The Tampa Bay Lightning have a pivotal offseason ahead of them as they look to rebound after a fourth consecutive first-round series loss, and one of the key situations they have to manage is the pending unrestricted free agency of defenseman Darren Raddysh. In his exit day media availability, GM Julien Brisebois said (via the Tampa Bay Times’ Eduardo A. Encina) that he has “already reached out to” Raddysh’s agent, Craig Oster of Newport. Brisebois said he and Oster have “been in touch throughout the second half of the year, just sharing concepts, ideas” on what a contract extension might look like.
Raddysh has lined himself up to receive a massive pay raise this summer. In a free agent market notably thin on difference-making talent, Raddysh is the best defenseman, and arguably best overall player, set to be available. He took over for Victor Hedman as Tampa’s top power play option and No. 1 defenseman, producing 22 goals and 70 points in 73 games. As a 30-year-old undrafted player, he’s set to receive a life-changing contract at some point this summer. Based on what Brisebois said today, it appears the Lightning are hoping that contract comes from them.
Other notes from Tampa Bay:
- Brisebois also addressed the future of future Hall of Fame forward Nikita Kucherov, who is set to enter the final year of his contract in 2026-27. He said of Kucherov: “I foresee him staying in our organization for a very long time,” and added that he will, “in due time,” engage with Kucherov’s agent on extension talks. Kucherov is repped by Dan Milstein of Gold Star Hockey. The 32-year-old scored 44 goals and 130 points in the regular season, and produced six points in seven postseason contests.
- Lightning prospect Sam O’Reilly was named the winner of the Red Tilson Trophy today, an honor awarded to the OHL’s Most Outstanding Player. The 2024 first-rounder, 20, scored 71 points in 56 games this season, and had 22 points in 14 playoff games. He was acquired by the Lightning from the Edmonton Oilers this past summer in the deal that sent Ike Howard to Alberta. Brisebois hinted today at a belief that O’Reilly may already be close to NHL-ready, saying the prospect “probably won’t need that much time in order to be able to come here and contribute.”
Kucherov was nothing but a completely selfish, And, Distracted baby in the Montreal series.
He hasn’t been much of a factor the last few playoffs.
He can’t hear you. He’s got his 2 Stanley Cup rings plugging his ears.
So you want some extra maple syrup on contract Mr NoGoalov eh ?
Ahaha. Funny
Blow this stale and slow roster out of the water. Cooper and JBB both need to go as well.
Wow… It seems emotion is driving your remarks rather than analysis or intelligence. From a technical perspective, your statements are factually incorrect across all analytical, metric, and logical considerations in this context.
I’m just as disappointed about the first-round loss as anyone else, but when considering the broader context, it’s far from the dire situation you’re portraying. This isn’t Toronto. Additionally, the Tampa-Montreal series ranks among the top three closest series in NHL playoff history, based on metrics and margins. Tampa lost this series more than Montreal won it when analyzed objectively. It is by the narrowest of margins.
You would have a point if this wasn’t the fourth straight first round exit. One of the top 3 closest series in playoff history only matters if both teams are elite. Montreal is far from elite. They’re an above average team that just beat us in game 7 when they had a whopping 9 shots on goal. We had the talent, experience and home ice advantage and just lost for the 4th straight year. Now tell us again how he is overreacting? Losing to Carolina or buffalo would have been acceptable, but to this Montreal team is inexcusable. On top of that kucherov once again got shut down in the playoffs. If he no longer shows up for the playoffs then he needs to take a big pay cut. 8+ million is for regular and postseason performers. A regular season scorer that vanishes in the playoffs is worth 5 million a year at most. I think most Tampa fans weren’t fans of the club in the 90s so don’t know the frustration when you see your team heading back down that path. We have a GM who got lucky on a couple of deadline deals years ago and tries to desperately replicate it every year. In the process gives away all our first round picks and a lot of second round picks just to strike out in the playoffs. We have to therefore rely on finding gems in the later rounds just to have a pipeline. We have a GM that gives away NTC like candy handcuffing us to players with very few trade chips. The chips we do have are the youngsters which are the future. Basically all good vets can’t be moved. Then when they fall off a cliff we have to buy them out taking up dead cap space. Because of yearly cap restraints we have a mid AHL level goalie as a backup. So, basically we lose when vasi takes a breather. We should have known we were going to get bounced as soon as JBB traded for Perry. That guy is cursed. Even if you get to the finals with him you’re all but guaranteed to lose 😂 Cooper doesn’t seem to have it anymore. He used to be able to make adjustments and get the most out of the team. Now he doesn’t seem to have a clue how to get the team right. Meanwhile we have a young buffalo team who’s already zoomed past us. Montreal, Ottawa and Detroit are fairly young and on the rise. Boston at least had the brains to do a fire sale and hit reset. In one year they made it back to the playoffs and seem to be improving just probably with a lower ceiling than those other three teams. We are basically sinking right along with Florida and Toronto while our gm handicaps is every single year with desperate deadline overpays. If we keep on this path we will be back to the 90s version of the bolts once the rest of our core does a Hedman and falls off a cliff. Then again rumor has it he has a drug problem so maybe that’s why he’s been a liability and was MIA. I wonder if ol bugsy Malone got him to be a coke head, or if it’s pills. Either way kuch needs to figure out how to show up come playoff time again because 120+ points in the regular season means squat when the team can’t even get out of the first round against completely overmatched opponents.
