Commentary
Analysis of the Tampa Bay Lightning roster, predicting line combinations and D pairings
by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
July 20, 2017
For all intents and purposes, the Tampa Bay Lightning figure to be quiet the rest of the summer.
Doesn’t necessarily mean that’s exactly how things will pan out as all it takes is one phone call to kick-start more conversations, whether that’s in the form of more signings or a trade. With all but one of Tampa Bay’s restricted free agents signed (Tye McGinn is the lone unsigned player), the training camp roster appears to be set.
Assuming McGinn gets done, that would put Tampa Bay at 48 of the allowable 50 contracts, according to CapFriendly which allows flexibility moving forward.
So let’s take a look at the breakdown of the depth chart and the type of lineup Tampa Bay might put on the ice for opening night on Oct. 6 against the Florida Panthers at Amalie Arena.
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First off, with all the moves Tampa Bay has made this summer, they have approximately $3.25 million in available cap space, according to Cap Friendly, to work with. But that number will be a little fluid as Tampa Bay will save some space against the cap, assuming Erik Condra once again spends most of the season in Syracuse, as he did last season. That would open up some space on the team’s cap.
The number provided by Cap Friendly also includes a 22-man roster, which includes Condra on that list, which is pretty safe to assume he won’t be on the opening night roster (though nothing is ever guaranteed if he comes in and has a strong camp). It also does not include defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, who as of now does not count against the 50-man contract limit let along on the salary cap, and we have to assume that Sergachev will be on the roster opening night, it’s will just be a question of how long he’ll stick around. So let’s assume that Sergachev’s base cap hit of $894,166 factors in to the team’s cap structure as well as his potential of $850,000 in performance bonuses, now that cap space gets squeezed a little tighter than it appears.
So let’s take a look at how things might look opening night and have some fun with line combinations, while going on the assumption Tampa Bay will carry the maximum of 23 players on the roster to start the season.
Goaltenders (2): Pretty easy here, Andrei Vasilevskiy will be in net to start with Peter Budaj serving as the backup. Vasilevskiy’s new contract that carries a $3.5 million cap hit kicks in this season while Budaj carries a $1.025 cap hit. That gives Tampa Bay a pretty good bargain in goaltending with a combined salary cap hit of $4.525 million between the two goaltenders.
Defensemen (8): Not too difficult to project what will happen here opening night as general manager Steve Yzerman has stated previously there is no concern with carrying eight defensemen on the roster, even with three of them under the age of 23. So here is the group: Victor Hedman, Anton Stralman, Braydon Coburn, Dan Girardi, Jake Dotchin, Slater Koekkoek and Sergachev.
The group carries a combined salary cap hit of $23,531,666 million, with the biggest belonging to Hedman, who will begin his eight-year contract this season that carries a $7.875 million cap hit.
Filtering through the decisions on who should play and who won’t will be an interesting dynamic to watch unfold in the early stages of the season. Based on how things looked at the end of last season, pretty safe to assume that the top pairing is likely to be Hedman and Dotchin, which proved to be a solid pairing in the late stages of the season for Tampa Bay and as long as Dotchin comes in with the right approach, it’s his spot to lose at the moment.
The second pairing will have Stralman holding down the right side, but who plays alongside him is one of the bigger question marks heading in to training camp. Assuming Tampa Bay remains a big proponent of the righty-lefty balance, it likely leaves open a spot for one the young left-handed defenseman – either Koekkoek or Sergachev. But do the Lightning, which had some issues keeping the puck out of their own net last season, feel comfortable putting either of those options in to a top-four role right off the bat? It’s a perfect mentoring opportunity to pair one with the steady Stralman who can keep things calm under pressure but that comes with a big responsibility on the second pairing. I’d give that edge right now to Koekkoek, who is going to be giving every opportunity to make an impact this season as he comes a fourth-year pro.
So that, on paper, leaves a likely third pairing with Girardi and Coburn, which might leave a lot to be desired in the fleet of foot category, but would be proficient at blocking shots and killing penalties.
