It appears that the Tampa Bay Lightning are ready to move on from one of the longest free-agent contracts signed during Julien BriseBois’ tenure as general manager just over a year after the deal started. On Wednesday, word trickled out that Lightning forward Conor Sheary had been placed on waivers by the team.
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Sheary appeared in three games this season without recording a point while averaging just over 11 minutes of ice time. He was in the second season of a three-year contract that totaled $6 million, one of only a handful of multi-year deals that Mr. BriseBois has handed out to free agents since taking over as the Lightning’s general manager.
There was some hope that, after an injury-plagued season in 2023-24, Sheary could bounce back and provide some depth either on the second line, or as part of the bottom-six. Last season, the 32-year-old was limited to just 57 games as he battled injuries from almost the outset. He recorded a career-low 4 goals while dealing with an injured tendon in his hand.
Due to the remaining term on his contract, there is a good chance that he will clear waivers tomorrow and the Lightning can assign him to Syracuse in the AHL. If he is willing to report, he would give the Crunch some help at the forward spot where they currently have two players on PTOs and a defenseman filling in as they wait for some of their injured forward to return to the line-up. In doing so, they can bury $1.15 million of his cap, leaving him with a cap hit of $850,000.
Theoretically, another team could claim him, but then they would be responsible for his entire contract. It’s not an exorbitant amount, especially for a team that might be rebuilding or need a veteran to help out. The Lightning could also move the contract in a trade for future considerations while retaining a portion of the salary to make it even more enticing. Unlike some trades in the past (Tyler Johnson) it’s unlikely they would get to the point of throwing in a sweetener in the trade unless the team getting Sheary was willing to take on the entire deal.
It is interesting that Mr. BriseBois chose to make the move this early in the season. Through the first six games of the year, they had been ping-ponging Sheary and Cam Atkinson in the line-up, and it seemed to be working out okay. Neither were lighting up the world on the bottom-six, but they weren’t tanking the team either. Nor are the Lightning in a position where they need to do any cap gymnastics as they are still well under, well at least for them, the top of the cap. They’ll also likely offset much of the savings by recalling another forward (Max Groshev? Gage Goncalves?)
So, why now? We don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Maybe there is a deal in the works and the other team wants to have the option to start Sheary in the AHL. Maybe the Lightning want him playing full-time with the Crunch with the intention of recalling him at some point. It’s a long season and we don’t know the twists and turns that lie ahead. There is a chance Sheary comes back and regains the scoring touch. Stranger things have happened in sports.
The steady play of Conor Geekie as a rookie has given them a little breathing room at forward, and that probably helped them make this decision. Had Geekie struggled through the first couple of weeks, Sheary could have been seeing more playing time in Tampa.
One thing is for certain, Mr. BriseBois isn’t locked into decisions that aren’t working out for the team. When he realized that the defense needed a steady presence, he basically unwound the Ryan McDonagh trade. When Tanner Jeannot wasn’t providing the offensive presence he had hoped for, the deal with Los Angeles was made. Now, less than halfway through Sheary’s contract, he’s willing to let him go to another team for nothing in return.
It was always a little bit of a risk signing Sheary, and this roll of the dice didn’t work out for him or the Lightning. It won’t take away from a solid career for Sheary, who has 267 points (124 goals, 143 assists) in 591 games and has raised the Stanley Cup twice. He’s skated with three of the best players to every lace up the skates in Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, and Steven Stamkos. It just didn’t work in Tampa. Not every deal is going to work out as well as the Brandon Hagel deal (that is starting to look like one of the best trades in franchise history, by the way). That’s life. You hope to win more than you lose, but you’re still going to lose some.
