Kole Lind to attend Lightning training camp on PTO
Unrestricted free agent forward Kole Lind will join the Tampa Bay Lightning for their 2026 training camp on a professional tryout opportunity (PTO), the club announced Friday afternoon.
Lind, 27, spent the last two seasons in the Dallas Stars organization, playing exclusively with their AHL affiliate, the Texas Stars. The 6’1″, right-handed forward appeared in 70 games with Texas in the 2025-26 regular season, collecting 11 goals and 35 points; he added two goals in five playoff contests with the club.
The Stars originally signed Lind as a Group 6 unrestricted free agent in 2024, and he remained with the club on back-to-back one-year deals before becoming a UFA once again on July 1 of this year. He’ll now compete for a job on Tampa Bay’s roster, or at least a permanent spot within the Lightning organization.
A second-round pick (No. 33 overall) of the Vancouver Canucks in the 2017 NHL Draft, Lind played his junior hockey with the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets before turning pro with the AHL’s Utica Comets in 2018.
After scoring 14 goals and 44 points in 61 games with Utica in 2019-20, Lind began his NHL career with his first seven games with the Canucks in the 2020-21 season. The following summer, the Seattle Kraken claimed Lind from the Canucks in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft.
Lind received his first extended NHL look with the Kraken in their inaugural season, skating in 23 games with the club in 2021-22 and collecting two goals and eight points. But the Shaunavon, Sask. product spent the majority of his three-year tenure in the Kraken organization in the AHL, appearing in just one more NHL game with Seattle in 2023-24 before leaving as a free agent.
In 31 career NHL games over parts of three seasons with the Canucks and Kraken, Lind has collected two goals, eight points, and 12 penalty minutes. He’s appeared in 454 career AHL contests with Texas, Utica, the Charlotte Checkers, and the Coachella Valley Firebirds, racking up 122 goals and 319 points, and he’s added 24 goals and 59 points in 63 AHL playoff games.
