Lightning sign Jake Guentzel, take top pending free agent off the market

TAMPA — For the past several offseasons, the Lightning have been forced to shop at the bargain bin when free agency opened.

This year, that’s all changed. They already took one of the top pending free agents off the market, trading for wing Jake Guentzel’s rights Sunday morning and completing a seven-year deal with him Monday worth an average annual value of $9 million.

In signing Guentzel, 29, he gets the largest salary for an offseason addition in franchise history. The seven-year term matched the deal the Lightning offered Ryan Malone in the summer of 2008 as the longest in team history to an incoming player in the offseason.

And they’re far from done as free agency opens at noon.

After trading highest-paid defenseman Mikhail Sergachev and underperforming forward Tanner Jeannot on Saturday and halting conversations to retain captain Steven Stamkos, they went from a team with just $5.335 million in cap space to one with $16.5 million to spend.

An organization that built its Stanley Cup-winning core through the draft and trades, and in recent years struggled to keep key role players, is retooling through free agency.

Throughout the offseason, general manager Julien BriseBois has been consistent in his message that the Lightning need to get better defensively after ranking 22nd in the league in goals allowed. The acquisition of Guentzel achieves that, giving the Lightning a strong two-way, 5-on-5 player who can slide into the left wing slot on the team’s first line.

Even after inking Guentzel, the Lightning have $7.5 million of cap space to spend for the upcoming season, and an extension for defenseman Victor Hedman could be coming as soon as today, the first day that players entering the final year of their contracts can sign one.

While Lightning approached free agency with just 10 forwards signed and 16 players under NHL contracts.

BriseBois said that the surplus of cap space not only created new free-agent avenues, but also trade possibilities with teams needing to unload contracts to stay under the $88 million salary cap for next season.

This story will be updated.

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