While the Tampa Bay Lightning might be done filling out their roster for the 2024-25 season, their AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, still could use a few more players on the roster. On Tuesday they added some defensive depth as they signed Tyson Feist to a one-year AHL contract.
Feist started last season with the Chicago Wolves before Syracuse acquired him for future considerations at the trade deadline to shore up a defense that, well, needed shoring up. He ended up playing in 10 games for the Crunch and picked up 2 assists. In 22 games with Chicago he had 1 goal and 4 assists.
Last year wasn’t the first go-round with Syracuse as he had appeared in 6 games with them during the 2022-23 season. He spent most of that year with Orlando in the ECHL where he had 16 points (5 goals, 11 assists) in 29 games.
Feist brings some depth and familiarity to the Crunch blueline in a season where there is going to be some growing pains as new players get to know each other. Based on a quick look at their roster, their depth chart looks something like this.
| LD | RD |
| Derrick Pouliot | Steve Santini |
| Declan Carlile | Roman Schmidt |
| Tobie Paquette-Bisson | Max Crozier |
| Chris Harpur | Dyllan Gill |
| Scott Walford | Tyson Feist |
Outside of Carlile and Crozier, there isn’t a lot of experience playing in Joel Bouchard’s system. So bringing Feist in gives them another player that kind of knows what’s going on. that being said, he’s going to have to earn his playing time to avoid being on the shuttle back-and-forth to Orlando.
Other Hockey News
There will be one less Staal brother running around in the NHL next season. Eric Staal signed a one-day contract with the Carolina Hurricanes and then announced his retirement [Canes Country]. The team then surprised him by announcing that they will be retiring the number 12, his uniform number for the 909 games played for them during his career. Over his entire career (he also played for Minnesota, the Rangers, Buffalo, Montreal, and Florida) he skated in 1,365 games and scored 455 goals while adding 608 assists. He also raised the Stanley Cup with Carolina in 2005-06, leading the league in postseason scoring with 28 points in 25 games.
We’ve said it before and we’ll scream it until the sun explodes – best player rankings are made to make people mad. That being said, you always want to see players on your favorite team make it on these completely subjective lists. So, was it nice to see four Lightning players on ESPN’s Top 25 NHL Players of the 21st Century List [ESPN]? Yes. Steven Stamkos (we still count him as ours) came in at number 12 while Nikita Kucherov (17th), Andrei Vasilevskiy (19th), and Victor Hedman (24th) joined him.
Do you want to intern for the Utah Hockey Club’s hockey operations analytics department? Well, that is an oddly specific dream, but the good news is you have a chance! The organization is conducting a Summer Analytics Challenge for prospective interns [NHL.com]. So pick a topic and provide a well-reasoned, no more than five-page deliverable, that includes “detailed analytics modeling” by August 23rd for your chance.
Speaking of Utah and hockey, general manager Bill Armstrong was on the radio and spoke about how the deal for Mikhail Sergachev went down. Basically he offered everyone in the league picks and prospects.
