The Tampa Bay Lightning will be without top-line forwards Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat against the Vancouver Canucks on Friday and Edmonton Oilers on Saturday. Kucherov left practice early Tuesday because of a lower-body injury and didn't play against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday. Palat left the 6-3 win against the Flames during the second period because of an undisclosed injury. "Don't expect them back this weekend," coach Jon Cooper said. "We're in an unfortunate run of late with our injuries, and if there is ever a time we need guys to step up it's right now." Forward Ryan Callahan skated hard Friday morning but will miss his eighth straight game because a lower-body injury. He's questionable to play Saturday. "It's tough because not only are these guys impact players on the ice for us, but they are impact guys in the room," Cooper said. The Lightning recalled forward Erik Condra from Syracuse of the American Hockey League. He could join Cory Conacher, who was from Syracuse on Wednesday, with top-line center Tyler Johnson. "You are not going to replace the guys that go down," Johnson said. "But at the same time everyone can stand up and help a little bit." The Lightning are 2-6-1 in the past nine games, including a 5-1 loss to the Canucks on Dec. 8. But they've scored nine goals in the past two, one more than their total from the previous six games combined (not including one shootout-winning goal). "We were spending too much time in our defensive zone so we had to regroup and the offense has been helped by it," Johnson said.
