As one of the many teams that are currently carrying eight defensemen, Tampa Bay is believed to be shopping blueliner Andrej Sustr around the league, notes Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times. Sustr is now in his sixth season with the organization after signing with the team as an undrafted college free agent back in 2013.
In his time with the Lightning, Sustr has primarily been a depth defender, never averaging more than 17:42 per game in a season. However, he had been a regular for most of the last three years which helped earn him a one-year, $1.95MM contract this summer.
However, he has played in just one game so far this season in large part due to a trio of youngsters on the roster in Jake Dotchin, Slater Koekkoek, and offseason acquisition Mikhail Sergachev. Dotchin and Koekkoek aren’t exempt from waivers while Sergachev, their top prospect, isn’t eligible to play in the AHL just yet and is arguably too good to return to the junior ranks so he’s expected to stay for at least a while yet which potentially makes Sustr, a pending unrestricted free agent, the odd man out. Worth noting, their other four defensemen have either a full no-trade or no-move clause.
More from Tampa:
- The team has activated defenseman Dominik Masin off Season-Opening Injured Reserve and assigned him to Syracuse of the AHL according to the AHL’s Transactions page. As he was not with the team at any point last season, Masin was not counting against their salary cap while on SOIR; forwards Carter Verhaeghe and Jonne Tammela are in the same situation. Masin played in 69 games with Syracuse last season in primarily a third-pairing role while also suiting up in all 22 postseason contests.