TAMPA — The chances seemed remote.
But when Lightning captain Steven Stamkos was diagnosed late last week with a blood clot near his right collarbone — the result of a rare vascular condition — Lightning had indeed struck twice.
One team.
Two players.
Identical diagnoses.
Stamkos, 26, had successful surgery Monday at Tampa General Hospital for a vascular thoracic outlet syndrome called effort thrombosis. His surgery came almost seven months to the day after backup goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy had surgery to treat the same condition, also known as Paget-Schroetter Syndrome.
A nationally recognized expert in effort thrombosis, however, wasn’t shocked the teammates were diagnosed with the same vascular condition within a seven-month span.