Tampa Bay Lightning Cap Space: Examining Bolts salary heading into the offseason

The Tampa Bay Lightning are no strangers to having to make tough decisions due to the cap.

After the Lightning won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021, they were forced to see the likes of Ondrej Palat, Yanni Gourde, Barclay Goodrow, Blake Coleman, Ryan McDonagh and Kevin Shattenkirk, among others, leave.

Now, with the NHL's salary cap still not going up, Tampa Bay has some tough decisions ahead of the offseason as the Lightning have roughly $7 million in cap space after they place some players on LTIR.

Already this offseason, Tampa Bay was forced to trade Ross Colton who was a pending RFA as it wouldn't be able to afford him, which was a tough trade to make for GM Julien BriseBois.

"Ross was a fabulous player for our organization," BriseBois said. "A very popular player, a very popular teammate. He's another success story from our draft team and our development program. He put in the work. It took a lot of time before he even turned pro, then he spent some time in the minors worked his way into being an NHL regular and a Stanley Cup winner and scored a huge goal to help us clinch a Stanley Cup in 2021.

"No one can ever erase that and we're really appreciative of the way he went about his business. The way he conducted himself and worked his way into becoming an NHL player, that's role model level stuff for our future prospects."

Even after trading Colton, the Lightning may see Alex Killorn walk in free agency. BriseBois has been vocal about wanting to keep him, but with not much cap room, he says the decision is on Killorn on if he wants to take less money to stay with the Lightning.

Yet, BriseBois says this summer is the worst cap crunch the Tampa Bay Lightning will face. But after that, they think it will get better.

“This is probably the worst offseason we’ve had,” BriseBois said during his season-exit interview last month. “Just the number of roster spots we have to fill and the cap space available to us is probably the most limited we’ve ever had it.”

Tampa Bay Lightning's pending free agents

Tampa Bay still has most of its core players signed but have Alex Killorn and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare as pending UFAs. Tanner Jeannot as a pending RFA but he has been issued a qualifying offer so he will likely be back next season.

The Lightning on defense, however, only has Ian Cole as a pending UFA but he is expected to leave, as is backup goalie Brian Elliott.

Ultimately, this offseason for the Tampa Bay Lightning is all about re-signing their own players and making the tough decisions of who stays and who goes.