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Buyout Candidate: Conor Sheary

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While the Lightning are the most successful franchise of the last 10 years, back-to-back first-round losses have them at risk of slipping into mediocrity. That’s exacerbated by a salary cap crunch this summer that, if not handled with care, could result in the loss of captain Steven Stamkos to free agency.

General manager Julien BriseBois has no intention of letting his team slip out of contention anytime soon. He’s already made one move to fill out his roster this summer, re-acquiring Stanley Cup champion defenseman Ryan McDonagh from the Predators shortly after both teams were eliminated from the playoffs.

Aside from Stamkos and future Hall-of-Famer Victor Hedman, the Bolts have much of their core signed long-term. Erik Černák, Anthony Cirelli, Brandon Hagel, Brayden Point and Mikhail Sergachev are all signed through at least 2030 with cap hits north of $5MM. Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy have matching $9.5MM cap hits through 2027 and 2028, respectively. While it could likely change as the salary cap rises, none of them are significant bargains for what they’ve contributed the past couple of seasons, aside from Kucherov and Point.

The salary cap jumping to $88MM next season does offer BriseBois some much-needed flexibility, but they do still have just $5.335MM in projected space with at least three roster spots to fill if they want to have any sort of in-season wiggle room. Even with a significant discount, that’s likely not enough to sign anyone other than Stamkos, posing an obvious issue.

Tampa doesn’t have a recent history of buyouts, but it could be a decent last-ditch way to shed ill-advised cap hit allocation. In a piece for The Athletic on Monday, Harman Dayal and Thomas Drance name Lightning winger Conor Sheary a player to watch as the first window to buy out players, which opens 48 hours after the Stanley Cup Final ends, approaches.

[RELATED: 2024 Key Offseason Dates]

Often a strong secondary scoring threat throughout a 500-plus game career with the Capitals, Penguins and Sabres, Sheary became a UFA last summer. BriseBois pounced, hoping to add a cost-effective top-nine scoring option while inking him to a three-year, $6MM deal ($2MM AAV) with trade protection. The 32-year-old flamed out in Tampa, though, limited to just four goals and 15 points in 57 games on the year after scoring double-digit goals for the last seven years. He was a frequent healthy scratch near the end of the regular season and didn’t play at all in their first-round loss to the Panthers.

Sheary’s role was limited under head coach Jon Cooper. His 11:06 average time on ice was the lowest since his rookie season. There’s likely some bounceback potential there, as indicated by his career-low 8.0% shooting rate, but the risk of him declining further isn’t one the cap-strapped Lightning can afford to take.

Trading him and removing the final two years of his contract would be ideal, but a 16-team trade list complicates things. A buyout would at least reduce his cap hit from $2MM to $583K next season, opening up an additional $1.417MM in space, per CapFriendly. That’s easily enough to add a cost-effective depth option on the UFA market and opens up additional flexibility for a Stamkos extension.

The rest of the buyout isn’t awful, either. It would carry a $1.083MM hit in 2025-26, still saving the Bolts over $900K in the final season of his deal, before a sub-league minimum penalty of $583K in 2026-27 and 2027-28.

Jon Cooper To Coach Canada At 4 Nations Cup And 2026 Olympics

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Lightning head coach Jon Cooper will have some extra duties coming his way in the near future.  In his latest column for The Athletic (subscription link), Pierre LeBrun reports that Tampa Bay’s bench boss is expected to be named as Canada’s head coach for the upcoming 4 Nations Cup as well as the 2026 Olympics.  LeBrun adds that Hockey Canada considered having a separate head coach for each event but, like the United States with Mike Sullivan, has ultimately settled on having the same one for both.  Cooper has coached internationally at three events in the past.  He was Canada’s head coach at the 2017 Worlds, coached Team North America at the World Cup that same year, and was an assistant for the U.S. at the 2007 Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament.

Hugo Alnefelt Plans To Return To North America

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  • Just over a month ago, it was reported that goaltending prospect, Hugo Alnefelt, would be leaving the Tampa Bay Lightning organization for an opportunity in his native Sweden. In an interview with Martin Jansson of HockeySvierge, it does not appear Alnefelt will be home for good, as he envisions returning to North America at some point. The 23-year-old goaltending prospect was quoted, “It’s hard to know if you’re ready or not and I don’t know if you can really be ready if you do something you’ve never tried. But there is absolutely nothing I regret that I went over so early. The plan now is not to be at home for good, it is to develop and take the step back“.

