MacDonald Day-To-Day After Losing 9 Teeth

TAMPA - Lightning C Craig MacDonald was up for talking on Saturday and recalled taking a puck to the face in Tampa Bay's 2-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday.

MacDonald was hit in the face by a Hal Gill wrist shot and lost nine teeth - five top front teeth and four bottom front teeth.

He also received about 80 stitches to repair various cuts in his mouth, tongue and gums.

He said if he hadn't been wearing a mouth guard, he was sure he would have gotten a concussion.

"I've never had anything like that feeling in my life," MacDonald said. "You go to stick your tongue out and there's nothing in your mouth. It wasn't a very fun couple of minutes until I figured out exactly what was going on."

MacDonald saw an oral surgeon on Friday, when he received the stitches and root canals to help ease the pain of the exposed nerves where his top teeth had broken off.

The surgeon did not work where he lost his bottom teeth because there is a hairline fracture that has to heal on its own.

He was in the dentist's chair for about two-and-a-half hours.

MacDonald is treating the injury as day-to-day and says he will return when he can tolerate the pain.

"I feel pretty good," MacDonald said. "Obviously I'm pretty sore. Whenever you have trauma to the face like this it's going to hurt."

MacDonald almost immediately went to the bench to receive medical attention, which was something he did on instinct, especially after learning from a previous injury.

"I knew there were issues so I had to get off," MacDonald said. "I had my hand skated on once and it was the same thing; I knew I had to get back to the bench as quick as I can. When I felt in my mouth that there was nothing there that's when I knew that it wasn't much fun."

As for the immediate future, MacDonald has been on a not-so-hearty diet of protein shakes and soft food cut in small pieces that he has to chew in the back of his mouth and he joked that he probably won't be taking any Christmas photos this year.

GRATTON BACK EARLY,

LUKOWICH STILL OUT: C Chris Gratton made an earlier-than-scheduled return to the lineup Saturday after missing three games with a hip injury. Gratton was expected to miss at least two weeks but missed only one.

"I was just going day-by-day and obviously we had MacDonald go down in the last game when he got hit in the fact with the puck so we were kind of short-handed," Gratton said. "The trainers really helped me out last week and it felt pretty good.

"I didn't skate for a couple of days and just rested more than anything. With hip injuries or groin injuries you only thing you can do is rest it. But it felt pretty good."

D Brad Lukowich missed his second consecutive game with a shoulder injury, and is day-to-day.

ROSTER MOVES: C Blair Jones and D Jay Leach were reassigned to Norfolk (AHL) following Saturday's game.

Leach was on an emergency recall because of the injury to Lukowich.

Cristina Ledra, Erik Erlendsson