A very strange situation has occurred with the Hurricanes actually loaning a goalie to the Lightning
At the start of training camp, the Lightning shocked the hockey sphere when they announced that their star goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy underwent back surgery and would miss 8 to 10 weeks of action while he recovers. That left the Lightning with a massive hole in net without much cap space to find a replacement. Currently, Tampa will be relying on Jonas Johansson and Matt Tomkins to begin the season. Obviously, this is less than ideal for a team who is looking to challenge for the playoffs in an Atlantic Division that is very top-heavy, but that also contains a lot of up-and-comers.
The situation took a bit of a unique turn on Monday when the Carolina Hurricanes announced today that they have loaned top goaltending prospect Pyotr Kochetkov to the Lightning's AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch. The Hurricanes don't currently have an AHL affiliate, so them loaning a player to another team's affiliate might have originally been viewed as pretty innocent. It's only a surprise because it provides some newfound depth to Tampa's goaltending situation.
At this point, it's unclear if Kochetkov is able to play for the Lightning, but with him playing for their AHL affiliate, it doesn't appear that they were able to find another veteran goaltender to be a stop-gap until Vasilevskiy is able to return. Between Johansson and Tomkins, their experience stacks up to just 35 career NHL games, all of which have been played by Johansson, so it could be a very long start to the season for the Lightning if they struggle early and are unable to find another solution.
| POLL | ||
OCTOBRE 10 | 49 ANSWERS A very strange situation has occurred with the Hurricanes actually loaning a goalie to the Lightning Will the Hurricanes end up trading Kochetkov to the Lightning in the coming weeks? | ||
| Yes | 25 | 51 % |
| No | 24 | 49 % |
| List of polls | ||
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