    [SOURCE LINK]

Lightning Plan To Qualify Waltteri Merela

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Yesterday, Lightning restricted free agent forward Waltteri Merela signed a one-year deal with SC Bern of the Swiss National League. The Lightning reportedly wanted Merela to return to the organization (as per Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times) but couldn’t offer him the guaranteed money that he could get abroad because of their need to keep salary cap flexibility. The Lightning plan to make Merela a qualifying offer to retain his NHL rights until he is 27.

Lightning RFA Waltteri Merela Signs In Switzerland

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After one season in the Lightning organization, forward Waltteri Merela is headed back overseas. The Finnish winger has signed a one-year deal with SC Bern of the Swiss National League, per a team announcement.

Merela, 25, is a pending restricted free agent. Tampa can retain his NHL rights until July 1, 2026, by issuing him a qualifying offer before the June 30 deadline.

Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois signed Merela as an undrafted free agent a little over a year ago, inking him to a one-year, two-way deal with an $870K cap hit. The 6’2″ right wing had been a two-way force in his native Finland in the preceding years, capping off his 2022-23 season with 14 points in 14 playoff games for Tappara as he helped the club win back-to-back Liiga championships.

Merela then made the Bolts out of camp, and while it wasn’t a huge surprise, he was far from a lock. While that indicated Tampa may have found a diamond in the rough, Merela struggled to produce, logging just one goal through 19 games before being sent to AHL Syracuse for the majority of the season. He wasn’t much of a factor possession-wise in his fourth-line minutes, posting a -2 rating and average shot attempt numbers while averaging 9:49 per game.

On the farm in Syracuse, Merela performed much better, potting 15 goals and 34 points in 55 games. Still, without a dedicated path back to NHL minutes with the Lightning next season, it’s unsurprising to see him try his luck overseas again. He’s still young enough that an NHL return may be in the cards someday.

Merela joins a Bern roster next season with a handful of former NHL talent, including Dominik Kahun and Patrik Nemeth.

Lightning Sign Declan Carlile To Two-Year Extension

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3:15 p.m.: Carlile’s deal carries a $775K base salary in both seasons, which will serve as his cap hit. He’ll earn $100K in AHL salary with a $150K guarantee next season, increasing to a $250K AHL salary with a $350K guarantee in 2025-26.

The Lightning have signed defenseman Declan Carlile to a two-year, two-way extension, per a team announcement Thursday. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Carlile, 24, made his NHL debut this season on Jan. 4 against the Wild, posting a +1 rating, one hit and two blocks in 11:27 of ice time. It remains his only major-league appearance to date.

The Bolts picked up the undrafted blue liner as a free agent signing out of Merrimack College in 2022, and his entry-level contract was set to expire this summer. He’s spent nearly all of the past two seasons on assignment to AHL Syracuse, where he finished second in scoring among defensemen this season with 27 points (seven goals, 20 assists) in 61 contests. He also added a goal and four assists in eight playoff games as the Crunch were eliminated in the North Division Finals by the Cleveland Monsters.

He’ll now remain in the Tampa Bay organization through the 2025-26 season. He’ll be a restricted free agent upon expiry, but he’ll be eligible to reach unrestricted free agency early via Group VI status if he plays fewer than 80 career NHL games by the time the extension runs out.

In the likely event that Carlile doesn’t crack the Bolts’ opening night roster, they won’t need to place him on waivers to return him to Syracuse to begin next season. He has one season and 69 NHL games played remaining until he loses his waiver exemption, meaning they would need to waive him to begin 2025-26 if he’s cut from training camp.

Ilya Usau Signs With KHL’s Dinamo Minsk

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Ilya Usau has signed with Dinamo Minsk of the Kontinental Hockey League, the team announced. The move comes more than a week after he was placed on unconditional waivers for the purposes of contract termination by the Lightning.

James Mirtle of The Athletic reported at the time that Tampa’s release of Usau was likely a precursor to his return to the KHL. It wasn’t clear where he’d be signing, but it’s a surprise to no one to see the Belarus native return home. The 6’1″ pivot is the second signing from North America that Minsk has made this week, joining minor-league veteran defender Xavier Ouellet.

