Lightning lose captain Lecavalier indefinitely to injury

In a season full of ups and downs – more downs than ups – the Lightning hit another potential dip on Tuesday.

Tampa Bay captain Vinny Lecavalier is out indefinitely with an unspecified upper-body injury suffered during Saturday's victory against Washington. There is no timetable for Lecavalier's return.

He was seen leaving the arena on Tuesday with a soft cast/brace on his right hand, but neither Lecavalier nor the team would confirm the exact nature of the injury.

With less than a week to go before the trade deadline and the Lightning attempting to get into the playoff picture, they will be without the team's second-leading goal scorer, third-leading scorer and one of the top faceoff players on the team.

"Vinny is out for a while . . . we have to compensate him, he's a top centerman and we have nobody in our lineup that can replace that right now,'' Lightning head coach Guy Boucher said. "We just have to do it in committees, I guess.''

The injury is not considered serious enough to keep Lecavalier out for the rest of the season, but any time missed at this point of the season is a tough blow for Tampa Bay to absorb.

"It's real disappointing, it's not the time of the year that you miss. We're making a push here and playing well,'' Lecavalier said. "It's too bad I can't help my teammates.''

While he said he was unsure of when he suffered the injury on Saturday, he did take a hit late in the game and was seen getting up while shaking and flexing his right had. Lecavalier said he's not sure if that's when he suffered the injury.

Lecavalier said he will not require any sort of surgery or procedure to repair any of the damage and only time is needed to heal the ailment. It's been undetermined whether or not Lecavalier will join the team for the upcoming three-game road trip that opens on Thursday in Winnipeg, but either way he will continue to skate in order to maintain his conditioning.

Tampa Bay has dealt with its fair share of injuries throughout the season, including the loss of D Mattias Ohlund for the season as well as lengthy losses of D Victor Hedman and RW Marty St. Louis.

"Sure, one more, why not,'' center Steven Stamkos joked. "That's the way it goes, you can never prepare for something like this but we've all been through something like this and guys have to step up. We all know what Vinny can do, what he does on the ice, his leadership qualities but we can't afford to dwell on it right now, especially the situation we are in right now. We have to find a way, every team goes through it and our team has gone through it a lot this year.''