[F*ck Harrington] – Leafs will try it again, Tampa Bay looking for one more Lightning strike

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1. https://archive.ph/VDuSI

   ## Toronto

   **Analysis:** Three years at $1.35 million per for Reaves? A guy who’s going to be a healthy scratch in the playoffs, if not sooner? Your first reaction to Treliving was wondering if he’s going to the Brian Burke school of “truculence” in Toronto. One year at $4.15 million for Klingberg? Did Treliving not watch any video or read any analytics reports on Klingberg’s back-to-back minus-28s in Anaheim and Dallas the last two seasons?

   Depth at forward has taken a big hit, although the one-year deals for Bertuzzi and Domi help. Treliving still has to figure out what to do with William Nylander, who might be looking at $10 million a year, and at Auston Matthews. With free agency beckoning next summer, the Leafs are still trying to sign the face of the franchise to an extension likely to make him the first player to hit a cap hit of $13 million per season.

   And is Ilya Samsonov the man who can carry this club in goal? He has to be. He went to arbitration seeking a $4.9 million deal and was awarded a one-year pact for $3.55 million on July 23.

   That left the Leafs roughly $6.7 million over the cap once they put injured defenseman Jake Muzzin on Long Term Injured Reserve. Goalie Matt Murray and his roughly $4.6 million went on a fishy version of LTIR on July 26, given that he was declared healthy to dress in the playoffs but suddenly isn’t healthy now.

   Keeping Nylander remains a tight fit, and the Leafs might have to do more.

   This is a great regular season team that should be great again from October to April. But no Stanley Cups since 1967 seems to be a cross too big to bear for this group in a market where fan and media attention is suffocating. Teams should want to play the Leafs in the playoffs for exactly those reasons. The pressure on them is so enormous that their regular season almost has an exhibition schedule kind of feel.

   ## Tampa Bay

   **Analysis:** Little by little, the cap casualties chip away at the Lightning’s depth and character. Ondrej Palat went to New Jersey last year, and that was a big loss. Tampa Bay took a huge hit again on that front this year. The Bolts couldn’t pay the four-year deals that Killorn and Colton were offered, and key fourth-liners such as Maroon and Perry were traded.

   Sheary, who has played with Pittsburgh, the Sabres and Washington, got a three-year deal at $2 million per season and can provide offense but carries this warning: He has just one goal in his last 27 playoff games over his four appearances since he won his second Cup with the Penguins in 2017. He joins Archibald and Brown as new members of the bottom six.

   Trade deadline acquisition Tanner Jeannot got a two-year, $5.33 million extension in July and will have to provide offense and physicality from the bottom six lost with the departures of Maroon and Perry. His deal soaked up much of what was left of Tampa Bay’s resources, as the Lightning enter the season just $314,000 under the cap.

   “Offense is very expensive,” BriseBois recently noted to the Tampa Bay Times. “Guys that put up points get paid, but players that are really good defensively and help you win hockey games, sometimes they’re undervalued by the market. So we kind of focused on those guys improving the defensive ability of our bottom six.”

   Ultimately, the Lightning’s hopes remain with their aging core. Steven Stamkos (33 years old), Victor Hedman (32), Nikita Kucherov (30) Andrei Vasilevskiy (28) and Brayden Point (27) played a lot of hockey the last four years and thus put a lot of mileage on their bodies. But this is by far their most extended break since the 2019-20 season went into its Covid suspension before being resumed in the summer playoff bubbles.

   The expectation is all of them, especially Vasilevskiy, will come into this season refreshed and motivated after falling short against the Leafs. Stamkos, in particular, will be motivated as he heads into his final season before becoming a UFA. But age chips away at everyone and the depth around the core has been dented in free agency.

   A sobering question for the Lightning and their fans: Are the Bolts simply a fringe playoff team at this stage?