NEW YORK - Tampa Bay Lightning forward Marty St. Louis is expected to miss tonight’s game against the New York Rangers after taking a puck to his left eye Thursday morning.

St. Louis was to appear in his 500th consecutive regular season game. He has not missed a game, regular or playoffs, since November of 2005 when he sat out two games with a broken finger.

On Thursday during the team’s morning skate at Madison Square Garden, the team was working on a drill in the corner when an errant puck off a backhand from Dominic Moore struck St. Louis near his left eye. St. Louis immediately dropped to the ice with blood pouring out the area above his eye. He needed help getting off the ice and at one point stumbled on his way back to the bench area.

After being looked at by team medical trainers, Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman said St. Louis was taken to NYU Medical Center for further evaluation.

“He’s got some swelling and that’s all I know right now,” Yzerman said.

Since returning from a broken leg at the end of the 2001-02 season, St. Louis has appeared in 749 of a possible 751 games and currently holds the third longest active games played streak in the NHL behind Calgary’s Jay Bouwmeester and Vancouver’s Henrik Sedin.

That streak is expected to end tonight.

“We’ll see what the extent of it is, but right now it doesn’t look pretty,” Lightning head coach Guy Boucher. “It just keeps on pouring. We have to prepare as if he’s not going to be available.”

Tampa Bay is also with defenseman Pavel Kubina, who will miss his third consecutive game with a lower body injury, although he did skate with the team Thursday morning.

Nate Thompson will also miss tonight’s game with an upper body injury. Thompson did not play the final two periods on Tuesday against the New York Islanders.