Jon Cooper wants to stop the conversation now: Steven Stamkos is not fit to play until he says so.
The Tampa Bay Lightning coach drafted Stamkos for his team’s final round game Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers (8 pm EDT, NBC) who will determine the top seed in the Eastern Conference. Philadelphia will not have right winger Jakub Voracek, so neither team is at full strength.
‘Injuries are unpredictable,’ said Cooper of Stamkos. “At the moment he is out indefinitely until he is not. And I’ll be the person to let you know when that’s. But you should know that he’s loosening his tail and that he really wants to come back. “
The Lightning beat Washington and Boston without Stamkos and will return to Vezina Trophy finalist Andrei Vasilevskiy as their starting lineup. Carter Hart starts for Philadelphia, who are also 2-0-0 in round robin play and will have rookie Joel Farabee on the front line instead of Voracek.
Coach Alain Vigneault would only say that Voracek is not available to play against Tampa Bay.
“Jake has a unique skill set: a veteran who has run and played in some great games,” said Flyers defender Matt Niskanen. ‘We will welcome him when he returns and in the meantime continue with the boys we have.
Cooper said Lightning has focused on peaking for Game 1 of their first best-of-seven series, which will be next week. The Vigneault Flyers have tried to strike a balance between winning and voting for when their season is on the line.
Tampa Bay-Philadelphia will decide which team will move to Montreal after the Canadiens beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in the qualifying game.
“We know they have some top players who have a lot of skill and they have got a really good power play,” said Hart van de Bliksem
At the Western Conference, the Vegas Golden Knights set the goal of earning the No. 1 seed from the first day of training camp last month. That will be on the line Saturday as they face Colorado (3 p.m., NBC). The Golden Knights are going hard for home ice in the West, although there are no fans and all games are played in Edmonton.
“The higher the seed, the easier path you get,” said Vegas coach Peter DeBoer. ‘If I say easy way, you get the opponent with the lowest rank, you get last (line) change, then you sometimes get the advantage of a home locker room over a locker room for visitors. There are small benefits to this. I like that our group thinks it’s important and that we played that way and prepared that way. ”
Vegas is not yet 100% healthy. Winger Max Pacioretty is not ready to play yet. DeBoer goes on to say that Pacioretty is close, though he will have to quarantine in Edmonton and produce four negative coronavirus test results before he can qualify for practice or play.
The Golden Knights came back from shortages around Dallas and St. Louis. To defeat Louis, and look like a buzzsaw despite who’s in goal between Marc-Andre Fleury and Robin Lehner. The Avalanche has the same a two-headed goaltending monster in Phillip Grubauer and Pavel Francouz, and coach Jared Bednar is not envious of tipping his hand on what he will follow with in the next round.
The Avalanche are also healthy. Grubauer, Francouz, captain Gabriel Landeskog, winger Mikko Rantanen and star rookie defender Cale Makar all missed time with injuries this season.
With the entire crew combined, Colorado is undefeated in two round-robin games and lives up to expectations internally to get the top seed.
“We want to try to get ice cream at home,” Bednar said. ‘It has been a goal of ours and we want to play it and our boys the way they want it. I love the focus and intensity of our group at this point. Hopefully it takes another step here for Vegas so we know we’re good to get out of here. ”
