Tampa Bay Lightning Work Around Salary Cap Constraints

The Tampa Bay Lightning did the best they could last week in tangling with that destroyer of team continuity known as the salary cap.

Gone is unrestricted free agent Alex Killorn, who signed with Anaheim. Ross Colton (Colorado), Pat Maroon (Minnesota) and Corey Perry (Chicago) were dealt for draft picks. Unrestricted free agent Pierre-Edouard Bellemare was not re-signed. They combined for 12 Stanley Cup final appearances and seven rings.

As Anaheim will see, Killorn, who will have his jersey hung high above the ice surface at Amalie Arena at some point, was as respected as they come in the room and in the community. The 33-year-old forward was pretty good on the ice, too. Drafted by the Bolts in 2007, he debuted five years later and recorded 466 points in 805 games. He had a career-high 27 goals and 64 points last season, his 11^th in Tampa.

Maroon was a fan favorite and locker room presence who never took a shift off. Messing with one of his teammates meant messing with him. Not a good idea. Colton will forever be remembered for scoring the 2021 Cup-clinching goal, the only goal, in Game 6 against Montreal. While not the goal scorer he once was, Perry admirably went about his business while, as coach Jon Cooper once put it, adjusting to being a “low-minute” forward. Bellemare, a great teammate wherever he has been, provided exceptional work on the penalty kill.

While negotiations may have gone down to the wire, it is no surprise the Lightning did not match the $25 million over four years the Ducks presented Killorn. So, he and Maroon joined Ondrej Palat (UFA), Yanni Gourde (expansion draft) and Ryan McDonagh (traded) as two-time Lightning Cup winners and pillars in departing over the course of what is now the past three summers.

Though a first-round exit at the hands of Toronto this spring snapped a streak of three straight Cup final appearances, the window may not have shut on this Tampa Bay team just yet. Not with Steven Stamkos, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman as residents of 401 Channelside Drive.

Is the window closing? Yes, it is. But the aforementioned core combined with those brought on board could keep the Tampa Bay in the championship conversation. After all, forwards Conor Sheary (two years, $2 million AAV), Josh Archibald (two years, $800,000 AAV) and Luke Glendening (two years, $800,000 AAV) offer ample grit on the forecheck, diligence on the penalty kill and a difference maker (Glendening) in the faceoff circle. Neither among the trio may be top six, but collectively they could provide the type of supporting cast that allowed the Lightning to thrive during the Cup runs.

Blueliner Calvin De Haan (one year, $775,000) has been a team leader in blocked shots and hits. Sheary won two Cups in Pittsburgh. Indeed, it is a nice signing class general manager Julien Brisebois cobbled together at a combined annual AAV of about $4.4 million per year.

When it comes to the forward ranks, Anthony Cirelli, Nick Paul and Brandon Hagel, who blossomed into a 30-goal scorer last season, remain among those putting on a Lightning jersey. Overall, it is a pretty impressive group.

If nothing else, having to say goodbye to Killorn and other Cup winners the last couple of years serve as a reminder that the good times should be savored. They do not last long, not in the cap era, which makes three straight Cup final rounds all the more impressive.

A team that met an early exit in April could very well be energized by an unwanted, but perhaps productive lengthy summer of healing. Time will tell, of course, but it appears that BriseBois did about all he could while facing another summer of cap-related constraints.