Never miss out on the latest with the Bucs, Rays, Lightning, Florida college sports and more. Encina that brings you closer to the ice. Sign up for Lightning Strikes, a weekly newsletter from Bolts beat writer Eduardo A. The Tampa Bay Times will commemorate the Lightning’s second consecutive Stanley Cup title with a new hardcover coffee table book, Striking Twice. Just consider it the price of admission for watching a masterpiece come alive before your eyes. It took years and years to build and perfect this Lightning roster, and, no, it will not be pleasant to watch what happens in the coming weeks. With that in mind, they might be willing to throw additional assets into deals in order to get teams to take Tyler Johnson’s contract ($5 million a year for the next three years) or Alex Killorn’s ($4.45 million a year for two years) off their books, if it means being able to re-sign Colton or Goodrow or Cal Foote or a backup goaltender. They haven’t cared about the players they get in return as much as the amount of salary going out the door. They have traded valuable, but expendable, veterans simply to reduce salary commitments. The Lightning have made shrewd moves in recent seasons to be cap compliant. Similarly, are young forwards such as Colton and Mathieu Joseph more valuable than Ondrej Palat or Yanni Gourde because they make a fraction of their salaries? Are you willing to give up some skill on the ice in order to create room in the salary cap to sign other players? While he’s one of the most talented defensemen in the NHL, let alone in the Lightning lineup, does he have a higher value than Erik Cernak who is 24 and will make $7.6 million less than McDonagh during the next two seasons? And McDonagh, indeed, was far and away the top postseason player in plus/minus rating with a plus-18.īut McDonagh is also 32 and has five years remaining on his contract at $6.75 million a year. What that means is the Lightning might make decisions that, on the surface, do not make sense.įor instance, coach Jon Cooper made a plea for defenseman Ryan McDonagh as a Conn Smythe trophy contender in the waning days of the postseason. Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy celebrates with defenseman Ryan McDonagh, who had a standout postseason but might be left vulnerable in the upcoming expansion draft.
#TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING ROSTER CUP WINNING TEAM FREE#
The Lightning can’t begin to negotiate with unrestricted free agents such as Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow and David Savard until they first know how much salary they can shed. It’s going to depend on how much interest there is around the league in trading for some of Tampa Bay’s veterans, and how willing some players will be to waiving no-trade clauses. So how will the team change? At the moment, that’s impossible to say. The Lightning can expect to compete for the Cup, as opposed to being expected to win the Cup. The difference is the margin of error will tighten dramatically. BriseBois is absolutely correct when he says the Lightning will still be a contender next season. “So, I have a lot of reason to believe we are going to remain a Stanley Cup contender and hopefully the stars align again for us, just as they did the past two years, and we can go on another magical run and bring back the Cup one more time.” And they are either in their prime or just entering their prime. “If I look at our roster right now, we have elite players at all the key positions. “Going forward, I expect us to remain a Stanley Cup contender,” general manager Julien BriseBois said Tuesday. Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois wraps up the season Tuesday with media.
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