Usau, 22, has spent the last two years playing for the Lightning’s primary minor-league affiliate, the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch. Undrafted, he signed with the Lightning as a free agent in March 2022 after a breakout season with Dinamo that saw him record nine goals and 26 points in 40 games while also representing Belarus at that year’s Olympic qualifiers.

His results with the Crunch were middling and failed to ever thrust him into consideration for an NHL recall. Over 99 appearances since 2022-23, Usau managed 11 goals and 30 points with a +1 rating. He played only 42 out of the Crunch’s 72 regular-season games this season, recording seven goals and seven assists, and did not play in the Calder Cup Playoffs.

Had Usau honored the final year of his entry-level contract next season, there was a strong chance he would have been non-tendered by the Lightning next summer and become an unrestricted free agent anyway. Instead, he gets to return home a year early in hopes of re-establishing himself as a professional regular. He’s still young enough that he may earn consideration as an international free agent signing again down the line, but don’t expect to hear his name in NHL circles for a while unless a massive breakout season arrives.

Afternoon Notes: Jeannot, Parekh, Bourque

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Winger Tanner Jeannot is once again facing trade rumors, as the Tampa Bay Lightning look to clear enough cap space for a serviceable off-season. The team is facing the loss of their franchise player Steven Stamkos with just $5MM in cap space – not nearly enough to afford the services of the future Hall-of-Famer. That could push them to try and move Jeannot’s $2.665MM cap hit, though Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times shares that there’s been no legitimate discussions of a move just yet. Though Encina did speak to the idea being a tantalizing one for the Lightning, with many teams around the league still interested in acquiring Jeannot.

The Lightning acquired Jeannot from the Nashville Predators ahead of the 2023 Trade Deadline, sending the Music City defenseman Callan Foote, the picks that turned into Dylan MacKinnon (2023 third-round, 83rd-overall), Jayson Shaugabay (2023 fourth-round, 115th-overall), and Kevin Bicker (2023 fifth-round, 147th-overall), as well as a second-round pick in 2024 and a first-round pick in 2025 in return. Nashville traded the Shaugabay pick back to Tampa four months later, in exchange for a 2024 fourth-round pick, and moved the Bicker pick to the Detroit Red Wings to move up in the 2023 second-round.

Jeannot scored just four points in his 20 games with Tampa after the trade, though that didn’t dissuade their faith in him, with the Lightning signing Jenanot to a two-year, $5.3MM contract last summer – a deal that avoided the arbitration hearing Jeannot filed for. The rough-and-tumble winger wasn’t able to rekindle his spark on the new deal, though, scoring just 14 points in 55 games this season. He added 75 penalty minutes and a -10 – and tallied just one assist in four postseason games.

There’s still reported interest in Jeannot around the league despite his lacking scoring. Teams like the Calgary Flames have been looped into trade rumors, though Encina emphasized that a trade isn’t likely Plan A. Tampa will need to get a hefty return in any Jeannot trade, if only to hedge their losses from a costly 2023 move.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Saginaw Spirit defenseman Zayne Parekh has won the CHL’s Defenseman of the Year Award, beating out Memorial Cup Finals competition Sam Dickinson. Parekh was dazzling this season, posting a position-leading 33 goals and 96 points in just 66 games this season. He’s just the second OHL defenseman to top 95 points since 2000, joining Ryan Ellis’ 100-point season in 2010-11. But while Ellis was already an NHL draftee, Parekh is headed into his first year of eligibility in the 2024 NHL Draft. He’s seen as one of the top defensemen in the class and should rival a top 10 selection.
  • The Dallas Stars are swapping talented young forwards, with Ty Dellandrea stepping out of the Game 6 lineup in favor of Mavrik Bourque, shares Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman (Twitter link). Bourque won the AHL’s ‘Les Cunningham’ MVP Award this season after posting 26 goals and 77 points in 71 games this season. Bourque formed a dynamic duo with Stars standout Logan Stankoven in the first half of the season. Dallas will look to use that pairing as their X-factor, as they face elimination at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers.

Free Agent Focus: Tampa Bay Lightning

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Free agency is now just a month away 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 have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well.  We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Lightning.

