Andrei Vasilevskiy Suffers Serious Foot Injury, Out Four To Six Weeks

11/16: Tampa Bay has updated the situation, confirming that Vasilevskiy did indeed suffer a left foot fracture. The Lightning announced that their starting goalie is expected to miss four to six weeks while he recovers. The timeline leaves open the possibility that Vasilevsky could return to the Tampa net by the middle of next month, possibly in time for a divisional clash with the Toronto Maple Leafs on December 13th. However, on the other end of the spectrum, Vasilevskiy may have already played his final game of the 2018 calendar year.

11/15: The Tampa Bay Lightning lost their last game at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres 2-1, but may have suffered a loss even bigger just a few days prior. Darren Dreger of TSN is reporting that goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy has suffered a broken left foot, while Joe Smith of The Athletic confirms that he’s going in for evaluation later today. The last game Vasilevskiy had played was a 6-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators on the weekend. Louis Domingue will now likely take over the full-time starting duties for the Lightning as they deal with this situation, and Eddie Pasquale has been recalled from the Syracuse Crunch.

Vasilevskiy apparently injured the foot at practice while making a save, and has been sent back to Tampa Bay to have further testing done. In the meantime the team has already placed him on injured reserve, meaning they know that he’ll be out for at least a week. If it turns into a long-term issue, the Lightning have to be concerned about their precarious lead over the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Atlantic Division, given Domingue’s lack of experience as a true starter.

Since being drafted in 2010, the 26-year old Domingue has just 101 NHL games under his belt and has never played more than 39 in a single season. Even that was several years ago with the Arizona Coyotes, and since Pasquale has still yet to make an appearance at the NHL level the Lightning don’t have a ton of experience in the crease right now. Domingue did perform well after coming over to the Lightning last season and earned himself a two-year extension with the team. He’ll have to earn every penny of that paycheck now, as the Lightning will have to rely on him for the foreseeable future.