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Free Agent Focus: Edmonton Oilers

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Free agency is less than 48 hours away now, and teams are looking ahead to when it opens. There will be several impact players set to hit the open market in July, while many teams also have key restricted free agents to re-sign. We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Oilers.

Key Restricted Free Agents

D Evan Bouchard – The Oilers only have one player who qualifies for this section but Bouchard is certainly a significant one.  No, the 25-year-old didn’t match his output from 2023-24 although that was going to be hard to do after he put up 82 points in 81 games that year.  But even with a drop-off in production, he still finished fifth among all NHL blueliners with 67 points (14 goals, 53 assists) in 82 games.  In the playoffs, he had 23 points in 22 contests, down from 32 in 25 the year before but still extremely impressive.  While Bouchard isn’t known as being an elite defender, he has made strides at that end and has now shown himself to be one of the premier point producers from the back end.  Arbitration-eligible this summer, it’s quite possible that a long-term contract for him approaches the $10MM mark.

Other RFAs: F Jacob Perreault, F Noah Philp, G Olivier Rodrigue, F Cameron Wright

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

F Connor Brown – After a rocky first year in Edmonton, Brown took a low-cost one-year deal to stay with them last summer and fared much better, putting up 30 points during the regular season plus nine more in 20 playoff outings.  As always, he was a capable penalty killer as well.  While his days of being viewed as a secondary scorer may be done now, Brown has shown that he can still be an effective bottom-six piece so a multi-year offer at more than double the $1MM AAV he made this season should be doable.

F Kasperi Kapanen – A midseason waiver claim, Kapanen was okay in a limited role but still managed just 14 points in 67 games on the season.  He was better in the playoffs with six points in 12 games but found himself out of the lineup somewhat regularly as well.  A veteran of more than 500 NHL games now, the 28-year-old should be able to secure a deal at some point this summer but it could wind up being a little later in free agency at a price tag close to the minimum salary.

D John Klingberg – The 32-year-old is one of the bigger wild cards on the open market this summer.  He signed a deal midseason after recovering from hip surgery but didn’t play a lot after missing time due to illness and a late-season stint on LTIR.  But in the playoffs, Klingberg was in the lineup for all but three games and held his own in more than 19 minutes a night of playing time.  He’s not a top offensive threat as he was in his prime with Dallas but he’s capable of still helping out a bit on that end while his playoff performance will undoubtedly bolster his market heading into free agency, especially as a coveted right-shot player.  A big-money contract isn’t happening but he might be able to beat the $1.755MM he received when he was a free agent a few months ago.

F Corey Perry – Perry very quietly tallied 19 goals this season and is averaging 15.5 per year over the last four seasons while doing so playing almost exclusively in the bottom six.  He then went and added 10 more in 22 playoff contests.  Yes, he’s 40 but he has shown an ability to adapt and still contribute which will give him a strong market.  If he wants to continue to try to chase another Stanley Cup, he’ll probably have to keep settling for something in the $1MM range plus some bonuses.  But if he’s open to expanding his options past that, doubling that amount should be possible.

F Jeff Skinner – After being bought out by Buffalo, Skinner took a one-year, $3MM deal to give Edmonton some more proven secondary scoring while ideally bolstering his market for 2025.  That didn’t quite happen.  He managed just 16 goals and 13 assists and found himself a scratch at times during the regular season and quite frequently during the playoffs.  His track record is still good enough that there will be a market for his services this summer but it might wind up being another one-year deal at a bit of a dip from this season.

Other UFAs: D Ronald Attard, F Drake Caggiula (signed in Switzerland), D Connor Carrick (signed in Switzerland), G Collin Delia, D Travis Dermott, D Philip Kemp, F Lane Pederson, F Derek Ryan

Projected Cap Space

Following a busy week that included Evander Kane being traded to Vancouver and re-signing Trent Frederic to a surprising eight-year contract, the Oilers find themselves with a little over $12MM in cap space.  The bulk of that will be needed to get Bouchard under contract while they’ll want to shore up their depth as well.  That’s doable enough but if GM Stan Bowman wants to make a bigger splash, he’ll have to find a way to free up some cap space first.

Photos courtesy of Charles LeClaire (Bouchard) and Sam Navarro (Klingberg)-Imagn Images.  Contract info courtesy of PuckPedia.