But here in lies the rub when teams carry eight defensemen on the roster, while the depth is great to have, there are only so many positions in the lineup available on a nightly basis, even if seven defensemen are dressed, which is something I’m sure will be considered on a regular basis early in the season. So, under the possibilities listed with the pairings above, the means Andrej Sustr, who signed a one-year deal worth $1.95 million in June, is on the fringe as the seventh defenseman entering training camp. It also means that either Slater Koekkoek or Mikhail Sergachev enter as the eighth defensemen and could wind up being part of some sort of rotation system to play alongside Stralman, at least in the early stages of the season.
I’m not entirely convinced the Lightning are going to actually carry eight defensemen in to the season as it truly is not an ideal situation for all parties. While it creates some solid internal competition, which is not necessarily a bad thing, that fact that three of the eight in this case are under the age of 23 with a combined 80 games of NHL experience muddies that thought process because it’s not ideal to be sitting one or two of those young defensemen on a nightly basis. The easiest solution to that would be to just send Sergachev back to Windsor to play another year of junior, but he was already on the cusp of reaching the NHL last season with Montreal so what message might that send to just send him back because of a numbers game. That has happened before back in 2013 when Jonathan Drouin was sent back to junior because the Lightning already had young forwards – Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Richard Panik – set to make the roster out of camp and it didn’t leave a favorable impression. While Drouin was a year younger and just coming out of his draft year, the scenario with Sergachev is similar.
The easiest solution is not always the best, however, if Sergachev comes in to training camp and proves to be ready for a spot. But I also would not be surprised to see some sort of a trade to alleviate the number of excess defensemen. Just a feeling, not based on anything other than that.
Forwards (13): Things are a little more cut and dry on this front with little intrigue as to how things are expected to play out.
Here is where the roster is expected to stand come opening night – Steven Stamkos, Ryan Callahan, Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov, Alex Killorn, Chris Kunitz, Vladislav Namestnikov, J.T. Brown, Yanni Gourde, Cedric Paquette, and Brayden Point are pretty much locks (though Brown and Paquette might have a looser grip on a spot than others). After that, it’s probably going to come down to Gabriel Dumont and Adam Erne with possibly Erik Condra competing for a spot in a lower line role while Matthew Peca is a dark-horse candidate.
So what might the lines look like? Let’s have a gander:
First line: Namestnikov-Stamkos-Kucherov The three were dynamic when together in the early stages of the season before Stamkos was injured and they have earned the chance to start the season together to see if they can rekindle the chemistry they had last season.
Second line: Palat-Johnson-Point Big debate here on where to play Point, who thrived at center in the second half of the season. He’s so positionally sound at center it’s hard to think about moving him out of the middle but sliding him to the third line at center also means reduced minutes and considering the way he can impact a game, I would not want to see his ice time cut down to the 12-15 minute range.
Third line: Killorn-Gourde-Callahan The emergence of Gourde last season allows for a potentially interesting mix here putting the sparkplug center between a pair of two-way wingers. It’s the type of line that could potentially give opposing teams fits on a nightly basis – provided Gourde continues his improvement, Callahan regains his health and Killorn rebounds from a poor last two months of the season.
Fourth line: Kunitz-Paquette-Dumont Could be a solid grind line with three guys who are considered hard to play against in a real north-south style of play for all three players. I like Dumont in this role over J.T. Brown as he plays a similar type game with the added bonus of somebody who can be looked at to win faceoffs as he showed in the last month of last season.
Erne has a chance to be in this mix based on his late-season callup and play down the stretch, but he needs to have a strong camp. He was not as much of a force in the postseason for Syracuse as many expected him to be and might have to establish himself on a more consistent basis to earn more of a fulltime role in the NHL, which does not feel far off.
So as we look ahead to training camp, these are some of the roles and roster spots to keep an eye on when players hit the ice in September.
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