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

F Steven Stamkos – An unrestricted free agent for the second time in his career, the Lightning should be able to find a way to keep their captain this offseason. Earlier in the year, Stamkos was publicly upset with Tampa Bay’s management due to not having an extension before the start of the 2023-24 NHL season, but those tempers should have cooled. At 34 years old, Stamkos should still command a multi-year contract from the Lightning (or any team), which should lower his yearly AAV for the cap-strapped organization. Stamkos is a veteran of 1082 regular season games with two Stanley Cup rings under his belt and is coming off the seventh 40-goal season of his career. If he were to entertain the idea of leaving Tampa Bay this summer, plenty of teams would come calling.

F Anthony Duclair – After coming to the organization at the trade deadline from the San Jose Sharks, Duclair quickly became one of the better trade pickups this season. His trade value increased slightly in his last 10 games in the Bay Area, scoring seven goals and 10 points leading up to the trade with the Lightning. After being acquired by the organization, Duclair became a solid offensive contributor, scoring eight goals and 15 points in only 17 games in Tampa Bay. Although he carries plenty of value as a complimentary offensive piece, Duclair may be unable to extend his stay with the Lightning unless he takes a slight pay cut on his recent $3MM salary.

D Matt Dumba – Much like Duclair, Dumba was also acquired at the trade deadline, this time from the Arizona Coyotes. Unfortunately, with another change of scenery failing to bring out anything in his game, it appears the Lightning and Dumba will not continue their relationship. After being acquired from the Coyotes, Dumba suited up in 18 games for Tampa Bay, only tallying two assists while averaging 18:39 of ice time per night. On the open market, Dumba should be able to fetch a guaranteed contract from a team desperate for defensive depth, but it will not be anywhere close to his $3.9MM AAV after a tough 2023-24 season.

Other UFAs: F Tyler Motte, F Austin Watson, D Calvin de Haan, D Haydn Fleury, G Jonas Johansson

Projected Cap Space

This is where things have been tricky in Tampa Bay for the last several years. The team was already a little tight on cap flexibility heading into the offseason and then acquired defenseman Ryan McDonagh and his $6.75MM AAV from the Nashville Predators with no money going the other way. Thanks to the trade for McDonagh, the Lightning will have a little over $5MM to work with unless another move is made to free up space. Since the trade for McDonagh, and the team’s noted desire to keep Stamkos, trade rumors have circled over the past few days around Tanner Jeannot and his $2.665MM salary for the 2024-25 NHL season, although nothing is concrete at this point. Ultimately, Stamkos could surprise us all and take a well-below-market contract to keep the team competitive through his twilight years in the NHL, but that seems unlikely at this point. However, if the Lightning do end up freeing some cap space this summer, they have players to move without completely shaking the integrity of the lineup.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Offseason Checklist: Tampa Bay Lightning

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The offseason has arrived for all but a handful of teams who are still taking part in the playoffs.  Accordingly, it’s now time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Tampa Bay.

The Lightning managed to make the postseason for a seventh year in a row, but further confirmation that their contending window is coming to a close came swiftly via their cross-state rivals. The Panthers, now just one win away from advancing to the Stanley Cup Final, dispatched them in a quick five-game series, their first win in three playoff series against the Bolts. Now, with back-to-back non-elite regular seasons and a pair of first-round eliminations, general manager Julien BriseBois needs to pull off some tricks to keep the franchise from spiraling into mediocrity after its greatest stretch of success in franchise history.

Re-Sign Stamkos

BriseBois already checked one major item off his offseason checklist, acquiring some much-needed defensive help by acquiring former Bolt Ryan McDonagh from the Predators. Unfortunately, that’s created a temporary cap crunch that makes contract extension negotiations with captain Steven Stamkos much more difficult.

It isn’t the first time the future Hall-of-Famer has gotten dangerously close to becoming a UFA. Negotiations were testy after a five-year bridge deal expired in 2016, and he waited until 48 hours before the market opened to sign an eight-year, $68MM extension. With that deal now run out, Lightning fans will hope it doesn’t take that long again. It wouldn’t be a good sign for a player who, despite expressing a strong desire to remain in the only NHL market he’s ever known, was disappointed with the lack of extension talks last summer.

He’d likely take a discount on his market value, somewhere in the $8MM range annually, to stay in Tampa. But their current projected $5MM of cap space with a minimum of one other roster spot to fill likely won’t cut it, especially since he’s not eligible for performance bonuses.

