TAMPA, Fla. While the Lightning will return to the ice tonight expecting to ice a healthier version of the team than it had before the three-day break for Christmas, they are not 100-percent healthy.
Though Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, Jonathan Drouin, Braydon Coburn and Vladislav Namestnikov are all expected back tonight, Cedric Paquette will miss tonight's game against Montreal (Fox Sports Sun, 970-WFLA, 7:30 p.m.) with a lower body injury. Paquette briefly appeared at practice on Tuesday but left after about 10 minutes and did not return.
That left Tampa Bay with just 12 healthy forwards ...
