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 the Tampa Bay Lightning.
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 Steven 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, $68M 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 $8M range annually, to stay in Tampa. But their current projected $5M 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 bona fide top-six winger who 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, the Lightning can’t afford to keep him at his $2.67M 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, $6M 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 $2M 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 $10M, 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 $6.875M 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 the Lightning are 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 $7.86M 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.
