By no means is this a guarantee that Tyler Johnson will play in Game 1 for the Tampa Bay Lightning against the Detroit Red Wings, yet considered how scary his fall looked last night, it’s a great sign that there’s even a discussion.
The company line is that Johnson is day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
This comes after relatively good news that Johnson traveled with the team after Saturday’s glum loss against the Montreal Canadiens (rather than staying in the hospital for observation).
Feel free to parse this update for specific phrasing to feel better or worse about the situation:
#tblightning Yzerman indicated Tyler Johnson could be ready by Game 1 against #RedWings. Good news for Tampa Bay after how bad it looked.
— Joe Smith (@JoeSmithNHL) April 10, 2016
The Lightning start their intriguing series against the Red Wings on Wednesday. Their next practice is on Monday, so we’ll see if Johnson is able to participate.
(Now, if he can’t, that obviously doesn’t exclude him from playing, anyway.)
Related: No supplemental discipline for Greg Pateryn, who delivered the hit.