Montreal did what it needed, thus they won the series. You can use semantics and denial until you fill the host servers but back in reality this franchise has not gotten out of the first round for four consecutive seasons.
I would love to do business with you…any sort of trading.. You must have wrote this using Crap GPT…
Someone needs to do an intervention and take your key board away….
And by the way, watch Montreal make the Cup finals…not an elite team…LOL
The completely overmatched opponent you speak of went 2-1-1 against Tampa Bay this season with the prestigious Rays winning one of the 2 in a shootout.. so not the difference between the two you seem to view. The reason the Rays were beaten was they were outmatched on the 3rd and 4th lines as they have no depth.. and Perry was not the answer. The first 2 lines negated one another.. the goalies were equivalent.. and in my opinion the Canadiens are a bit deeper in defensemen..
But needless to say , it was one of the best series I’ve ever seen.. but Tampa needs to work on lines 3 & 4 !
I think this is a good take. Montreal and Tampa are close in talent level but are at different stages of their competitive windows, and spending cap space on depth is easier for the Habs.
Montreal got contributions from guys like Newhook, Texier and Dach up front for a combined $7.2M AAV. Then they had Demidov, Hutson and Kapanen still on their league min ELC’s. They spent only $5M AAV on their goaltending while Tampa had a combined $12.4M. Easier to have a balanced lineup in the Habs’ situation imo.
Ladies, calm down the hysterics. The lightning lost a one shot series. Montreal and Tampa were 2 of the top 7 teams in the NHL this season. Reminds me of Team Canada fans questioning the roster after losing the gold medal in overtime.
With that said, the Lightning lost because of inconsistent effort and play. Brandon Hagel said it best. Look up the Pat Riley complacency and entitlement quote.
Hagel said the best guys were not their best players in game 5, when the series could have been won.
Sure it is nice to make excuses about losing a close game on a bounce or two, but you only allow that to happen when you only show up for half of the first 6 games.
Vasi hit the nail on the head. I love Cooper but this puck luck bounces crap is played out. You make your own breaks by playing every game like they did in game 6 and 7. That is the formula for winning cups. For some reason, the urgency was not there before that.
They will be right back in the mix next year. Hopefully Hedman finds himself and his game. Look for Cernak to be moved to keep Raddysh this off season.
They have 9 NHL defensemen, something has got to give. The truth is, the team played faster and better when McDonough, Cernak and Hedman were out.
That is no excuse for poor offense in playoffs. Kuch still averages a point a game the last 4 playoffs…Point could not get off a shot and Guenzel passed up too many shots.
They will be younger next year and right back in the mix. They just need to play with urgency all the time. Vasi said it about Carolina…that is how you win…consistent effort, not Cooper making excuses about travel and the amount of games etc…
Panthers will be waiting.
There are at least 10 teams in the league that would love to have Cooper’s cliches and puck bounce sentiment behind their bench . If he were fired tomorrow.. he would have offers galore.. He is an elite coach in my opinion. The Rays are fortunate to have him.
Sorry I meant the Lightning on the above post about Cooper .., sports should not have overlapping schedules !