They’re really good players still in their prime, and really do believe they’ll be competing for a Stanley Cup over the next few years. “The next three years, all the premium positions are pretty much filled. “The reality is going forward, we locked up all the big-impact guys,” BriseBois said. Our Shayna Goldman wrote a really interesting piece recently comparing how much recent Cup teams, including the Lightning, have spent on their core. Their face of the franchise, and one of the generation’s top scorers, Stamkos, has three more years left on his deal, which played a huge role in sparking the culture of players trying to keep the core together. 1 center, a Hart Trophy-winning winger, a Vezina Trophy-winning goalie and a Norris Trophy-winning defenseman all locked in long-term. GM Julien BriseBois feels good about having a No. Steven Stamkos: $8.5 million AAV through 2023-24 Victor Hedman: $7.875 million AAV through 2024-25 Nikita Kucherov: $9.5 million AAV through 2026-27Īndrei Vasilevskiy: $9.5 million AAV through 2027-28īrayden Point: $9.5 million AAV through 2029-30 They’re pretty damn important players, of course: Starting in 2022-23, Tampa Bay will have more than half its cap ($44.875 million) committed to just five players. Their big-spending days are over, especially after the Lightning signed Point to an eight-year, $76 million extension ($9.5 million AAV) in July. And navigating around the edges of the roster will be a major talking point in coming years. This is just trying to show where the Lightning are limited in flexibility, but how they can fill in the gaps. I’ll re-sign every restricted free agent and the significant unrestricted free agents who are likely to come back. Some ground rules: I won’t trade away players who are under contract through 2024-25. But for this story, we’re going to give it a shot, with major help from CapFriendly. It might seem like an absurd exercise, as forecasting Tampa Bay’s roster six months from now is no guarantee. How hard will it be? To illustrate the challenges ahead, beat writers like myself are doing projections of teams’ roster and cap outlook through 2024-25. The Lightning will try to buck that trend. Former Cup teams like the Kings, Blackhawks and, soon, the Penguins, are forced to go through a rebuild, as longtime GM Kenny Holland said the salary cap zaps a team’s depth. This young players’ development is not only important for this season, especially with Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point sidelined, but in the coming years as the Lightning try to maintain their championship window.
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