The Tampa Bay Lightning announced some tough news on Friday: promising goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy will miss two-to-three months after getting a blood clot removed from an area near his left collarbone.
The team revealed that he was being treated for a type of “Vascular Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.”
You can read up on the ailment at Vascular Web, but here’s a quick rundown of what the 21-year-old netminder might be going through:
Your thoracic outlet is a small space just behind and below your collarbone. The blood vessels and nerves that serve your arm are located in this space. Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) is the presence of hand and arm symptoms due to pressure against the nerves or blood vessels in the thoracic outlet area.
The Lightning seemed comfortable at least leaving the door slightly ajar for Vasilevskiy to push Ben Bishop for starts, even with the latter commanding a $6 million salary cap hit and some pretty nice accomplishments over the last two seasons. That tug-of-war is obviously on pause for the moment.
It’s a tough setback for the 19th pick of the 2012 NHL Draft, but one hopes that it won’t be a problem that arises again.
On the bright side, Bishop seems to be over his own injury issues:
#TBLightning goalie Ben Bishop joined the informal skate group today in Brandon. pic.twitter.com/DaFLNNtFPM
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) September 4, 2015
The Tampa Bay Times’ Joe Smith believes that the Lightning might make a signing to deal with Vasilevskiy’s absence, even with promising prospect Kristers Gudlevskis waiting in the wings. Perhaps giving Gudlevskis a little taste of the NHL would be wiser, though?