What’s the plan for Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning? 

Steven Stamkos’s contract is up and the Tampa Bay Lightning have a critical decision to make regarding the future of Stamkos and the Bolts. Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli shined a light on the cap situation in Tampa and what the plan moving forward is for the veteran and two-time Stanley Cup champion.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Last week, the Lightning went out and re-acquired Ryan McDonagh from the Nashville Predators. Now the Bolts have $5 million in cap space, they have to re-sign Steven Stamkos. What’s the plan?

Frank Seravalli: Well you can always find a way to create more, you can make some other type of transaction. I really have a hard time envisioning Stamkos not playing for the Lightning moving forward. Another 40-goal season, a guy that doesn’t feel like age is catching up to him, and it’s not like he is 37 and we are having this debate, he is just 33. He will take a pay cut, but the question is how much?

Frank Seravalli: I think the McDonagh re-acquisition is a really interesting spot, in some ways, it’s an admission that they got it wrong in the first place moving on from him. I thought at the time they got it right moving on from him, he was a guy who was showing signs of slowing down, they had to make a difficult decision with their cap and at $6.75 million, this was a guy that kind of made sense, they won Stanley Cups and he goes off to Nashville. He ends up being unhappy, he tells the Preds, “I want to be moved.”

Frank Seravalli: Now you bring him back at the same price cap-wise, and the Preds got more for him to use him for a year than what they gave up on him for. A smart piece of business by the Predators but now what do the Lightning do? My guess is Stamkos’s contract will be somewhere in the $6 to $7 million range and then they have a couple of things to play with this summer whether it’s Tanner Jeannot or one of these other guys in their lineup that they will have to say goodbye to.