Tampa Bay Lightning: Andrei Vasilevskiy Has A Rollercoaster 48 Hours
The life of a hockey player is always chaotic in some form, but the last 48 hours have definitely been a rollercoaster ride for Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.
There is no denying the life of a hockey player is a crazy one. It is an everyday task to not only maintain your body and well-being, but to maintain the skill it takes to really carve out a path in the National Hockey League. When you combine this with all the travel associated with playing in the National Hockey League, it makes for one chaotic life. At least during hockey season.
Just when you think things can’t possibly get any more chaotic, when you throw in having a wife, children, and a family things escalate to a whole new level. In the last 48 hours, Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy has experienced just about every emotion you can possibly think of and then some.
On Thursday night, things started out just like every day for Andrei Vasilevskiy. Vasilevskiy headed into the Mohegan Sun Arena to protect the Syracuse Crunch net from the onslaught of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. In his 10th start this season, Vasilevskiy backstopped the Syracuse Crunch to a 4-2 win over the American Hockey League affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Surprisingly enough, this was not even the high point of Vasilevskiy’s day. According to Tampa Bay Times Staff Writer Joe Smith, when Andrei Vasilevskiy got off the ice and into the locker room, Syracuse Crunch Head Coach Rob Zettler had the pleasure of informing Vasilevskiy in a post-game meeting that his wife Ksenia had given birth to the couple’s first child.
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As you can imagine, this was quite the shock for Vasilevskiy. One of the reasons is because, according to Smith, the baby came two weeks early. On top of that, the new daddy was winning a game for his team when the blessed occasion went down.
Just when you think things couldn’t possibly get any better for the young Russian netminder, on Friday the Tampa Bay Lightning recalled Andrei Vasilevskiy and reassigned goaltender Kristers Gudlevskis to the Syracuse Crunch. This gave the new dad an opportunity, not only to reclaim his place on the Lightning’s main roster beside goaltender Ben Bishop, but an opportunity to come home and see his wife and newborn baby.
The very next day, it was back to work for the 21 year old netminder. On Saturday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning would head into the Amalie Arena to finish off their six-game home stand with a battle against the Minnesota Wild. Aside from one mistake late in the first period which resulted in a tying goal for the Minnesota Wild, Vasilevskiy played a pretty stellar game.
Vasilevskiy would make 30 saves on 32 shots brought against him by the Minnesota Wild offense. This would give Vasilevskiy a Save Percentage of .938. Needless to say, this is definitely a fitting return for a player like Andrei Vasilevskiy, who has consistently been solid for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
It is hard to imagine the amount of emotions Vasilevskiy has been feeling over the last 48 hours of his life, but we can imagine a number of those feelings ranged from happiness, to joy and all-out elation. We don’t know about you, but we are certainly happy to have Vasilevskiy back here where he belongs.
Unfortunately, Vasilevskiy’s homecoming is going to be very short lived. After last night’s 3-2 shootout win over the Minnesota Wild, the Tampa Bay Lightning head out on the road for a four-game road trip. The first stop on the trip is going to be at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary on Tuesday night to do battle with the Calgary Flames.
We here at Bolts By The Bay would like to offer our sincere congratulations to Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, his wife Ksenia, and their entire family as their new addition makes his way into the world.
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