The Tampa Bay Lightning have made clear additions to their blueline this summer, but still had a couple of restricted free agents to deal with in Slater Koekkoek and Jake Dotching. The former has now signed a one-year one-way deal that will pay him $800K next season. Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times says that a deal for Dotchin won’t be far behind.
Koekkoek will forever be judged, perhaps unfairly, by the players selected around him in the 2012 draft. Picked 10th overall, just behind Jacob Trouba and ahead of Filip Forsberg, Koekkoek has yet to live up to his pedigree and has just 41 NHL games under his belt. That’s not to say he can’t turn things around, but at 23 he’s starting to run out of time to make an impact on the Lightning. With Mikhail Sergachev easily jumping over him on the prospect depth chart, he’ll have to work even harder for an NHL role this season.
He did play 29 games for the Lightning last season, a bump from previous years, but still only averaged 13 minutes a night and had little chance to contribute offensively. Expected to have a solid two-way game, he’ll have to show improvement in order to lock down the vacant third-pairing spot on Tampa next season. After moving out Jason Garrison and bringing in Dan Girardi, the team could use Koekkoek or perhaps Andrej Sustr on his off side for the last LHD spot. Dotchin is expected to retake his spot in the top four and be relied upon as a key contributor this season. Sergachev too has a chance to make the team out of camp, making it even tougher on Koekkoek going forward. A one-way deal is nice, but he still has to prove that he can play full-time in the NHL.