Scores News Standings Stats Schedule Players Teams History Login

Tampa Bay Retools

Time for some changes

By Dave Semyck

This season will be a lot different for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Being one of the more "content" teams in the league the past decade, Tampa Bay has either been hindered with what they can do fairly and what they should do to be successful. That blurred line can finally be a lot more clear now and changes can start happening.

After signing Danny DeKeyser to his new deal, Tampa Bay new that there was limited money that they could actually play with. They wanted to add a few depth defensemen and at least one forward that could shake up the roster. Heading into UFA they wanted to nab the forward first, as that salary could setup what they could or could not do for their depth defensemen.

Tampa Bay made the splash and signed Evgeni Malkin. While Malkin is not what he used to be, it is believed that he can thrive with his new linemates and help add 20 goals to what this team previously had. Malkin was not cheap and definetly ate into the amount/quality of defensemen they could bring in. Tampa Bay then threw in offers to (3) defensemen that could easily fill spots on the 2nd/3rd D pairing. Luckily they were able to nab one of them in Theo Peckham to add some quality defense to the lineup.

Tampa Bay added $8 million in UFA salary and also gave Danny D an additional $4.6 million which increases the teams actual salary spend by $12.6 million. John Quenneville, Beau Schmitz and Brandon Hickey will most likely be sent down to make room for the three signings which will then bring the net additional spend to $9.6 million. Obviously with only $6.5 million in cap space for this upcoming season they will need to still trim $3.1 million from the roster. Early indications is a potential buyout of Jakub Klepis, which will save $5 million in cap space. If this happens, the top two line could look as follows

Hall-Eberle-Schenn-DeKeyser-Wishart
Malkin-Ladd-Kruger-Demers-Peckham

Its a start but Tampa Bay is committed to making the playoffs this season and making a run for it to the best they can

2/11/2020 - 355 words


× Avatar