East Notes: Islanders RFAs, Penguins, Lauko

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After a busy stretch that included trading Noah Dobson and drafting Matthew  Schaefer first overall, the Islanders and GM Mathieu Darche have shifted their focus to free agency by extending qualifying offers to all of their pending restricted free agents, per Stefen Rosner of NHL.com.

The list of current pending RFAs for the Islanders includes forwards Simon Holmstrom, Emil Heineman, Maxim Tsyplakov, and Marc Gatcomb, as well as defenders Alexander Romanov and Scott Perunovich. Of note, Rosner expects Gatcomb to be back with the Islanders, whether by accepting his qualifying offer or signing a different deal.

All four forwards showcased some success last season. Homstrom, 24, posted 20 goals and 45 points last season. Holmstrom was the Islanders’ 2019 first-round selection (23rd overall) and has skated in 75 games each of the previous two seasons. Gatcomb showcased a solid scoring touch, netting eight goals in 39 NHL games (a projected 17-goal pace over 82), while Heineman chipped in 10 goals and 18 points across 62 contests, and Tsyplakov tallied 10 goals and 35 points in 77 games. And with only five defenders under contract, excluding non‑rostered players, re-signing Romanov and/or Perunovich could provide valuable depth on the blue line.

Elsewhere in the Eastern Conference:

  • The Penguins may have recently announced multiple coaching hires, but the team is still looking to add one additional assistant coach, per Shelly Anderson of Pittsburgh Hockey Now. General manager Kyle Dubas recently discussed new head coach Dan Muse’s staff and confirmed the team intends to hire an assistant specifically to oversee the Penguins’ defense. Dubas also discussed the role each recently hired assistant would have next season, with Todd Nelson tasked with running the power play and Rich Clune serving as an “eye in the sky” and helping with development. Recently retired Nick Bonino will support the team with faceoffs and will learn the ins and outs of coaching, Anderson passes along.
  • Boston Bruins’ restricted free agent Jakub Lauko will not receive a qualifying offer and is set to become an unrestricted free agent, his agent JP Barry told Boston Herald reporter Steve Conroy. Lauko was the team’s third-round selection in the 2018 draft and was traded last June to the Minnesota Wild. However, he was traded back to Boston on March 6 as part of a package that sent Justin Brazeau to Minnesota. He posted five goals and 11 points in 56 games last season. Through 139 NHL games, the Czech Republic native has scored 11 goals and 28 points.

Flyers, Cam York Closing In On Extension

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The Philadelphia Flyers and pending restricted free agent Cam York are closing in on a contract extension, per Ken Kurz of The Athletic. Kurz adds that he doesn’t believe the Flyers are worried at all about York being an offer sheet candidate.

With Noah Cates and Tyson Foerster recently signing extensions, it appears Flyers general manager Daniel Briere is looking to solidify the team’s blueline for years to come as well. While York is coming off a down year compared to his 2023-24 season, where he established career highs in goals (10) and assists (20), he’s still only 24 years old, a former first-rounder, and will more than likely benefit from the organization’s recent coaching change.

York’s struggles last season were at least partly linked to his tumultuous relationship with coach John Tortorella. He was made a healthy scratch multiple times and excluded from the power play despite his offensive upside. The tension peaked on March 25 during a 7–2 loss to Toronto, when York and Tortorella reportedly had a heated verbal exchange. Soon after, Tortorella was fired, and York sat out the next game versus Montreal (dressing but not skating) as a disciplinary measure.

Kurz previously reported that the Flyers and York held extension talks early last season, discussing both short-term and long-term options. Although those talks didn’t yield a deal last season, both sides appear to have returned to the negotiating table, likely signaling the belief that York is a strong fit for the system that new coach Rick Tocchet is looking to install. The Flyers currently have just north of $15MM in cap space (per PuckPedia), and an extension with York should still leave plenty of wiggle room for Briere and the front office to use in free agency.

