Andrei Vasilevskiy’s return to the Tampa Bay Lightning lineup continues to creep closer by the day.
Prior to the team departing for a quick, two-game road trip to St. Louis and Chicago, the Bolts took the ice for practice Monday morning with a look the team has yet to see this season. Instead of two goaltenders on the ice, there were three, with Vasilevskiy joining Jonas Johansson and Matt Tomkins for his first practice of the regular season.
Vasilevskiy looked comfortable on the ice, taking shots from his teammates and participating in a multitude of drills, including a 3-on-3 small area game in which he recorded his “first win of the season,” per Lightning assistant coach Rob Zettler.
“It’s really exciting,” said Zettler. “It just means his progress is kind of on track and he’s doing really well. He’s healthy enough to get in there and face some real shots and some real traffic, so it’s great.
“He’s excited. He played a little game at the end. He said he got his first win of the season, so that’s good. It’s just a confidence builder, for him and for everybody. It’s great.”
On September 28, Bolts vice president and general manager Julien BriseBois announced that Vasilevskiy underwent a successful microdiscectomy to address a lumbar disc herniation and was expected to miss approximately the first two months of the regular season.
Another update on Vasilevskiy’s status was provided by head coach Jon Cooper while speaking to media ahead of Tampa Bay’s game in Toronto on November 7.
“I'll be disappointed if it’s early December,” said Cooper on the return of the Lightning’s star goaltender. “Hopefully, it’s a little earlier. We were kind of shooting for that Thanksgiving time, but he's making great progress. I think he would rather be doing more than he can right now.
“The timeline has still been the same, but I guess that Thanksgiving time to December 1, we should be hoping that he’s back.”
Still about two weeks out from the eight-week mark of his surgery, Vasilevskiy isn’t ready for a return quite yet, but participating in a full practice with his teammates is just another step in the right direction.
“It feels amazing,” said Vasilevskiy after practice. “Obviously, it’s been a long time. Obviously, it’s unfortunate, but it is what it is. I took that time to recover well and to prepare myself for the first practice. I feel good.
“It was pretty hard just to see all the guys playing and enjoying the game. I was just in the gym, doing my rehab and skating by myself for a few weeks.
“It wasn’t fun, but I was able to take that time and shape the situation more in a positive way. I was able to spend more time with my family. I was able to prepare myself for the season a little more.”
Vasilevskiy said he’s still about two weeks away from hitting the eight-week mark from the date of his surgery. That eight-week mark will fall directly on Thanksgiving, November 23, at which point Vasilevskiy said, “We’ll go from there.”
The goaltender’s path to a return seems to be going exactly as planned for the Lightning. Vasilevskiy shared that he has felt much better than he did pre-surgery, and even noticed an immediate difference the first time he stepped back on the ice. Known for his intense drive and work ethic (among many other things), Vasilevskiy said he plans to spend a little less time in the gym moving forward throughout the season.
“Surprisingly, even when I was skating for the first time after that surgery, I felt much better than before that,” he said. “It’s just such a silly injury and way avoidable. Same as my first surgery six or seven years ago.
“It was after a hard workout in the gym – the squats and the overhead presses and all this bodybuilding stuff. As I said, avoidable and I wasn't smart about pushing myself too hard.”
In Vasilevskiy’s absence, Jonas Johansson has played well for Tampa Bay, picking up points in nine of his 12 starts and leading the league with 364 saves. Per NHL EDGE, his 92 saves on shots from high-danger areas are second among all NHL goaltenders, trailing only San Jose’s Mackenzie Blackwood with 98.
“He’s been great,” Vasilevskiy said. “It’s not an easy job. Believe me, I know.
“He’s been amazing. Some games, we just didn’t play as good, but I thought he was really rock solid. We’re right there in that race and he’s a big part of it for sure.”
He won’t play, but Vasilevskiy will travel with the team on the upcoming two-game road trip, marking the first time he’s gone on the road with his teammates this season. With just five games left to be played before Thanksgiving, it shouldn’t be much longer before the decorated goaltender makes his return to the crease for the Lightning.
