Why Lightning's decision on Dominic James shouldn't cause concern

The Tampa Bay Lightning made the move on Friday to assign Dominic James to the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch. 

A presumption after Jansen Harkins was sent to Syracuse was that James was on the brink of joining the team. Even if James joins Harkins there, it’s still likely the case that he’s about to be ready.

Keep this in mind. He didn’t have any preseason action because he was recovering from a broken hand. He’s going to have to shake some rust off either way, but he can at least get a tune-up in the minor leagues.

The Lightning’s announcement about the move didn’t say it was a conditioning stint specifically, but that's essentially what it is. Not giving him the opportunity isn't doing the team as a whole any favors.

He won’t be available for Saturday’s game against the New York Islanders, but things could line up for him to rejoin them when they head back to Madison Square Garden for another game against the New York Rangers on Tuesday.

Syracuse has two games over the weekend, one up the road in Rochester on Friday and another at home on Saturday. He’ll be about four hours away from the team when he finishes this stint. 

With both of the Crunch's games being played on back-to-back days, James can still rejoin the team for a couple of days before the Rangers matchup.

Hang in there. He's going to be back. The Lightning are just doing their due diligence with a player coming off an injury.

Once James gets back, he can be expected to be impactful. In his final 12 regular-season games last season, he doubled his points per game to 0.6 from the 0.3 pace he had in the first 31 games of the season.

During the postseason, he scored two goals and an assist for three points. He picked up a point in the final three games of the series after being scoreless for the first four. 

Over the last three games, which the Lightning have won all of them, they have utilized 11 forwards and seven defensemen. They could opt for 12 forwards again once James returns, but if it's something that's working right now, then he could simply be slid into this current lineup and one else is taken out.

We'll see how they choose to go about it when the time comes.

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