Senators Sign Claude Giroux To One-Year Extension

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The Senators and pending UFA Claude Giroux are “putting the finishing touches” on an extension, Chris Johnston of TSN and The Athletic reports. The Senators have since confirmed the deal. It’s a one-year contract with a base salary of $2MM and up to an additional $2.75MM in performance bonuses, while including a no-movement clause. The full bonus structure is as follows, per PuckPedia:

20 games played: $250K
30 games played: $250K
60 games played: $250K
Playoff berth + 50 RS GP: $250K
First round win: $500K
Second round win: $250K
East Final win: $500K
Stanley Cup win (50% of GP): $500K

Giroux, while in the twilight years of his career, still could have likely landed more than a $4.75MM figure in maximum compensation on the open market, especially on a one-year deal. Instead, the 37-year-old will remain in Ottawa’s top nine forward group for another year as he looks to help guide the club to back-to-back postseason appearances for the first time since 2012 and 2013.

While his offense has been in decline for a few years now, the 18-year NHLer remains an effective secondary scoring piece. He finished fifth on the Sens in scoring last year with a 15-35–50 line in 81 games. He still saw over 18 minutes per game, a number that will presumably drop by some next season. Despite spending most of his time on the wing, he was still Ottawa’s primary faceoff taker over frequent linemate Tim Stützle and won a team-leading 600 draws with a career-best 61.5% win rate.

His return, especially at an affordable base price, gives Ottawa one less roster spot to worry about while providing them with a tad more spending flexibility this summer than they previously anticipated. They have $8.2MM in space remaining, according to PuckPedia, and no notable RFAs to re-sign. That money will presumably mostly go toward filling out their forward depth – they addressed their need for a right-shot defender yesterday by acquiring Jordan Spence from the Kings.

If he tested the market, Giroux would have been among the more desirable forward options still available, particularly after Sam Bennett’s and John Tavares’ extensions. He was No. 10 on our list of this summer’s unrestricted free agents.

Ducks Sign Ville Husso To Two-Year Extension

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The Ducks announced Sunday they’ve signed depth netminder Ville Husso to a two-year extension. PuckPedia reports the deal is worth $4.4MM with a $2.2MM cap hit.

It’s a peculiar contract for Anaheim to dole out, given they already acquired young starter Lukáš Dostál’s presumed backup for next season. They recouped fellow Czech netminder Petr Mrázek in yesterday’s trade that sent veteran netminder John Gibson to the Red Wings, and he’s signed through next year at a $4.25MM cap hit. General manager Pat Verbeek indicated he fully intended on keeping Mrázek next season after the deal went through yesterday, per Zach Cavanagh of The Sporting Tribune.

That turns Husso into an extremely expensive third-string option who still will cost the Ducks $1.05MM against the cap if he’s buried with AHL San Diego. The two-year term does at least ensure the backup position behind Dostál for another year past 2025-26, and Anaheim is still far off from needing to worry about running into the salary cap’s Upper Limit, but it still far exceeds what Husso likely would have commanded on the open market. AFP Analytics projected Husso to receive a one-year, league minimum contract.

Husso, 30, is finishing up his three-year, $14.25MM contract he signed with the Red Wings in 2022 following a breakout season with the Blues. Husso’s spectacular platform year saw him finish seventh in Vezina Trophy voting after posting a .919 SV% with a 25-7-6 record in 40 games for St. Louis, but they were reluctant to bet on him as their future starter over Cup champion Jordan Binnington.

That was a prudent move on the Blues’ part. Husso has gone on to post a .894 SV% and 3.25 GAA in 88 appearances in the three years since, spending portions of the last two years in the AHL after starting 56 games for Detroit in the first year of the deal. He was especially underwhelming in his brief NHL action with Detroit this past year, posting a .866 SV% and 1-5-2 record in nine games before being traded to the Ducks for future considerations in February as Anaheim craved goaltending depth amid a rash of injuries.

Husso had a strong finish to the year, posting a .925 SV% in three starts and one relief appearance, but that’s not a large enough sample size to warrant such a lucrative contract after falling out of a regular NHL role entirely. Barring an injury to Mrázek or a contract holdout on Dostál’s part (he’s an RFA this summer), Husso will likely spend most of 2025-26 in San Diego, where he had a .907 SV% in nine games with a 7-2-0 record after the trade.

Bruins Re-Sign Marat Khusnutdinov, Michael Callahan

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The Bruins have signed pending free agents Marat Khusnutdinov and Michael Callahan to new deals, the team announced Sunday. Khusnutdinov gets a two-year, $1.85MM deal worth $925K per season, while Callahan gets a two-way contract for next year with a $775K cap hit. Callahan was slated to become a Group VI UFA, while Khusnutdinov could have had arbitration rights as an RFA.

