East Notes: Lightning, Rangers, Thomson

The Lightning found themselves down a pair of important contributors up front today against Ottawa.  Prior to the contest, the team announced (Twitter link) that winger Nikita Kucherov and center Nick Paul were both scratched due to illness.  Kucherov entered play today in a share of the league lead in scoring with 121 points, tied with Edmonton’s Connor McDavid.  This is now the fifth game this season that he has missed.  As for Paul, he has been fairly quiet since returning from the injury midway through the month, recording just one assist in seven games since then, bringing him to 13 points in 41 games on the campaign.  Without enough cap space to recall a replacement forward, the team went with just 11 forwards and seven defensemen versus the Sens.

Elsewhere in the East:

• The Rangers will have to wait at least one more game to get veteran goaltender Jonathan Quick back. Vince Z. Mercogliano of The Athletic relays (Twitter link) that Quick won’t dress on Sunday but is still considered to be day-to-day.  Once he returns, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them use all three goalies, allowing Dylan Garand to get a bit more action at the top level.  There is some good news on the injury front for New York, however.  In a separate tweet, Mercogliano adds that center Noah Laba has been listed as a game-time decision for tomorrow’s contest.  The 22-year-old was listed as being out week-to-week less than two weeks ago, suggesting his return is going to be ahead of schedule.
• The Senators welcomed back one of their injured defenders today as Julian McKenzie of The Athletic noted (Twitter link) that Lassi Thomson was cleared to return from his lower-body injury. The 25-year-old was an injury recall earlier this month and then was injured less than five minutes into his season debut on Monday.  He took the place of Jorian Donovan in the lineup; Ottawa will now have to decide if they want to convert Donovan’s recall to a regular one (counting against their post-deadline limit) or return him to AHL Belleville.