TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa Bay Lightning star center Brayden Point is expected to miss 4 to 6 weeks because of an upper-body injury.
The two-time Stanley Cup champion Lightning announced the timeline before Tuesday night’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Point appeared to favor his left shoulder or arm after crashing hard into to the end boards after being tripped in the third period of Saturday night’s 5-3 loss to New Jersey. He hit the crossbar on the ensuing penalty shot and was able to finish the game.
Point, who had an NHL-best 14 goals in last season’s playoffs, sat out Sunday’s game against Minnesota.
Tampa Bay star right wing Nikita Kucherov sat out his 15th game Tuesday with a lower-body injury and has not resumed skating. He is projected to miss another 4 to 6 weeks.
Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak missed his sixth game due to an upper-body injury but took part in Tuesday’s morning skate and is day to day.
DEVILS: The New Jersey Devils are going to use a third jersey for the first time in franchise history.
The Devils announced that a black sweater with the word `Jersey’ on the front will be used for the first time on Dec. 8 against Philadelphia.
The franchise currently has home and away uniforms. The home sweaters are red and the ones on the road are white. The crest is an encircled NJ with devils’ horns on top of the J. The pants are black.
When they first moved to New Jersey from Colorado in 1982, the Devils’ colors were red, green and white with the team wearing green pants until 1992. They changed to black pants that season and took the green out of the sweater and replaced it with black.
The Devils have used the original jerseys on retro days, but the new black one will be the third jersey for at least the next three years.
The Devils said the black-inspired, red-shadowed design weaves together Jersey pride, Devils history and the state’s professional hockey heritage. The team said the sweater, which has been on the drawing board for three years, is reflective of 90 years of New Jersey hockey history, the last 40 with the Devils carrying the banner.
“The new sweater is inspired by a history of hockey in the Garden State that fans may not be familiar with, and layered with design elements of Devils championship success,” said Devils Hall of Fame goaltender Martin Brodeur, who led New Jersey to Stanley Cups in 1995, 2000 and ’03.
The third jersey will have 21 stripes, representing the 21 counties in New Jersey.
BLACKHAWKS: The former player who sued the Chicago Blackhawks alleging the team did nothing when he raised allegations of sexual assault against an assistant coach in 2010 has agreed to mediation in hopes of settling the case.
Kyle Beach’s attorney, Susan Loggans, confirmed the development. She also confirmed the judge in the case had denied her motion to move the case into the discovery phase, which would have opened the way for each side to procure evidence.
Mediation is set to begin in December. Beach is seeking in excess of $50,000 from the team, though the exact amount was not specified. The Chicago Sun-Times first reported the development.
Beach accused video coach Brad Aldrich of sexually assaulting him in 2010 and said the team largely ignored the allegations. An independent review, commissioned by the team in response to two lawsuits as the case exploded in the headlines, showed the Blackhawks badly mishandled Beach’s allegations.
The fallout included top executives losing their jobs in Chicago and stretched to other teams, including Florida, where veteran coach Joel Quenneville – the coach of the Blackhawks at the time – resigned. The NHL fined Chicago $2 million.
Loggans and attorneys for the Blackhawks held settlement talks in early November after the investigation’s findings were released, meeting for about an hour. She said after those discussions that “each side had different viewpoints.”
The investigation found no evidence that owner Rocky Wirtz or his son, chairman Danny Wirtz, were aware of the allegations before the lawsuit was brought to their attention this year. Danny Wirtz in October said he has instructed team attorneys to seek “a fair resolution consistent with the totality of the circumstances.”
Loggans also is part of a second lawsuit against the team by a former high school student whom Aldrich was convicted of assaulting in Michigan after he left Chicago. Talks between both sides are continuing over John Doe 2’s pending lawsuit.
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