While Boston’s thin prospect pool got a much-needed injection with this year’s draft, Khusnutdinov remains one of the organization’s more intriguing young centers. The Russian pivot, 23 in July, was acquired from the Wild in the deadline deal that sent winger Justin Brazeau to Minnesota. The Wild had previously selected him in the second round in 2020, and 2024-25 was his first full season in North America after signing his entry-level contract at the tail end of 2023-24.

Khusnutdinov had an underwhelming start to the season in the North Star State. He was a fine fourth-line piece on a team that relied on checking/defensive acumen from its depth forwards, but offense was hard to come by. He had some of the league’s worst advanced numbers in that regard, and his boxcar stats backed that up with only two goals and seven points in 57 games, averaging 11:14 per game.

The move to Boston seemed to breathe new life into the young center. It’s not as if his offense popped in a big way, but he did show more legitimate upside as a top-nine piece. He saw his deployment increase to 14:47 per game and was shifted to the wing, scoring five points in 18 games along with vastly improved possession impacts. The Moscow native should be penciled into a bottom-six role to begin next season as he looks to rediscover the offensive upside he displayed back home in Russia, scoring 41 points in 63 KHL games for SKA St. Petersburg in 2022-23.

Callahan will return to presumably serve a depth role in AHL Providence if he clears waivers. The 25-year-old Massachusetts native made his NHL debut this past season amid a rash of injuries on the Boston blue line, scoring a goal and logging a minus-five rating in 17 games while averaging 14:09 per night. He was used exclusively as a defensive specialist, unsurprisingly, given his lack of offense at the minor league level. The 6’2″ lefty had nine points and a plus-three rating in 45 games for Providence. He’s been an alternate captain for the P-Bruins the last two seasons and will now continue his run in the Boston organization, which signed him coming out of Providence College after the Coyotes selected him in the fifth round in 2018.

Blue Jackets Sign Dante Fabbro To Four-Year Extension

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The Blue Jackets have signed defenseman Dante Fabbro to a four-year, $16.5MM extension to keep him from becoming a free agent on Tuesday, the team announced. The deal will carry a cap hit of $4.125MM. Fabbro receives a no-trade clause for 2025-26 as part of the deal, Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports. His deal is paid entirely in base salary aside from a $1MM up-front signing bonus, per PuckPedia. His full no-trade clause drops to a 10-team NTC for 2026-27 and 2027-28 and again to a five-time NTC in 2028-29.

It’s a major bit of business for Columbus, and the expected outcome after FanDuel Sports Network’s Andy Strickland reported earlier this month that a long-term deal was on the horizon. Fabbro was one of two top-four defenders for them who could have hit the open market alongside Ivan Provorov. He was the No. 16 UFA on our Top 50 board and the third-highest-ranked right-shot defenseman behind Aaron Ekblad and Brent Burns.

While Provorov’s future remains uncertain, the Jackets will at least keep their top pairing intact heading into next season. It’s also a remarkable turnaround for Fabbro, who goes from waiver claim to a well-compensated top-four piece in a matter of months. The first-round pick of the Predators in 2016 had fallen out of a regular spot in their lineup at the beginning of this past season, going pointless in six games before landing on the wire in early November.

Columbus picked him up as a replacement for veteran d-man Erik Gudbranson, who needed early-season shoulder surgery and was going to miss most of the campaign. They experimented with Fabbro in top-pairing duties alongside star Zach Werenski and never looked back. Fabbro remained stapled to Werenski’s side for the remainder of the year, posting a career-high 26 points and +23 rating in 62 games for the Jackets while averaging 21:39 per game.

The Blue Jackets, already armed with plenty of spending flexibility, now have their top pairing locked in for the next three seasons, the remaining term on Werenski’s deal, for a quite reasonable $13.71MM combined cap hit. There’s no reason to believe Fabbro will get separated from Werenski anytime soon – he excelled in a support role, and only five pairings in the league spent more time together than they did (1,009 minutes) despite Fabbro spending the first few weeks of the year in Nashville.

