7:00 PM: The Lightning have officially announced the contract.
1:30 PM: The Tampa Bay Lightning have locked up the player who clinched their recent Stanley Cup, signing Ross Colton to a two-year contract. The deal is worth $1MM in 2021-22 and $1.25MM in 2022-23, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Colton was scheduled for an arbitration hearing on August 16 that will no longer be required.
Colton, 24, scored the Cup-winning goal for the Lightning a month ago, tapping home a backdoor pass from David Savard. The young forward is another example of Tampa Bay’s strong development system, going from a fourth-round pick in the 2016 draft to a regular in the NHL lineup this season. In 30 regular season games as a rookie, Colton managed to score nine goals and 12 points. That goal pace likely won’t continue right away, but just the fact that the team has turned another mid-round pick into an NHL player is a win for the organization.
He didn’t really come out of nowhere though, as Colton found success in each of his years at the University of Vermont before starring for the Syracuse Crunch. In 2019-20 he registered 42 points in 62 games for Syracuse, throwing himself into the mix for a call-up if the Lightning ever needed a versatile player. The fact is that Colton has made himself a valuable player by being able to play center or the wing, score with the top-six, or check with the bottom-six.
Given the fact that Tampa Bay has been forced to watch Tyler Johnson, Yanni Gourde, Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman leave this summer, there should be even more minutes on the table for Colton this season. While it’s not certain how things shake out, he should get quite the opportunity with the defending champs.
For the Lightning, they have now finished their restricted free agent negotiations and can focus on preparing for the regular season. The team is technically over the salary cap right now, but can move Brent Seabrook’s contract to long-term injured reserve when necessary. It appears as though the offseason work is done, but never count out GM Julien BriseBois.
Glad the Bolts got this done. Excited to see what Colton does with an increased role over a full season. GO BOLTS!
Yes and really club friendly terms.Can’t wait to see him centering that new look 3rd line.
It will be fascinating to see where his coaches see him fitting in with the team. He and Maroon seem to play well, together, but I would agree that Colton may be asked to center the third line. He and Joseph are strong skaters and both good defenders and shooters. Wonder if Killorn might move down to 3rd line at LW with B-B sliding in his spot on the second line with Cirelli and Stammer. Will the fourth line be Maroon, Bellmare, and Perry with Bellmare taking face offs across several lines?
They could go in a lot of different directions lineup wise and training camp will be interesting.They most likely would leave the top 2 lines alone,but I was thinking they could even move Stammer down to the 3rd line C and move Colton all the way up to the 2nd line.I’m pretty sure the 4th line is set with Bellemare,Maroon and Perry unless Perry can handle 3rd line mins.And who knows what kind of camps guys like BB,Raddysh,Katchouk,Hudon,Walcott,Smith and Dumont have.Heck that’s 7 guys fighting for 2 or 3 spots and could be anywhere from 2nd line guys to in the AHL.Can’t wait to watch it go down.
Bolts come in a cool $9,045 below the cap for 21-22 with Seabrook’s $6,850,000 on LTIR. Assume, we will see some jockeying among NHL, taxi squad (will that be back?), and Syracuse.
I’m assuming since it’s back to a full schedule the roster will go back to norm.And yes,will most likely see a lot of shuffling with the youngsters.
We all know the lighting are great at avoiding salary problems it’s something the NHL needs to fix
It is a design feature, not a flaw in the nhl-player agreement. Cannot be unilaterally changed. Smart GMs/teams understand how to succeed, by understanding the game and its rules. Mouth breathers and droolers cry that life is unfair when they can not comprehend the world or game.
And what they fail to consider is every other NHL team would be affected too,not just the Bolts.And the Bolts are good at what they do,changing rules wouldn’t keep them from being good at their jobs.It’s called draft and develop and put the final pieces together.The other organizations should try it sometime.