Lightning Sign Bergenheim

The Tampa Bay Lightning have continued their off-season shuffle with the addition of unrestricted free agent winger Sean Bergenheim on Tuesday. Bergenheim has played the last few seasons with the Islanders, giving them a good depth winger that has a solid two-way. Now, Bergenheim can take that act to Tampa Bay, where the Lightning are emerging as a well-rounded team with the new acquisitions by GM Steve Yzerman.

No financial or cap numbers were disclosed with the announcement of the deal.  Since it's a 1-year deal, I think we can all safely assume that the deal is under $1 million.

In 2010, Bergenheim ranked 243rd among forwards with 10 goals and 13 assists in 63 games with the Islanders, having dealt with a rib injury that cost him 16 games and also a few healthy scratches in the season as well.  It shouldn't be out of the question that he continues to play more of a secondary defensive role with the Lightning, but he does have enough wheels to possibly play on the 2nd line, if desired.  That could make him into a little bit of a sleeper for the pool, but that is something you may want to wait until training camp to hear more about.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Steven Stamkos	Pavel Kubina	Dan Ellis
Martin St. Louis	Victor Hedman	Mike Smith
Vincent Lecavalier	Brett Clark
Ryan Malone	Mike Lundin
Simon Gagne	Mattias Ohlund
Domenic Moore
Sean Bergenheim
Teddy Purcell
Nate Thompson
Paul Szczechura

Well, since we don't know what Bergenheim's numbers are exactly, we can only look at what the Lightning had before hand.  Adding Gagne and Moore to the mix gave the Lightning 19 players on their roster, 20 with Bergenheim up there now, at an annual salary cap hit of $48.6 million.  That is unbelievably reasonable.  Not only has Yzerman signed some savvy players, he has done so with a budget in mind.  The Lightning have plenty of room under the cap and plenty of talent under the ceiling.  The Lightning still have some talent to play with in the minors and youth system, which could fill some gaps at a reasonable cost as well.

There have been plenty of solid additions done by the Lightning this season, which makes them a little bit more of a contender in the Southeast Division, but still may have a little ways to go to catch up to the pure firepower of the Washington Capitals. With Stamkos, St. Louis and Lecavalier, you should still be looking for some of these guys early on in the draft, but then it will definitely come down to your projections with the other players. You have to like Gagne and Malone up front, along with Kubina and Hedman in the back.  I'd still hold out to see who is announced for the most reps as the number one goalie though.