With training camp less than six weeks away, the Tampa Bay Lightning are looking to get some of their key players to contract extensions, and the Lightning did that yesterday signing Vezina trophy winning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy to an eight year $76 million dollar contract.
Vasilevskiy is coming off just his second season as a full time starter in the league and will be paid $9.75 million a year beginning with the 2020-21 season.
Vasilevskiy set career highs this season with a 2.40 goals against average and also set a career high with 40 wins. Vasilevskiy also set the new franchise career shoutout record with 18.
It appears the Lightning have another one of the key pieces locked up for the next eight years in their quest to win a Stanley Cup.
Earlier this summer, the Lightning signed goaltender Curtis McElhinney to a two year contract to back up Vasilevskiy. Louis Domingue is under contract for just one more season and GM Julien Breisbois felt that they would not be able to sign Dominique to a new contract given the salary cap constraints the Lightning will be operating under for the next few years.
The Lightning may look to trade Domingue as they now have Vasilevskiy, McElhinney, and Louis Domingue on the roster and three goalies is not a realistic number to carry on the NHL roster. The Lightning did not sign McElhinney to play at Syracuse, so look for McElhinney to back up Vasilevskiy.
The other big contract that needs to taken care of is a new contract for Braydon Point. Breisbois seems confidant that a new deal will be done before training camp.
Point will be looking for Kucherov and Stamkos type money as he will get between nine and ten million dollars per season.
The Lightning did make a trade with the Ottawa Senators sending Ryan Callahan and his $4.7 million dollar contract to the Senators in exchange for goaltender Michael Condon. The team also swapped draft picks in 2020.
This will free up a bit of cap space room for the Lightning as they put the roster together for the upcoming season.
This was kind of a strange trade for both teams as the Lightning needed to create some cap room, while the Senators needed to add money to the cap to get them to the league minimum.
Condon who is 34 years old seems to coming to the close of his career as he spent most of the last season on the DL and played in only three games.
Condon most likely will play with Syracuse in the AHL unless he is waived before then. The Lightning in the last month have gone from no organizational depth at goaltender, to having a ton of depth.
MIke Condon, Louis Domingue, Spencer Martin, and Scott Wedgwood will all battle it out in camp for the two goaltender spots on the Crunch roster.
