Lightning have salary cap space to make big splash in replacing Steven Stamkos

It seems likely that the Tampa Bay Lightning and longtime captain Steven Stamkos are set to part ways when the NHL free agency signing period opens on Monday.

That remains true even after the Lightning cleared a significant amount of salary cap space on Saturday by trading defenseman Mikhail Sergachev (to Utah) and forward Tanner Jeannot (to Los Angeles).

Those trades give the Lightning more than $16M in salary cap space entering free agency and put the team in a prime position to land a major piece on the open market.

It just does not seem likely to be the return of Stamkos.

General manager Julien Brisebois said on Saturday he met with Stamkos and that nothing has changed in their current positions, which expects Stamkos to reach unrestricted free agency.

Stamkos has been with the Lightning ever since the team drafted him No. 1 overall in 2008. During his career with the Lightning, he was not only one of the best players in franchise history, he was the second-best goal-scorer of his generation after only Alex Ovechkin. He helped the Lightning turn into a consistent powerhouse in the league that has made four Stanley Cup Finals, won two of them and been a regular in at least the Eastern Conference Final.

Even now at age 34, he was still a 40-goal scorer this past season.

But the Lightning do not seem comfortable committing to a long-term deal at this stage of his career, setting the stage for him to continue elsewhere.

The writing has been on the wall for quite some time. The Lightning typically re-sign the players they want to keep as soon as they are eligible to do so, and did not do that with Stamkos. They also do not tend to bring players back when they hit free agency. At least not under this current management team led by Brisebois.

The question is what the Lightning do with this newfound cap space. Because they are almost certainly not going to let it go to waste.

It could put them in the market for signing a free agent like Jake Guentzel, one of the top goal-scoring wingers in the league, or could give them the salary cap space to pull off a trade for somebody like Carolina's Martin Necas or Winnipeg's Nikolaj Ehlers.

No matter who it is, the Lightning figure to have a very different look next season.