Wednesday was a big day around the NHL, and the Tampa Bay Lightning were deep in business on many fronts.
Tampa Bay signed multiple players when free agency opened at 12 p.m. ET, including a pair of NHL forwards, got involved on the trade front and haven’t closed the door on future moves.
The 2026-27 Lightning roster has already begun to take shape, but Lightning general manager and vice president of hockey operations Julien BriseBois is still working both for next season and the future.
What does that look like?
Welcome to the Bay
The Lightning signed a pair of NHL forwards shortly after free agency opened, beginning with a four-year deal for 31-year-old left wing Ilya Mikheyev.
Mikheyev’s contract carries a $3.85 million AAV and is fresh off a career-best 36 points over 77 games with the Chicago Blackhawks. He adds both even strength scoring and more help on the penalty kill, as well as speed.
The additions were possibly more than BriseBois originally had in mind, but they fit the team’s timeline, he said.
If you want toughness and maybe some rough stuff, Jeffrey Viel is your guy. That’s now especially the case if you’re a Lightning fan.
Tampa Bay signed the center to a five-year contract with a $2.5 million AAV on Wednesday following the 29-year-old’s best NHL campaign.
Viel began last season with the Boston Bruins and racked up 30 penalty minutes in 10 games before joining the Anaheim Ducks via trade in January. He went on to score three goals and 10 points in 35 games as a Duck while contributing 49 penalty minutes.
He set new career highs for games played (45), goals (3, tied), assists (7) and points (10) while finishing with 79 penalty minutes.
“The idea was to not make commitments that would prevent us from taking advantage of bigger opportunities that would move the needle even more in terms of improving odds of winning that might present themselves in the future,” BriseBois said, “and I think we did that with what we’ve done so far. Those contracts, I think, in the new NHL are going to age very well.”
The team also added a trio of players on two-way deals who could begin the year with the Syracuse Crunch in the American Hockey League. Defenseman Michael Callahan joined goalies Mads Sogaard and Olivier Rodrigue on one-year pacts.
Callahan and Sogaard each played in the NHL last season, while Rodrigue made his NHL debut in 2024-25 with the Edmonton Oilers.
Wednesday trade changes mock lineup, including in net
The Lightning also mixed in a Wednesday trade, sending forward Nick Paul to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for 24-year-old goalie Dennis Hildeby, a fourth-round pick in 2027 and a third-round pick in 2028.
That move will change the look of the opening night roster in multiple ways. For one, the Tampa Bay Lightning plan to use Hildeby as the NHL backup this upcoming season.
BriseBois said on Wednesday that the organization is working with Jonas Johansson’s agent to find him a new landing spot where he can be part of an NHL tandem.
“It’s still early in the process, but JJ has been great for us, is a great teammate, has won us a lot of hockey games, I’m fairly confident we're gonna get him something that works for him and works for us.”
When BriseBois learned that Hildeby could be acquired, Tampa Bay immediately had interest after watching him in the NHL as well as with the AHL’s Toronto Marlies against the Syracuse Crunch.
Hildeby was 5-7-4 with a .914 save percentage with the Maple Leafs this past season and was a fourth-round pick by Toronto in 2022. He led all Maple Leaf goalies last season in save percentage and goals against average (2.86).
He is signed for two more seasons with a cap hit of $841,667 and will be a restricted free agent when the contract expires.
“When we found out he was available, we said, ‘That's something that's worth exploring, because he's 24 and did really well this year at the NHL level, has a track record of doing really well at the AHL level, has size, has a profile of goaltender that Frantz Jean, our goalie coach, really appreciates. We just think he's ready to be an NHL backup, and then you factor in that he's only going to get better and he's on a great contract for the next two years, there's a lot of value there.”
With Yanni Gourde rejoining the Bolts last year, Paul’s minutes on the penalty kill decreased. Young players also stepped up and showed they were ready for larger NHL roles when Paul was forced to miss time due to injury this season.
“We could see where the lineup was going, that his role was probably going to diminish within our roster, and timing was probably right for him to get a change of scenery and for us to go in a different route with players that maybe compliment some of the guys we have a little bit more at this point.”
Team still working on Kucherov extension
Wednesday also marked the first day teams around the league could extend players entering the final year of their contract, a list that includes reigning NHL MVP Nikita Kucherov.
There was no immediate update from BriseBois on Wednesday, but he was adamant that the intention is to keep the franchise pillar a Bolt.
“I'll reiterate that we would like Nikita to stay here, he would like to stay here,” BriseBois said, adding that this year’s busy trade market around the league and free agency have kept him busy.
That doesn’t mean the Lightning aren’t working toward a Kucherov extension. It remains a top priority and the intention of the franchise to keep him in Tampa, and they’ve been in talks with his agent, Dan Milstein.
“We’ve had chats,” BriseBois said of re-upping Kucherov. “Just because there wasn't a pressing deadline to accomplish something versus these free agents–if you don't sign them today, they're gone. These trade opportunities, if you don't pursue them, they disappear–that kind of took precedent the last few weeks. We'll circle back to his representative, and when we have something to announce we'll make an announcement.”
Righty vs. lefty and are the Bolts done?
After seeing defensemen Darren Raddysh and Declan Carlile leave the organization this summer, the Lightning didn’t sign any defenders to one-way contracts on the opening day of free agency.
BriseBois believes in the team’s current defensive group.
"We have a number of left-shot D who can play on the right side, so that is an option. And as of right now, that is the option,” he said before adding:
“There's still some players out there, there's some trade talk going on. I don't know that it's necessarily going to lead to anything in the short term, but I would say right now we have seven defensemen that are really good NHL defensemen that we like. They fit our identity. We're happy to have them, and if we go into the season with those seven defensemen, we're really comfortable with our D core."
Similar to the blue line, the NHL roster doesn’t feature many right-shooting forwards in the NHL at the moment. That, too, could change.
“Ideally, we would have a well-balanced forward group, righty, lefty, a well-balanced D group, righty, lefty. You don't always get to have perfect symmetry there. It's still early. Things might materialize between now and the start of the season, and if it's not done at that point, we'll still be on the lookout for ways to improve our team, and that is one,” BriseBois said. “We're not sure exactly who's going to be on the team. Some players might surprise us, end up being there and happen to be right-handed.”
BriseBois has full authority from ownership to spend up to the salary cap limit just as he has in the past, and the team has just shy of $11 million remaining to work with.
The team’s GM didn’t rule out further additions with that room if they find the right fit.
“Whether we find something later today that makes sense for us to commit that cap space or not, we'll still be looking tomorrow, we'll be looking in a week, we'll be looking. Even once that cap space is committed, you're always looking at, is that the best use of our cap space? Are there options out there to maybe swap things out for a better use of that cap space? So I would say everything is on the table right now.”
