In an unfortunate update, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman shared that Tampa Bay Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli will be unable to play for Team Canada in the upcoming Olympics due to injury. Friedman added that Sam Bennett would replace Cirelli on Team Canada’s roster.
Cirelli, 28, sustained the injury in Tampa Bay’s Stadium Series win over the Boston Bruins. He was on the receiving end of a hard hit from Bruins forward Mark Kastelic in the first period and didn’t return to the game. He finished the game with a +1 rating in 6:25 of action.
Since then, there haven’t been any firm updates. After the game, head coach Jon Cooper was quoted as saying, “It was kind of a stinger. Cirell’s a tough kid. For him not to come back, clearly, there’s something wrong with him. So hopefully he’ll be okay. There’s some big games coming up ahead of him.”
Unfortunately, those big games will have to wait for the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs. It’s a tough break for a player who has dramatically turned his career around in recent years and helped Team Canada win the 4 Nations Face-Off last season.
Back in the 2022-23 season, after scoring 11 goals and 29 points in 58 games, Cirelli became a legitimate trade candidate for the Lightning. Tampa Bay had just signed him to an eight-year, $50MM extension, a high price to play for a center that wasn’t always available.
Still, over the last two years, he’s made that contract look well worth it, scoring 42 goals and 94 points in 129 games with a 49.4% success rate in the faceoff dot. Furthermore, he’s responsible on his own end, managing a 91.2% on-ice SV% at even strength through 49 games this season.
While it’s a depressing development for Cirelli, Team Canada has added more snarl to their forward core at the very least. Bennett scored one goal in three games during last year’s 4 Nations tournament. He famously got into a fight with Brady Tkachuk during the opening minutes of the much-awaited tilt with the United States. Outside of the obvious, Olympic opponents will be extra intimidated by Team Canada, which will also have Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson.
It’ll be interesting to see how Bennett responds offensively. Due to the number of injuries suffered by the Panthers this year, Bennett has earned more responsibility. At this time last year, he had scored 17 goals and 33 points in 53 games. This season, he has 19 goals and 42 points in 55 contests.
While that isn’t the typical production of a forward on Team Canada, Bennett tends to raise his game when the lights are brightest. Over the past three postseasons, Bennett has helped Florida reach three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals, scoring 27 goals and 51 points in 62 games, culminating in the Conn Smythe Trophy last season.
Is Bennett good to go after his injury last night?
@Gbear – I just finished the “Frankly Hockey” podcast on YT, where they talked about that. Walt Jr. #1 had postgame comments, and said “We are in trouble right now.” He didn’t elaborate on Bennett, naturally, but when the guys on the podcast were talking about this replacement news, it seemed they had the same reaction as when I heard it from them. WTF? Is he really injured, or not? It almost hinted at him being “NHL injured”, so that he can heal up for the Olympics. Who knows?
Mac
Yeah its hard to tell. Especially since PoMo is notoriously giving vague health updates we wont really know until the olympics kick off i guess.
@Begamin – Yeah, Paul is definitely old-school when it comes to injury reporting.
@Mac- Meanwhile here in the USA, we have three 30 goal scorers and left all of them off the team. Almost wishing a few Rangers, I mean, players get nicked up in the next few days so the roster can be improved. 😁
@Gbear – The way the team is built, it almost looks like Darryl Sutter’s hands are in there, mucking things up. And he isn’t from our country! 🤔
That’s really unfortunate & sucks for Anthony Cirelli. I feel bad for him under such crappy circumstances, though from a fan perspective, I would rather have him healthy for the rest of the season and have him for a deep run in the Stanley Cup playoffs than the Olympics. But again, really unfortunate for him to miss out as he was deserving to be there.
Sam Bennett replacing him is interesting especially since Bennett himself is currently injured from last night’s game. We’ll see how that plays out.
Just tell Schief to hit more, but I feel like a shutdown centre/forward is needed…
Suzuki is one of the best defensive forwards in the league.
Hyman should be next add. Lots of center options already on team.
Mark Scheifele or Bedard should be called in.
A blessing in disguise for Cirelli, And the Lightning.