September 20: Waivers open for the 2019-20 season today, and according to Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports Domingue will be on them.
September 12: When the Tampa Bay Lightning signed Curtis McElhinney to a two-year, $2.6MM contract at the start of free agency, eyebrows were raised all around the league. The Lightning already had Louis Domingue in the organization and had given him a similar contract just a year prior. Domingue had played in 26 games for the Lightning in 2018-19 and had a 21-5 record, clearly good enough to keep the team afloat while Andrei Vasilevskiy dealt with injury. Still, they had brought in McElhinney to give them even more depth. When they then traded Ryan Callahan to the Ottawa Senators and took on Mike Condon’s contract which still had $2.4MM on it, even more questions popped up. How many goaltenders were the Lightning going to start the season with?
Today, GM Julien BriseBois explained what the plan is to team reporter Caley Chelios. The Lightning will keep Condon and Domingue in a “controlled environment” throughout training camp to avoid injury, before placing them on waivers later this month and assigning them to the minor leagues. Moving both goaltenders to the minors would shave $1.075MM off of each cap hit, saving the Lightning some extremely valuable space. The two would then only total $1.4MM against the cap, giving BriseBois some extra room to sign Brayden Point and stay under the cap by the time the season begins.
That is, unless another team decides to claim or trade for them. Domingue is the much more likely candidate given his lower salary and recent success, and that was evident today. BriseBois told Chelios that a team even called this morning about the 27-year old goaltender, indicating some interest. Over a 122-game NHL career, Domingue has recorded a .907 save percentage but showed last season that he could at least hold down the job for a short stretch and keep a good team on the winning path.
Condon meanwhile played his way out of a job with the Senators and struggled all season with injury. He played in just three games last season including one at the AHL level and hasn’t been an effective NHL option since 2016-17. The 29-year old is likely too expensive for a waiver claim even if he is healthy, and it’s hard to see a team taking on his contract unless the Lightning include another asset.
Waive a guy who went 21-5??? Wow!
Really though.. what does the guy have to do to earn a spot?
Seems like .908 save percentage and 3.00+ GAA goalies aren’t that hot of a commodity.
This. Mediocre numbers, he played on a team that regularly out scored opponents.
he’s okay.
Put those numbers up on LA last year and his record is probably 5-17-3
The only reason he had a good win loss record is Tampa could score 7 if they needed too. Wasn’t because domingue was good!
Domingue can play. There are a lot of worse backup goalies out there.
albeit at Domingue’s being waived, the move was and is being made to free up cap space to sign one of the top restricted free agents in Brayden Point. with moving out Condon and Domingue the Lightning frees up $3.55 + million with the $ 9 million + they have in cap space as Point is one of top 3 free agents in league to be signed McElhinney on makes $1.3. With other players looking at $10+million as was offered to one in Toronto want mention no names, imagine what Point will be receiving .
How would they not get a 4-5 rounder guy is good. Probably better the at least 10-20 teams back up
meh he’s prolly in that group of “meh okay backups”. everyone feels like they have one of those. Specially at the beginning of the season when no one’s injured