{"id":426680,"date":"2026-01-25T03:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T03:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/426680\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T03:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T03:10:12","slug":"tampa-bay-lightning-defenceman-erik-cernak-exits-vs-columbus-blue-jackets-after-big-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/426680\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning defenceman Erik Cernak exits vs. Columbus Blue Jackets after big hit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/tampa-bay-lightning\/14\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/tampa-bay-lightning\/14\" target=\"_blank\">Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> announced that defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/erik-cernak\/8478416\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/erik-cernak\/8478416\" target=\"_blank\">Erik Cernak<\/a> will not return to Saturday\u2019s game against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/columbus-blue-jackets\/29\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/columbus-blue-jackets\/29\" target=\"_blank\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a> due to injury. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Late in the first period, Cernak skated back behind the Lightning net to retrieve the puck and took a hit from Blue Jackets forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/mathieu-olivier\/8479671\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/mathieu-olivier\/8479671\" target=\"_blank\">Mathieu Olivier<\/a> on the numbers that sent him face first into the glass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Cernak went down to the ice and was down for an extended period. He eventually skated off under his own power and went to the dressing room. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He did not return for the second period before he was ruled out for the night. <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Injury Update: Erik Cernak will not return to tonight\u2019s game.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TBLightning\/status\/2015237649468932276?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 25, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Coming into tonight\u2019s game, Cernak has five assists in 30 games this season while averaging 19:01 of ice time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Lightning, Cernak was named to Team Slovakia for the upcoming Olympic Games in Milan. <\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Lightning announced that defenceman Erik Cernak will not return to Saturday\u2019s game against the Columbus&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[4759,3644,5180,897,230,32986,5179,52945,5,4,33549],"class_list":{"0":"post-426680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-blue-jackets","10":"tag-bluejackets","11":"tag-columbus","12":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","13":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-29","14":"tag-columbusbluejackets","15":"tag-erik-cernak-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8478416","16":"tag-hockey","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-14"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115953547632887708","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}