The Tampa Bay Lightning continue to go after undrafted QMJHL stars, this time signing Felix Robert to a two-year entry-level contract. Robert, unlike some of the other players that sign these deals with Tampa Bay, has been playing in the AHL for two seasons with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
More to come…
The Tampa Bay Lightning have signed veteran defenseman Ian Cole, according to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, who reports that the deal is worth $3MM. Cole, 33, signs in Tampa Bay as the likely replacement for Jan Rutta, who is reportedly moving on after winning two Stanley Cups as Victor Hedman’s main partner. Cole’s $3MM deal is a $100k raise from the $2.9MM he made last season on the Carolina Hurricanes.
In Cole, the Lightning are acquiring a defender with significant playoff experience and an accomplished overall resume. A veteran of 670 NHL games, Cole won two Stanley Cups on the Pittsburgh Penguins. For years, Cole has been a reliable, defense-first fourth or fifth defenseman. Last season he ranked fifth on the Hurricanes in ice time and third on the team in short-handed ice time. He handled those minutes with some success, helping the Hurricanes have one of the top penalty kills in the NHL and one of the better overall defensive games.
With Rutta on the way out, Cole is the Lightning’s way of making sure his departure doesn’t impact their team too strongly. On a one-year term, Cole is a low-risk investment. Although he’s 33 years old, the odds are that Cole will be able to handle a similar role in Tampa Bay and a $3MM price tag is the market rate for players who can do that. He won’t wow fans or be the sort of flashy signing many want to see, but it’s a tidy bit of business by Julien Brisebois.
We haven’t heard a whole lot of offer sheet talk yet this offseason, but there is one young defenseman who could come into play. The Athletic’s Jesse Granger notes that he believes Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Nicolas Hague is “a real possibility” as an offer sheet candidate from general managers league-wide. Hague is an important defenseman on the rise in the Golden Knights organization, and while he doesn’t have a lot of leverage on his next contract as he’s not arbitration-eligible, another team could indeed force Vegas’ hand. A second-round pick from their first 2017 draft class, Hague’s notched a solid 42 points in 142 NHL games over the past three years. While he’s been limited to third-pairing minutes on a deep Vegas team, he’s shown really solid play-driving ability as an up-and-coming two-way defenseman. With the Golden Knights’ tight salary cap situation, it’s a reasonable bet that they couldn’t match a healthy offer for Hague.
In what has basically become a coaching trade, Jeff Blashill will join the Tampa Bay Lightning as an assistant for next season. He takes the spot of Derek Lalonde, who was hired to replace him with the Detroit Red Wings this summer.
It will be something of a surprise to see Blashill back as an assistant, given how long he’s been the head man in one place or another. You have to go back to 2011-12 to find the last time he wasn’t running a bench, his first year in the NHL. Since then, he took over the head coaching duties with the Grand Rapids Griffins for three years (where he won a championship) and then was the head coach of the Red Wings for the last seven seasons.
Even before he came to the NHL he was the head coach at the USHL and NCAA levels, meaning assisting isn’t something Blashill is very familiar with.
As Joe Smith of The Athletic has profiled in the past, Blashill and Lightning head coach Jon Cooper have a strong relationship, so this move doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Still, it will be interesting to see what kind of effect it has on the Lightning, and how long Blashill is on the sidelines before pursuing another head coaching opportunity.
July 11: The Lightning have officially announced the contract, confirming that it is a one-year, two-way deal.
July 10: Goaltender Maxime Lagace has decided not to test free agency next week. Instead, CapFriendly reports (Twitter link) that he has agreed to a one-year, two-way deal to remain with the Lightning. The deal pays $750K in the NHL, $250K in the minors, and has a total guarantee of $350K.
The 29-year-old joined Tampa Bay last summer after spending 2020-21 in Pittsburgh’s organization. He spent the bulk of the year as the starter with AHL Syracuse, posting a 2.31 GAA and a .910 SV% in 36 games. Lagace also got into a pair of games with the Lightning, making it the fourth time in the past five years that he has seen NHL action.
Lagace will be expected to reprise his role as the starter with the Crunch with Andrei Vasilevskiy and Brian Elliott holding down the top two spots with the big club. With the team parting ways with Amir Miftakhov earlier this summer, Lagace only has Hugo Alnefelt to split time with in the minors as things stand; Alexei Melnichuk is a restricted free agent that Tampa Bay will need to decide by 4 PM CT tomorrow whether or not to qualify him.
With the offseason in full swing, it’s time to examine what each squad will need to accomplish over the coming weeks. Next up is a look at the Lightning.
Tampa Bay came close to making it three straight Stanley Cup titles before falling to Colorado in the Final last month. With the majority of their core still intact and their biggest offseason move already made when they sent Ryan McDonagh to Nashville to free up cap space, GM Julien BriseBois’ to-do list for the rest of the summer is fairly simple.
Part of the reason for the McDonagh deal was to free up cap space to re-sign two of their pending free agents. One of those is defenseman Jan Rutta. The 31-year-old has been a serviceable depth player for the Lightning over the last four seasons and played a regular role for the first time in 2021-22, suiting up in a career-best 76 games while chipping in with 18 points. He’s coming off a two-year deal with a $1.3MM cap hit and after showing he can handle a full-time spot, he should be able to beat that on the open market.
