Could Lightning’s Conor Sheary be a buyout candidate?

TAMPA — The Lightning are in need of salary cap space to re-sign Steven Stamkos and fill out their roster, and the buyout deadline is looming.

Could the team buy out the remaining two seasons of forward Conor Sheary’s contract to gain relief?

Sheary’s first season in Tampa was a disappointment, especially considering he was given the largest and longest contract of any incoming Lightning free agent last season.

He struggled to get comfortable with his new team, logging just four goals and 15 points in 57 games. He was shelved early in the season with a thumb injury; general manager Julien BriseBois later said Sheary played with a torn tendon in his finger since Dec. 30.

Sheary did not require offseason surgery and presumably will be a full go when training camp starts in mid-September. He has two years remaining on his deal, at a $2 million per season cap hit. If the Lightning buy out his contract by Sunday’s 5 p.m. deadline, they will gain $1,416,667 of cap space.

Because of Sheary’s age, 32, the Lightning would be responsible for two-thirds of his remaining salary, paid in equal increments over the next four seasons, meaning Sheary would carry a $583,333 cap hit through the 2027-28 season.

In the short term, the Lightning would have $6.751 million of cap space, which still might not be enough to re-sign Stamkos, let alone replace Sheary and fill out the roster with at least two more players, even on league minimum of $775,000.

BriseBois has said that he believes Sheary can rebound, and his ability to do so might be more important than the cap relief letting him go could provide.

“I look at how well he did in Washington in (the 2022-23) season, and I expect that he’s going to have a bounce-back year next year,” BriseBois said after the Lightning’s season ended. “He’s a hard worker. He wants to do well. Hopefully he can stay healthy and really make a big difference.”

One of the reasons the Lightning signed Sheary was because he had shown the ability to fit in well skating with star players, previously flourishing on lines with Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh and Alex Ovechkin in Washington. He showed some promise in limited minutes on the Lightning’s top line with Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov, and meshed well on the third line with Nick Paul and Mikey Eyssimont.

But the emergence of rookie Mitchell Chaffee, as well as the acquisition of Anthony Duclair, made Sheary a frequent healthy scratch down the stretch and he didn’t play in the postseason.

“I think sometimes it just takes longer coming into a new environment,” BriseBois said. “We see it time and time again, especially when we bring in guys at the deadline. It takes time sometimes to build that chemistry on ice.”

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