Lightning Round: Tampa Bay sign Lucas Edmonds to an entry-level contract

Lucas Edmonds became the first player selected by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft to sign an entry-level with the team. Yesterday, the Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois announced that the 21-year-old forward signed a three-year, two-way contract with the team.

Edmonds is a 5’11”, 185-pound right-handed winger, who has dual Canadian-Swedish citizenship, but played for the national team of Sweden on an international level. After playing most of his career in Sweden, Edmonds arrived to North America before the previous season, spending it with the Kingston Frontenacs, where he scored 113 points (34+79) in 68 games in the OHL [Raw Charge]

Perhaps the added exposure of playing in the OHL, as well as the gaudy numbers, got him a bit more attention from NHL scouts than he received while playing in Sweden. The HockeyProspects.com NHL Draft Black Book had him ranked 100th, certainly signaling that he was at least on the radar of NHL scouts. The Black Book describes him as being a talented shooter, with his shot and offensive awareness being his strengths. However, his skating and compete level need improvement, and we’ve seen what Barb Underhill can do in the realm of cleaning up a player’s skating mechanics.

Edmonds showed his potential at the last week’s development camp. He’s expected to start his pro career in North America with the Syracuse Crunch in the AHL this autumn [Tampa Bay Sports]

“The NHL is a really good league,” Edmonds said last week. “Not many people are able to make it there. I’m just trying to continue to get better, work on my game, then hopefully next season I’ll be able to start in the AHL and do as well as I can there and then just kind of continue to get better, get faster, get stronger, and then hopefully somewhere down the road I get to play a couple NHL games, and I’ll just go from there.”

Hockey News

Halifax police have opened a criminal investigation into sexual assault allegations related to Canada’s 2003 World Junior team.

Hockey Canada released the statement earlier on Friday about hiring a third-party investigator after hearing rumour about “something bad” at the 2003 World Juniors.

After announcing that he’s not planning to sign an extension with the Calgary Flames earlier this offseason, Matthew Tkachuk finally has been traded to the Florida Panthers in a monster deal, which included two 100-point players.

The Flames traded Tkachuk and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2025 for for Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, Cole Schwindt and a conditional first-round pick in 2025.

After completing the deal, the Panthers signed Tkachuk to an eight-year extension with an AAV of $9.5 million.

On the same day, Patrik Laine has signed a four-year extension worth $34.8 million with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

To make this deal happen, the Blue Jackets had to clear their cap space and sent forward Oliver Bjorkstrand to the Seattle Kraken for two picks in the next year draft.

Pierre-Luc Dubois accepted one-year, $6 million qualifying offer from the Winnipeg Jets.