Columbus GM Don Waddell called Fabbro’s extension a “priority” in the team’s announcement. The 27-year-old will now spend his peak years in Columbus on a deal that he could have likely beaten to some degree on the open market, and he’ll have the opportunity to be compensated again at age 31 in 2029. Their attention now turns to either re-upping Provorov or finding a replacement, either on the open market or via trade, to serve as their No. 2 lefty behind Werenski. They could also look to elevate 2022 first-rounder Denton Mateychuk into that role – he already spent a lot of time with Provorov in 2024-25.

The Jackets still have $28.53MM in cap space after signing Fabbro, according to PuckPedia. They still need new deals for pending RFAs Dmitri Voronkov and Jordan Harris, although the latter could be a non-tender candidate.

Darren Dreger of TSN was first to report Fabbro’s extension.

Image courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.

Sharks Re-Sign Gabriel Carriere To Two-Way Deal

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June 29: San Jose confirmed Carriere’s re-signing Sunday in a team release.

June 27: The Sharks have re-signed pending RFA goaltender Gabriel Carriere to a two-way deal for next season, PuckPedia reported Thursday. It carries a $795K cap hit, including a $20K signing bonus and $775K NHL salary. He’ll earn an $85K salary while in the minors with a total salary guarantee of $100K.

Carriere, 24, signed his first NHL contract with the Sharks a few months ago. The undrafted free agent out of the University of Vermont was in his first professional season on a minor-league deal with AHL San Jose. However, the Sharks needed to get another goalie under contract before the trade deadline, with top prospect Yaroslav Askarov injured and backup Vítek Vaněček traded to the Panthers. That temporarily left them with only two healthy goalies, Alexandar Georgiev and Georgi Romanov, under NHL contract, so they signed Carriere in case one of them sustained an injury.

The Ottawa native had an impressive showing in the minors after toiling behind a weak Vermont team as the starter for most of his time in college. He made 47 appearances, split almost evenly between the AHL and ECHL. He was imposing in the latter league with the Wichita Thunder, posting a 2.60 GAA and a .922 SV% in 25 games – good for three shutouts and a 14-9-2 record. Carriere’s numbers understandably dipped during his AHL call-ups, though. He was easily the worst of the Barracuda’s three regular netminders (himself, Askarov, and Romanov), logging a .894 SV%, 3.06 GAA, and a 10-9-3 record in 22 games.

Nonetheless, his ECHL showing out of the gate was worth another look. The Sharks also haven’t made any other moves to address their lack of goaltending depth, although they should be expected to do so on July 1. For now, at least, Carriere becomes just the second goalie in the organization signed for next season alongside Askarov, who’s beginning a two-year, $4MM extension as he makes the jump to full-time NHL minutes.

Islanders Re-Sign Liam Foudy, Julien Gauthier To Two-Way Deals

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The Islanders are bringing back forwards Liam Foudy and Julien Gauthier for 2025-26 on two-way contracts, per a club announcement Sunday. Foudy’s financial terms haven’t been disclosed. However, PuckPedia reports that Gauthier will earn an NHL salary of $775K and a minor-league salary of $325K, with a $425K guarantee. Foudy was slated to become an RFA with arbitration rights on Tuesday, while Gauthier could have become a UFA.

Both are presumably destined for waivers in October and, if they clear, tons of ice time with AHL Bridgeport. They’ll hope to retain the seasoned pros as reinforcements for their struggling minor-league affiliate, which finished last in the AHL this season with a 15-50-4-3 record, including just four home wins. They’ve already made progress in replacing the entire coaching staff for the Baby Isles, naming former Flyers assistant Rocky Thompson as their new head coach last week.

The Islanders signed Foudy to a two-way deal last summer after he went non-tendered by the Predators, who claimed the 2018 first-round pick off waivers from Columbus but ended up stashing him in the minors for most of 2023-24 anyway. While the 25-year-old did get a pair of NHL games with the Isles early in the year, he successfully cleared waivers this time around and spent most of the year in Bridgeport. The versatile depth forward was one of just two Baby Isles to hit the 20-goal mark, adding 25 assists for 45 points. His eye-popping -31 rating was more a result of the team’s overall struggles than poor individual defensive play.

He’ll look to leverage his strong skating ability into increased offensive production for Bridgeport next year in hopes of earning more NHL opportunities than he did in 2024-25. He’s appeared in six straight NHL seasons with Columbus, Nashville, and New York but only has 104 appearances to his name, recording 22 points and a -29 rating for his career.

