The struggles in Tampa continue.
The team, in dire need of some wins and positivity, will play their upcoming three-game road trip without the services of Ondrej Palat, Jonathan Drouin and Cedric Paquette. None of them will be traveling with the team for the road trip, which begins Monday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets, according to Erik Erlendsson of the Tampa Tribune.
It doesn’t end there. Tyler Johnson is still out and is unlikely to be rejoining the team over those three games.
And depth forward Erik Condra did not practice on Monday. He is considered questionable for upcoming games as well.
Palat just returned to the lineup last week and had two days of the Triplet Line being reunited before suffering a lower body injury on Saturday.
There was hope Paquette might return soon, but that has been dashed. He’s been out of the lineup since November 14.
Johnson and Drouin have had a tough time staying healthy this season, jumping in and out of the linuep.
Tampa has recalled Joel Vermin and Yanni Gourde from the Syracuse Crunch of the AHL.
Here was the team’s forward lines during warm-ups for Monday night’s game.
Namestnikov-Stamkos-Kucherov
Brown-Filppula-Callahan
Killorn-Boyle-Marchessault
Vermin-Gourde-Blunden
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