Winger Jake Guentzel and the Tampa Bay Lightning have agreed in precept on a brand new contract, a supply informed ESPN on Sunday, confirming a report.
Full particulars on the signing needs to be introduced on Monday, with the expectation that the contract will carry a seven-year time period.
The Lightning acquired Guentzel from the Carolina Hurricanes earlier on Sunday in trade for a 2025 third-round draft decide. That gave Tampa Bay an unique negotiating window with Guentzel forward of Monday’s unrestricted free-agent market opening.
Guentzel, 29, is a four-time 30-goal scorer, together with 30 targets in 67 video games between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Hurricanes final season. He gained the Stanley Cup with the Penguins in 2017.
The Lightning opened up important wage cap house on Saturday on the NHL Draft, sending defenseman Mikhail Sergachev ($8.5 million common annual worth) to Utah and ahead Tanner Jeannot ($2.665 million AAV) to the Los Angeles Kings.
Many speculated these strikes had been made with a view to re-sign captain Steven Stamkos, who turns into an unrestricted free agent on Monday. However BriseBois informed ESPN that he did not improve his provide to Stamkos following these trades, and that each the participant and the workforce anticipated he would check free company.
“It is in the most effective curiosity of our group to discover all choices within the coming days, whether or not or not it’s through trades or by entering into free company,” BriseBois mentioned. “Now we have this cover house. We are able to allocate it in several methods by both getting quantity or high quality. I do not know but how we will do this. I do know the precedence goes to be to deal with our ahead group.”
Guentzel is 4 years youthful than Stamkos and will slide into his previous spot on left wing with heart Brayden Level and proper wing Nikita Kucherov.
Guentzel was probably the most extremely coveted forwards on the free agent market heading into the offseason. Together with his arrival in Tampa, that honor may now be bestowed on Stamkos.
Information of the settlement was first reported by Day by day Faceoff.