Free Agent List…
UFA: Alex Tanguay, Stephane Veilleux, David Hale, Kurtis Foster, Antero Niittymaki, Zenon Konopka
RFA: Paul Ranger, Steve Downie, Teddy Purcell, Mike Lundin, Paul Szczechura, Blair Jones
Salary Cap Space…
About $20 million
Summer Shopping List…
1 Top-six forward
- Alexei Ponikarovsky or Lee Stempniak
1 Third-line center
- Kyle Wellwood or Manny Malhotra
1 1A/1B goaltender
- Martin Biron or Peter Budaj
Possible Trade Bait…
C Vincent Lecavalier
RW Martin St. Louis
Top 5 Prospects…
1. Carter Ashton, RW
2. Richard Panik, RW
3. Dustin Tokarski, G
4. Ty Wishart, D
5. Blair Jones, C
Outlook…
After the hiring of new owner Jeff Vinik and GM Steve Yzerman, there is some much-needed positive energy in Tampa. The young building blocks are in place with Stamkos and Hedman, and they also have a nice compliment of veterans. The problem I see with the Lightning, though, is the bottom six forwards.
To have a successful team that truly competes for a playoff spot, you need those glue-guys that kill penalties, win faceoffs, etc… if anyone knows that, it should be Yzerman! Fixing the grit-lines should be a focus of his this summer.
It will also be interesting to see what direction they go with the #5 overall pick. Already stocked with young talent, they’ll be adding another high-end prospect. One of three top defensemen (Fowler, Gormley, Gudbranson) or a pure goal-scorer (Brett Connolly) will be a solid first selection for Yzerman and company.
If the new blood in the front office plays their chips right, the Lightning are a team that could surprise next season.
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4 comments:
Of the freeagents. We know Tanguay and Nitty are not coming back. Do you think Yzerman will resign a fan-favorite in Konopka? Fosters stock rose this year. Can TB afford to resign?
Correction: Lundin is not a UFA, though he is listed as one at NHL Numbers. He's an RFA (from what his representation told us)
Thanks John for the correction. Maybe I shouldn't use NHL Numbers as my contract source anymore!
Sigh. As soon as I saw the trade bait section I dismissed the entire article. I see us trading off some defense before we trade of the likes of St. Louis and Lecavalier. Just the fact that no defense was listed here tells me it was not very well thought out.
This is just a post quickly thrown together to grab more subscribers. Bleacher report had a much more thorough and likely article on the Lightning off season.
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