Tampa Bay Lightning Re-Assign Byron Froese, Joel Vermin To Syracuse Crunch
The Tampa Bay Lightning has re-assigned forwards Byron Froese and Joel Vermin to the Lightning’s AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch.
The Tampa Bay Lightning has been on quite a run as of late. Unfortunately, the last two games have put quite a damper on the spirits of both the Lightning and their fans. One of the many contributing factors to the Lightning’s current issues is the more recent string of injuries.
In case you’ve been stashed away under a rock without the use of Wi-Fi for the last couple of weeks, here’s the lowdown on the injuries we speak of. Back on Mar. 9, the Tampa Bay Lightning was taking on the Western Conference leading Minnesota Wild. The Lightning seemed to have things well in hand, but the 4-1 victory over the Wild came at a staggering cost to the team.
Much to the dismay of the Tampa Bay Lightning and their fans, the Lightning lost not one, not two, but three players in the same night. Vladislav Namestnikov, Tyler Johnson, and Cedric Paquette were all sidelined with injuries to their left legs.
Tampa Bay Lightning
How ironic is it that all three players were centers and all three went down with left leg injuries. We can’t help but see the insanity in this whole situation.
In any case, the injuries to the three young centers resulted in the Lightning being forced to make numerous changes to the lineup and introduce quite a few new faces to the big time. One of those new faces was forward Byron Froese.
Froese has been a star so far this season in the AHL, scoring a total of 26 goals and 16 assists for a total of 42 points in as many as 50 games between his time with the Toronto Marlies and the Syracuse Crunch. These numbers are good enough to place Froese in fourth place in the AHL in goals scored.
Another name which has made their way to the Lightning lineup this season has been Joel Vermin. Vermin has played in 11 games with the Lightning this season. In this amount of time, he’s picked up three assists.
On the other side of things, Vermin has been having a pretty good season with the Syracuse Crunch. In the 43 games he’s played in this season with the Crunch, Vermin has brought home 12 goals and 16 assists for a total of 28 points.
It seems as if these players may once again be headed north. According to a press release from the Tampa Bay Lightning released earlier today, the team has re-assigned forward Byron Froese and Joel Vermin to the Syracuse Crunch. This could mean some good news on the injury front of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
While there has been no official word from the Lightning as to the potential return of any of their injured players, we can’t imagine the team sending two players back to the Crunch unless someone is getting closer to making their return to the ice.
Judging by what we’ve witnessed over the past couple of days, the most likely candidate would be Vladislav Namestnikov. However, as we mentioned previously, there is absolutely nothing set in stone at this point.
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No matter how things shake out on the injury front, the Tampa Bay Lightning has a tough challenge in front of them. The Bolts are faced with a must-win situation when they take on the Arizona Coyotes on Mar. 21 at the Amalie Arena. If the Bolts want to bring home the two points, they will definitely need to bring their ‘A’ game.