If, as Tom Petty once sang, the waiting is indeed the hardest part, then things are about to get a lot easier in the Darren Raddysh saga. The 30-year-old defenseman will not make it to July 1st and free agency. Nor will he be a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning next season. The Lightning have announced that they have traded Raddysh to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return for a fifth-round selection in the 2026 NHL draft.
Thus ends one of the big question marks for the Lightning and the NHL t...
Believe it or not, the 2026 NHL Draft is right around the corner. Soon, all of the top prospects will be gathered in Buffalo, hoping to hear their names called on night one of the draft. There will be hugs and hats. Fans will put too much expectations on their shoulders, and in the end, if even a handful of them have a productive NHL career, it will be considered a successful draft.
The Lightning are not drafting on night one. To be fair, that’s par for the course as 2026 will be the four...
It didn’t take long for the general managers around the league to start reshaping their rosters. The Carolina Hurricanes have yet to recover from their Las Vegas-sized hangovers and a couple of trades have been pushed through already. The first deal involved a divisional rival and the second contained a couple of familiar names.
Trade #1 –
Toronto sends goaltender Joseph Woll and defenseman Simon Benoit to the Philadelphia Flyers for goaltender Samuel Ersson, defenseman Emil Andrae, ...
We’re in the offseason, folks. There is no more competitive hockey until this fall. While you’re catching up on your laundry and reintroducing yourselves to family members, not all is lost in the world of the NHL. There are still some things coming down the pipe, so here are a few dates to keep an eye on as the summer heats up.
The Buyout Window Opens – 48 hours after the Stanley Cup Final until 5:00 PM EST, June 30th.
This is the first buyout window, and there is a chance that some ...
Folks, at long last the 2025-26 NHL season is finally over. Congratulations to Amir Miftakhov and the Carolina Hurricanes for winning the second Stanley Cup in franchise history. Long live the Southeast Division! With things wrapped up nicely in a bow, we can start looking forward to next season, where the Tampa Bay Lightning are +1000 to win the 2026-27 Stanley Cup. Only Carolina (+650) and Colorado (+700) are heavier favorites.
Well, let’s not quite move forward yet. We still need to ha...
Way back on Friday the NHL announced their First and Second All-Star teams. For a couple members of the Tampa Bay Lightning, it was another chance to see their name in bold print. Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy joined Jason Robertson, Connor McDavid, Cale Makar, and Zach Werenski on the First All-Star team.
Of the six Second Team All-Stars, four of them received the honor for the first time. Cole Caufield, Nathan MacKinnon, David Pastrnak, Rasmus Dahlin, Evan Bouchard, and Logan T...
The individual awards keep rolling in for the Tampa Bay Lightning. After Jon Cooper nabbed his first Jack Adams and Andrei Vasilevskiy was awarded his second Vezina Trophy, Nikita Kucherov became the Lightning’s first multi-Hart Trophy winner as he bested Connor McDavid by ten points in the overall voting.
Really wonder who gave McDavid those two fifth-place votes. Depending on how their ballot looked, that might have been the difference. In the end, Kucherov nabbed enough votes to...
Another day, and another potential unrestricted free agent is taken off of the board. In this case it’s Michael McCarron choosing Jucy Lucy burgers over free agency as he stays in Minnesota for six years at $3.33 million a year (the Yanni Gourde special!). With the big, bottom-six forward off of the market, things are getting bleak for anyone hoping to improve their offense on the free-agent market. One name is still out there, though, and unlike Dylan Larkin, could fill a need that the Tampa ...
So. Dylan Larkin reportedly wants out of Detroit. Good to see the Yzerplan is going swimmingly in the Motor City so far. So, what does this have to do with the Tampa Bay Lightning? Well, probably not much to be honest. In fact, we wouldn’t be writing this except for a few things. One, there isn’t much happening at Channelside Drive these days. Two, the Lightning are a team in contention, and that seems to be what Larkin is looking for. Three, a couple of rather prominent journalists haven’t ru...
For the fifth time in his career, Connor McDavid was named the most outstanding player in the league by the NHLPA. Unfortunately, for McDavid the award was handed to him on the golf course instead of the ice. It’s the fifth time he’s won the award, matching Wayne Gretzky on top of the list, and at 29, there is a good chance that he’ll pass the Great One at some point in his career.
