While the roster gets ready to try and climb back into the Stanley Cup Final, the Tampa Bay Lightning front office is still hard at work for the future. The team has signed Simon Ryfors to a one-year, two-way contract for next season.
Ryfors, 24, is coming off his entry-level contract and would have been an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent at the end of the year. Undrafted, he was signed after exploding onto the SHL scene with a 25-goal season in 2020-21. That kind of offensive production came out of nowhere for the young forward, and this season saw another nice step forward in his development.
In 72 games for the Syracuse Crunch, Ryfors ended up with 11 goals and 35 points, working his way through several different lineup roles in the process. Whether he’ll be able to make it to the NHL at some point is still unclear but the Lightning obviously saw enough in him this year to add him to Syracuse’s lineup for another season.