Gauthier, meanwhile, returns for his third season in the Islanders organization after signing a two-year, $1.58MM contract in 2023 following a non-tender by the Senators. He made a lone appearance for the Islanders back in October before returning to Bridgeport, where his season was cut short by an injury in late November. He did manage three goals and eight points in nine games for the club before landing on the injured list, though.

The 6’4″, 225-lb winger is also a former first-round pick who hasn’t managed to land a full-time NHL role over multiple seasons, going 21st overall to the Hurricanes back in 2016. He has slightly more NHL experience and production than Foudy, at 41 points in 181 career games. Now 27, he’s peaked as a top-six AHL producer with legitimate NHL call-up utility but doesn’t have much more room for growth.

Lightning Share Plans, Expectations For Free Agency

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The Tampa Bay Lightning are approaching July 1st with only three notable pending-free agents. That short list has made the summer easy to forecast for Bolts general manager Julien BriseBois, who broke down the team’s upcoming expectations to Diandra Loux of The Hockey News. He most notably shared that each of Cam Atkinson, Nicklaus Perbix, and Luke Glendening are expected to hit the open market on July 1st. All three players are set to become unrestricted free agents.

The season-long impact of the three names varied quite widely. Perbix served as a bottom-pair defender for 74 games of the regular season. He recorded a meager 19 points, 20 penalty minutes, and plus-eight while averaging just under 15 minutes of ice time each game. Glendening was also a nightly fixture of the Bolts lineup, stepping into 77 games as the team’s fourth-line centerman. He managed just seven points and a minus-nine on the year, but did offer a staggering 57 percent faceoff win-rate and 105 hits on the full year. Those marks were strong enough to hold down a role in Tampa Bay’s bottom-end – a sentiment that can’t be shared by 36-year-old winger Atkinson. Despite over-800 career games in the NHL, Atkinson found himself facing routine healthy scratches and assignments to the minor-leagues in the season’s second-half. He finished the year with just nine points and a minus-four in 39 NHL games.

Perbix should command a reasonable market in free agency. He’s far from the most explosive defender, but has rivaled 20 points and a positive plus-minus in each of his first three seasons in the NHL. He is only 26 years old, and could offer a new club with the prime years of his career on a new deal. While he negotiates that contract, Glendening and Atkinson will grapple with the thought of retirement. Both players turned 36 after the end of the season, and are now faced with the task of convincing a team they’re still worth depth money. Glendening could win that argument on the back of his continued faceoff wins, and physical role, but it could be an uphill battle for the undersized Atkinson. Atkinson has appeared in 13 seasons and 809 NHL Games, while Glendening has appeared in 12 seasons and 864 games.

BriseBois also shared that the team isn’t expecting to make much of a splash when the market opens up. He told Loux that they underwent a massive change last summer – swapping franchise icon Steven Stamkos for Jake Guentzel through a series of moves. The GM emphasized that teams can’t go through changes of that scale each season, which could lead to a “quiet” summer. Tampa Bay will enter July 1st with just $3.48MM in projected cap space, per PuckPedia. Without a cap-clearing move, it’s unlikely that budget is enough to swing much more than a depth contract before Tampa Bay begins thinking about a cap cushion for next season.

But while they won’t be too active on the open market, BriseBois continued by directly sharing that the Bolts do plan to re-sign defenseman Ryan McDonagh when he hits free agency in 2026. McDonagh has played through six seasons and 349 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning, as part of a career that’s spanned 15 seasons and 1,010 games. He posted an impressive 31 points, 22 penalty minutes, and league-high plus-43 while appearing in all 82 games of the 2024-25 season. It was yet another strong year for the iron-man McDonagh – who has posted at least 25 points and a high plus-minus through three of the last four seasons. McDonagh also recently turned 36 years old, but has so far shown no signs of slowing down. He averaged 19 minutes of ice time and scored three points through five postseason games. So long as he stays on course, it seems the Lightning are prepared to re-up McDonagh on a manageable and short-term deal at age-37 next summer.

Tampa Bay is set for a summer of budgeting and tough exits – but they’re changes the team should be able to turnover with a growing emergence of young prospects. Development camp could be the most notable piece of Tampa Bay’s season, as they look to maintain a roster that achieved the third-best record in the Eastern Conference last season.

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