They’ll need to free up space to get it done, something the rest of this checklist examines in more detail. But even as Stamkos’ even-strength numbers begin to dip, he’s a bonafide top-six winger that they don’t have the offensive depth to shoulder the loss of. He still managed to rack up over a point per game this season, recording yet another 40-goal campaign with 81 points in 79 contests. The 34-year-old was also their goal leader in the playoffs, lighting the lamp five times in five games.

Offload Bloated Forward Contracts

The Lightning reached three straight Stanley Cup Finals largely because of their cost-effective depth scoring. BriseBois has failed to continue that trend in the past two years thanks to a pair of ill-advised acquisitions.

One was much more harmful than the other, and he’s already on the trade block. BriseBois gave up five draft picks, including a first-rounder, to pick up grinder Tanner Jeannot from Nashville in a trade last year. He’s managed just eight goals and 18 points in 75 games for the Bolts since the deal and spent a good portion of the 2023-24 campaign on the shelf. Averaging fringe third-line minutes, they can’t afford to keep him at his $2.67MM cap hit next season. There’s still optimism around the league that he can rebound to his 24-goal form with the Preds two years ago, but with a 16-team no-trade list kicking in on July 1, they’ll need to move on from him in short order.

There’s also the matter of Conor Sheary, who BriseBois inked to a three-year, $6MM deal with trade protection in free agency last summer. He managed only four goals and 15 points in 57 games this season and was a healthy scratch for most of the stretch run, including all five of their playoff games. His spot in the lineup was replaced by minor-league call-up Mitchell Chaffee, who’s already inked a cost-effective extension with an $800K cap hit. His $2MM cap hit can’t be afforded for a player who provided league-minimum value this season, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see BriseBois offload him in a pure cap-dump transaction. He has a full no-trade clause at the moment, although it downgrades to a 16-team no-trade list on July 1.

Combined, the moves would bring the Lightning’s cap space to nearly $10MM, enough to re-sign Stamkos and add a low-cost depth scoring forward on the free agent market to help replace Jeannot and Sheary.

Get Another LTIR Contract

Having retired defenseman Brent Seabrook’s contract on the books for the past two seasons was beneficial to the Bolts. After confirming he wouldn’t play again due to injury, Tampa acquired the Cup-winning defenseman’s $6.875MM cap hit from Chicago, placing him on long-term injured reserve for the past three seasons to help give them in-season spending flexibility.

That contract has now run out, though, and they’re entering the summer without anybody available to help fudge their spending limit. That doesn’t mean they can’t pull off another trade to acquire a dead contract, though. As part of their purchase of the Coyotes’ hockey operations, NHL Utah is picking up the final two seasons of injured center Bryan Little’s contract, which carries a $7.86MM cap hit. With Utah GM Bill Armstrong having full permission from ownership to spend to the salary cap, unlike years past in Arizona, Little’s deal becomes an inhibition for Utah rather than a benefit to help them hit the cap floor.

If they have interest in selling the final two seasons of Little’s contract, expect the Lightning to engage. It wouldn’t mean much for their off-season spending, but placing him on LTIR once the season starts could give them some slight in-season recall and trade flexibility. The few other LTIR-bound contracts around the league are proving advantageous to their current clubs, such as the Golden Knights’ Robin Lehner, so Little might be BriseBois’ only option if he wants to go that route.

Upgrade Backup Goaltending

Tampa struggled defensively, ranking below average in goals against, but it wasn’t all on their skaters. Star netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy had a remarkably pedestrian season after recovering from preseason back surgery, allowing more goals than expected based on the shot quality he faced for the first time since 2015-16, per MoneyPuck. His .900 SV% was also right in line with the league average.

The four-time Vezina finalist could easily return to form after a healthy offseason, but relying on him to carry elite numbers through 60-65 appearances as he enters his 30s will become unrealistic. Throwing league-minimum backup Jonas Johansson to the wolves to start the season didn’t have good results, and he finished the campaign with a poor .890 SV% (that was still above his career average) in 26 appearances.

Waiving Johansson and spending even just $500K more on a more proven backup option in free agency could make a major difference in the standings for Tampa next season in an increasingly competitive Atlantic Division.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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