Tampa Bay defenseman Dan Girardi is now listed as “out indefinitely.”
This update comes nearly two weeks after Girardi sustained a lower-body injury, as he has not appeared in a game since the Bolts’ 3-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Mar. 7. Girardi was previously listed as “day-to-day” along with fellow D-man Anton Stralman, but the team provided an update by downgrading the eldest Lightning player’s status earlier today.
Stralman, on the other hand, is expected to be close to making a return to the lineup once the Lightning conclude their upcoming three-game road trip through Washington D.C., Carolina and St. Louis.
During Girardi and Stralman’s absence, the Bolts have gone 5-0 and Jan Rutta has been called upon to fill in the third-pairing vacancy.
“Jan Rutta’s up here, and as long as Dan’s out, we’ve got other guys filling in and filling the void, and he’s done a really good job so far,” said Lightning head coach Jon Cooper in an NHL.com report. “Hopefully we’ll get Stralman back here soon and (he’ll) give us a little bit more depth. It’s a pretty important position. It’s good to have depth and we’ve got it right now.”
The Lightning reassigned defenseman Cameron Gaunce back to the Syracuse Crunch yesterday, after calling him up as an emergency backup just the day before. The quick turnaround on Gaunce showed that the Bolts didn’t feel the need to keep him up long term, as that also would have required him to play in Monday night’s game.
The hope was that this signaled an impending return of both Stralman and Girardi, but we know now that is not the case. Fingers crossed that Stralman indeed does return after this weekend and that Girardi makes a speedy recovery for the upcoming playoff push.