the team for the play-in round. This means that Hedman would not take the ice Wednesday for their exhibition game against Florida. But according to GM BriseBois, he will arrive in time to play in all three of Tampa Bay’s seeding games.
Playoff Roster Announced
Tampa Bay released their roster for the duration of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Forwards include Anthony Cirelli, Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, Yanni Gourde and Tyler Johnson. Alongside them would be Mathieu Joseph, Alex Killorn, Nikita Kucherov, Pat Maroon, Ondrej Palat and Cedric Paquette. Lastly, the roster would consist of Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, Mitchell Stephens, Carter Verhaeghe and Alex Volkov.
Participating defensemen are Zach Bogosian, Erik Cernak, Braydon Coburn, Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh. They are joined on the ice by Mikhail Sergachev, Kevin Shattenkirk, Jan Rutta as well as Luke Schenn. In addition, the Bolts will carry three goalies in Curtis McElhinney, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Scott Wedgewood.
Tampa will take on the Capitals, the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers in the round robin starting Saturday night. These games will be for seeding in the NHL qualifiers to see who advances. All games can be seen on Sportsnet, NHL Network and TVA Sports.