With league revenues continuing to operate at a healthy clip, the NHL let their franchises know what their cap for next season is going to look like. As has been speculated for some time, the 2026-27 upper limit will be at $104 million, an increase of $8.5 million over the current ceiling. That also means that the salary cap floor is going up from $70.6 million to $76.9 million.
So, what does that mean for the Tampa Bay Lightning? According to Puckpedia, they currently project to have $13,570,001 of cap space to play around with for next season. Is that going to be enough to make the changes they need to do, especially with a poor free agent class this summer? Probably.
With the glaring exception of figuring out how/if to keep Darren Raddysh, there isn’t a lot on Julien BriseBois’ plate, especially if he truly believes in this roster, which he indicated he did in his post-season exit interview. Including the players in Syracuse, there are nine unrestricted free agents in addition to Raddysh that will be looking for new contracts. There is a chance that a couple of them will re-sign, but not of them should command a huge raise over their previous season’s salary.
Unlike some other franchises out there, the Lightning don’t have a huge amount of restricted free agents to worry about, either. Right now it’s just Maxim Groshev (who does have arbitration rights) and Ethan Samson. Both should receive qualifying offers around $900,000, but it is possible they work out a multi-year deal for Groshev.
Figuring out a solution for keeping Raddysh will likely drive the rest of the off-season for the Lightning. If they can get him for between $6.5 and $8 million, it should give them a little room to tinker around the edges of some depth scoring without having to make any other moves. However, the bump in cap could also drive the 30-year-old’s market past what is fiscally responsible for the Lightning. An argument could be made that Raddysh is the one of the top three unrestricted free agents on the market overall this year, and a team looking to improve their power play and defense could back up the money truck for him.
While the Lightning’s general manager has indicated that there aren’t going to be many changes to the roster this summer, he has been known to bend the truth in the past. If there is someone out there that he thinks will improve the team’s chances to win the Stanley Cup, he will go for it, and this summer he should actually have a little money to be able to do it.
Hockey News
Anthony Cirelli named Selke Finalist [ESPN]
We’ll have more on this later today, but Anthony Cirelli joins Andrei Vasilevskiy, Nikita Kucherov, and Jon Cooper as members of the team that are in the running for a major award. He was voted as one of the top three defensive forwards along with Nick Suzuki and Brock Nelson. Good for him!
Victor Hedman opens up about his absence [Raw Charge]
Hedman stepped away from the game to address his mental health, but is now looking forward to putting in the work this summer to come back and help the Lightning chase after the Stanley Cup once again.
Exploring the additional options available with the number four pick [Second City Hockey]
With the Chicago hockey team missing out on a top two pick, they have some options available to them with the fourth pick. The fine folks over at Second City Hockey look at some past moves with top-five draft picks and, yup, the Lightning are mentioned a couple of times.
Post Lottery Mock Draft [Daily FaceOff]
It’s mock draft season! The DFO folks put together a mock draft. With the Lightning’s pick they have Seattle taking a big defenseman. Cool.
Montreal trailed more in this game than they did in the entire Lightning series. Still, if they can steal Game 2, they’re in a good place.
The Ducks get one on the road as they continue their whacky run through the playoffs. Beckett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson provided the offense while Lukas Dostal stopped 21 shots.
