NHL Free Agency: Grading the Lightning’s signings

Despite limited funds, the Tampa Bay Lightning spent plenty of long-term cash by taking care of their own in the offseason.

The Tampa Bay Lightning were one win away from returning to the Stanley Cup Final. Unfortunately, failure to to close out the Washington Capitals in Game 6 and 7 forced them to start their offseason a couple of weeks early.

Despite not skating away with the Cup, few teams in the league are as deep as the Lightning. At the trade deadline, they went out and acquired Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller to stabilize their blueline and add a little sandpaper to their forward group.

A forward group that includes Steven Stamkos, Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov, and Brayden Point. Just to name a few. Oh yeah, they have a guy named Victor Hedman, the reigning Norris trophy winner on defense and Andrei Vasilievskiy, a top-5 goaltender making $3.5 million a season.

The Lightning didn’t need to do a ton of work in the offseason to be competitive next season. Staying the course would have kept them ahead of the field.

Of course, that’s not how Steve Yzerman operates. Despite having around $5 million in cap space, Yzerman was going after the top dog on the market. He landed a free agent meeting with John Tavares, and while things didn’t go his way, getting a meeting despite limited resources tells you the kind of respect he commands. Had Yzerman been able to sign Tavares with almost no finances, then tricked some other general manager to take salary dumps to get under the cap, he would have been announced as the greatest executive of all-time.

The Lightning remain in the mix for Erik Karlsson as well. It looked like a deal was done a week ago, but things fell through at the last minute. Even if Karlsson does not arrive in Tampa Bay, this has been a successful offseason for the Atlantic Division champions.