- Yanni Gourde will be out until December after offseason hip surgery
- Dominic James broke his hand training and misses the first few weeks
- Read below for what both injuries do to Tampa Bay’s bottom six
Tampa Bay opens training camp two forwards short.
General manager Julien BriseBois told reporters Wednesday that Yanni Gourde had hip surgery over the summer and will not be available until December. Dominic James broke his hand during offseason training and will miss the first few weeks of the season.
Gourde is the bigger loss of the two. A December return sidelines the 34-year-old for roughly the first two months of the schedule, and he does the job Tampa Bay has spent years trying to fill.
He played all 82 games last season and finished with nine goals and 19 assists. He also threw 115 hits, averaged 16:22 a night and landed 10th in Selke Trophy voting.
This is his second run in Tampa. Seattle grabbed him in the 2021 expansion draft, the Lightning brought him back at the 2025 deadline, and he signed a six-year, $14 million extension that June. Year two starts without him.
James is coming off a rookie year that produced seven goals and 15 points in 43 games. The 24-year-old won 51.4 percent of his faceoffs and added three points in the seven-game first-round loss to Montreal, a series Gourde finished with a single assist.
BriseBois closed out Lightning media day with the injury update, speaking last after Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman and Brayden Point. Catch his full session at the 1:57:35 mark:
Kucherov spoke earlier in the day and made it clear his own expiring contract is not on his mind right now, with the eight-year window already closed on him.
Preseason starts Sunday at home against Nashville. The Lightning open the regular season October 1 at the Rangers, and neither Gourde nor James will be in the lineup for it.
