Team: 2021-22 Tampa Bay Lightning

Initial Creation Date: Jul. 9, 2021

Published: Jul. 17, 2021

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

This is what I think the Bolts do to mitigate the losses of their UFAs and trades needed to be cap compliant. Obviously JBB and the Bolts will probably come up with some other genius moves to improve this team, but I like this roster going into next season regardless.

1st Line - Last season ABB played great alongside Point and Palat so I would think if you replace Palat with Kucherov, he will even be better on that line than last season.

2nd Line - The second line stays the same as last season (which played great until Killorn got injured in the SCF) with a great mix of defense, scoring, and veteran leadership.

3rd Line - This line suffers greatly with the losses of Coleman and Goodrow who are both highly deserving of big pay raises. I think Colton and Joseph can be similar style players in short time with Gourde as the center. All 3 are chippy, have speed, and just enough offense to have good depth scoring.

4th line - Stephens has shown he can be a great faceoff guy and penalty killer before getting hurt last season he looked like he was poised to solidify himself as the #4 center. I like Raddysh as a big-body power forward type of player that can be mentored by Maroon and even be a net-front on the PP. His skating still isn't great so if the coaches want more speed, they can swap Raddysh for Katchouk.

Defense - Not much changes here with the exception of Cal Foote finally getting a shot on this team with Savard leaving. I think they keep the same pairings. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Schenn also comes back as a good depth option if Foote doesn't work out.

The only other move I was considering making was signing/trading for a cheap veteran cup-hungry forward in place of Raddysh on that 4th line, but we won't know who all is available until after the draft most likely.

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