Lightning Re-Sign Namestnikov

The Tampa Bay Lightning have secured another key fixture of their franchise, as they had come to terms with Vladislav Namestnikov on Tuesday night, agreeing to a new 2-year, $3.875 million deal.

The 23-year old forward is still being bridged towards a long-term contract, but he is only coming along so quickly in career.  The 2016 season was a good one for him, as he leapt into being pool worthy, scoring 14 goals and 35 points in 80 games for the Lightning, lifting himself up to 173rd among all forwards.

For the better part of last season, the Russian featured with the team's captain, Steven Stamkos, for a good portion of his ice-time, which will certainly help his cause in the scoring department.  If he can get that same sort of pairing in his ice-time in the 2017 season, he could certainly take advantage of a re-signed and rejuvenated player and get a nice bump up in his scoring production.  Currently, I have Namestnikov coming in around the 40-point mark, still trending upwards, but not at an amazing rate.

With this signing in the books, the Lightning can look a lot harder at their last restricted free agent, Nikita Kucherov and determine what they can actually spend on his deal.  If you were to take one of the fill-in roster spots away from the table below, the Bolts would have a shade more than $5 million to spend on Kucherov for this season... but will that be enough?

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Steven Stamkos	8.500	Anton Stralman	4.500	Ben Bishop	5.950
Ryan Callahan	5.800	Victor Hedman	4.000	Andrei Vasilevskiy	0.925
Valtteri Filppula	5.000	Andrej Sustr	1.450
Alex Killorn	4.450
Ondrej Palat	3.333
Tyler Johnson	3.333
Vladislav Namestnikov	1.938
Brian Boyle	2.000	Jason Garrison	4.600
Erik Condra	1.250	Braydon Coburn	3.700
J.T. Brown	1.250
Jonathan Drouin	0.894
Cedric Paquette	0.813	Slater Koekkoek	0.894
Tye McGinn	0.575	Matt Taormina	0.575
Cory Conacher	0.575
Matthew Peca	0.925	Dominik Masin	0.808	Adam Wilcox	0.925
Anthony Cirelli	0.925	Dylan Blujus	0.743	Kristers Gudlevskis	0.575
Adam Erne	0.874	Matt Spencer	0.743
Mitchell Stephens	0.839	Ben Thomas	0.690
Brian Hart	0.703	Daniel Walcott	0.650
Jonne Tammela	0.690	Jake Dotchin	0.617
Brayden Point	0.662	Luke Witkowski	0.575
Cameron Darcy	0.642
Henri Ikonen	0.617
Joel Vermin	0.575
Tanner Richard	0.575
Gabriel Dumont	0.575
Pierre Letourneau-Leblond	0.575
Mike Halmo	0.575
Jeremy Morin	0.575
Michael Bournival	0.575
Yanni Gourde	0.575

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins,  injured/retired cap hits, in the system