An early injury is already looming over Lightning-Canadiens
Photo credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
Disaster for the Lightning at Amalie Arena. Dominic James went down early in Game 1 against Montreal following contact with Arber Xhekaj and didn't come back.
That's a brutal way to start a series.
Bill Price reported that James had just returned to the Lightning lineup before the hit. He went to the room minutes later and wasn't seen again on the bench.
The timing is its own punchline. Back for one game. Gone again.
A Tampa forward who was already battling availability issues all year
James finished the regular season with 7 goals and 15 points in 43 games while carrying a $910,000 cap hit. He played in 43 of 82.
You can watch Price's on-the-ground update from inside Amalie here.
Jon Cooper is now running a bottom six one body thinner in a series the Canadiens will happily make physical.
That's not a problem the Lightning wanted on the table on day one.
The star power stays. Nikita Kucherov closed the year with 130 points, Brandon Hagel added 74, and Tampa finished 50-26-6 with a plus-59 goal differential. The scoring isn't the issue.
Depth is. Playoff rounds reward teams who can roll four lines and trust their penalty kill.
Losing a responsible third-line forward on shift number four of a best-of-seven stings both jobs.
The Lightning and Canadiens split the regular-season series 2-2, with Tampa taking the first two meetings and Montreal winning the last two.
Martin St-Louis already had his group playing the kind of game Cooper would rather avoid.
Xhekaj was doing exactly what Xhekaj gets paid to do. That's why Montreal dresses him in April.
Tampa will need a replacement for Game 2 on Tuesday, and whoever slots in will do so under the heat of a tied or trailing series.
Cooper has options in Syracuse, but none of them bring the exact mix James gave him when he was healthy.
The bigger question is how the Lightning room responds.
Losing a teammate seconds into your playoff opener can galvanize a group or rattle it. There's no middle ground at this time of year.
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