While Tampa Bay would certainly like to keep him around and have had discussions on a new deal, BriseBois also has to consider that McDonagh’s minutes need to be replaced. Rutta held his own playing 16 minutes a game but McDonagh logged 22. Can Tampa Bay fill those extra minutes internally with someone like Cal Foote or will they need someone that’s capable of taking on a bigger role? While BriseBois has stated his intention to keep and work with Philippe Myers (who came over in the McDonagh swap), it’s unlikely that they can count on much from him after the way this past season went. If Rutta and Foote can’t cover bigger roles on the third pairing to help offset the loss of McDonagh, BriseBois may have to go for a more prominent blueliner which would certainly take them out of the running for their other UFA of note.
That other UFA is Ondrej Palat. The winger has been a regular in Tampa Bay’s lineup for most of the last decade, spending a lot of that time as a fixture in their top six. Along the way, he has become a consistent secondary scorer, notching at least 15 goals in seven of the last nine years and dealt with injury trouble in the two he didn’t. That type of consistency is very valuable to teams and an impressive showing in the playoffs that saw Palat finish second to only Nikita Kucherov in scoring. That certainly bolsters his value as we approach the opening of free agency on Wednesday. That’s good news for him but less so for the Lightning.
The 31-year-old is coming off a contract that saw him make an average of $5.3MM over the past five years. If he gets to the open market, a similar price at a similar term is doable. That’s one that Tampa Bay can’t afford, especially knowing they have to keep or replace Rutta as well. Even with Brent Seabrook’s LTIR space, there isn’t enough money for Palat to receive market value and still keep or re-place Rutta. A team-friendly contract is always an option – several have taken a bit less to re-sign in previous years – but with this likely being Palat’s last chance at a big contract, it would certainly be understandable if he wants to see what his other options might be.
If Palat winds up going elsewhere and they need to find a replacement, it wouldn’t be surprising if BriseBois looked for someone on a one-year deal. With several key pieces in need of new contracts soon, a short-term contract would allow give them a boost now and maintain a little bit of flexibility for the 2022-23 offseason. There will be players that don’t like what they have for long-term offers and would certainly view the Lightning as a favorable spot for a ‘pillow’ contract and going that route could give Tampa Bay a capable replacement without needing as long of a commitment.
Tampa Bay has basically exclusively used short-term bridge contracts with their restricted free agents in recent years. The reason is certainly understandable as they used the lower cost of those contracts to keep their core intact and with two Stanley Cups and a Prince of Wales Trophy in the last three years, it’s hard to say they made the wrong choice. Going that way eventually has its consequences but with that type of recent success they’ve had, it couldn’t have gone much better.
But the consequences of that approach are only a year away. Defensemen Mikhail Sergachev and Erik Cernak along with centers Anthony Cirelli and Ross Colton are all about to enter the final year of their respective bridge deals. All four will have arbitration eligibility next summer. Combined, they’ll have a cap hit of $13.675MM next season. They will cost considerably more than that in 2023-24, likely surpassing the $20MM mark. That’s going to result in the departure of another core player or two no matter what and BriseBois knows that.
While the Lightning could wait to work on these next summer, that’s a lot of big-ticket deals to sign in a short period of time and with arbitration hearings occurring after the bulk of unrestricted free agents have signed, getting into July with even a couple of these still pending wouldn’t be ideal. Having the knowledge of what those players are going to cost before next June and July would be great for planning purposes while also giving those players certainly moving forward. Are they going to get all of them signed now? Probably not but the more they can finalize this summer, the easier it should be next summer.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.
The news continues to break during what’s been a busy pre-draft week. The NHL has released the full 82-game schedule for the 2022-23 campaign, marking a return to normal dates and length for the first time since 2018-19.
2022-23 will see its curtains open overseas, where the San Jose Sharks and Nashville Predators will open the season at the O2 Arena in Prague, Czechia on October 7 and 8, 2022. The regular season will begin on the North American side of the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, with a classic doubleheader. The puck will drop at Madison Square Garden for an Eastern Conference Final rematch between the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers, followed by a Pacific Division showdown in Southern California between the Vegas Golden Knights and Los Angeles Kings.
The Colorado Avalanche Stanley Cup banner-raising ceremony will be the following night at home against the Chicago Blackhawks. The season will wrap up on April 13, 2023.
Some key events throughout the season include the 2022 Global Series in Tampere, Finland, where the Avalanche and Columbus Blue Jackets will play a pair of games on November 4 and 5, 2022. The 2023 Discover NHL Winter Classic is slated for January 2, 2023, between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins at Fenway Park, and the 2023 NHL Stadium Series is set for February 18, 2023, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the Hurricanes will host the Washington Capitals. All-Star Weekend will be February 3-4, 2023, hosted by the Florida Panthers.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard Jakob Chychrun’s name atop trade rumors, especially when considering how he was viewed as one of the hottest commodities ahead of the Trade Deadline. It’s not often an under-25 defenseman with top-pairing pedigree becomes available, but the Arizona Coyotes decided not to move him just yet. That could change, however, as the Columbus Dispatch’s Brian Hedger reports that the Blue Jackets and Coyotes are talking about a deal. While he couldn’t offer Chychrun’s name specifically, he also reminds that Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen has said that the team could move their 12th overall pick at the 2022 draft in exchange for a young NHL player with term.
Chychrun certainly fits that bill, signed at just $4.6MM through 2025. It also matches up with the rumblings that Columbus is looking to add aggressively on defense, as multiple reports suggested they were in discussions with the Tampa Bay Lightning about landing Ryan McDonagh. If Arizona acquired the 12th overall selection, it would give them a jaw-dropping four first-round picks in addition to their five second-round picks.