McDavid dragged the Edmonton Oilers to the playoffs on his back as led the league with 138 points (48 goals,...
The ultimate team trophy may have eluded the Tampa Bay Lightning this season, but they are racking up the individual accolades. First, it was Jon Cooper finally nabbing a Jack Adams, now it’s Andrei Vasilevskiy returning back to the top of goaltender mountain as the NHL general managers voted him the “goaltender adjudged to be the best at his position” aka the Vezina Trophy winner.
It is his second Vezina, having won the award following the 2018-19 season, and the sixth time he’s been a f...
With the Stanley Cup Final underway, we feel it’s a pretty good time to check in on our pre-season predictions. Longtime readers of Raw Charge also know this as the annual “Things Justin G. was wildly incorrect about” column as well. We’ll admit it, prognostication isn’t the sharpest tool we wield (that would be grammatical mistakes), but it is always a fun thing to do.
Looking back at how those guesses have aged is also wildly entertaining. So, take a gander at the original post (especia...
After a decade of close calls in his career, including two previous finalist nominations, Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper can finally fill the empty spot on his mantle that was reserved for a Jack Adams award. On Wednesday, the league announced that the NHL Broadcasters’ Association had voted him the coach “adjudged to have contributed the most to his team’s success”.
To say it was a trying season behind the bench is an understatement. Injuries forced the Lightning to use 30 dif...
Darren Raddysh wasn’t just one of the best defenders on the Tampa Bay Lightning, he ended up, at least in the eyes of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, as one of the best defensemen in the NHL. On Tuesday, the league announced that Zach Werenski won the award, his first, and released the final vote tallies. Raddysh finished with 14 total votes broken down by 0 first-place votes, 0 second-place votes, 1 third-place vote, 2 fourth-place votes, and 3 fifth-place votes. That tied him wi...
Stop us if you’ve heard this before. The Chicago Blackhawks are up against a deadline to sign one of their prospects and somehow that prospect ends up with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Last year it was Dominic James, and this year it is Jack Pridham. Chicago’s third-round selection (92 overall) in the 2024 NHL Draft was set to have his contract rights expire if he didn’t sign his entry-level contract or commit to a college program by 5:00 PM EST on June 1. Had he done neither, the 20-year-old woul...
Noah Steen has had a magnificent World Championship tournament. He entered the bronze medal game against Canada with six goals. His tournament-leading seventh goal gave Norway something they have never had in the history of their hockey program – a medal in an IIHF major series tournament.
Noah Steen scores in OT to beat Canada and win bronze (via IIHF) [image or embed] — CJ Fogler ( @cjzero.bsky.social ) May 31, 2026 at 2:05 PM
The Lightning brass will probably be just as happ...
The Tampa Bay Lightning accelerated the timeline of one of their more intriguing prospects. On Friday, they announced that they signed Benjamin Rautiainen to a three-year entry-level contract. The 20-year-old is now set to start next season in North America with either the Syracuse Crunch or the Tampa Bay Lightning. While this wasn’t entirely unexpected, the Lightning did have to buy out the final season of his contract with Tappara in order to facilitate the deal.
With the signing, Rauti...
So, the Toronto Maple Leafs may be open to trading the first overall pick if the right deal comes along. Could the Lightning come up with a deal that would pry the pick (and presumably Gavin McKenna) out of their cold Canadian fingers? Probably, but it would involve blowing up the roster, something that Julien BriseBois doesn’t seem quite ready to do just yet.
However, just the speculation of dealing a first overall pick, something that hasn’t been done for quite awhile, brought back memo...
There isn’t going to much change in the Tampa Bay Lightning roster over this summer. At least that’s what Julien BriseBois is leading everyone to believe. For the most part, it’s not a bad idea. The Lightning have been one of the better teams in the league over the last two seasons in a lot of categories that tend to lead to post-season success. Unfortunately, that hasn’t quite worked out for them when it counts, but the only way up is to keep improving.
One area that they can use a boost...
Well, kids, we’re back. Thanks to some travel issues, it wasn’t quite the middle of nowhere experience we had hoped for, but we were still able to disconnect, enjoy a different city, eat too much food, and watch too much television. Now, that the brain has been refreshed a little, it’s time to get back into the swing of things.
It doesn’t appear we missed much when it comes to the Lightning. They signed Scott Sabourin to a one-year, two-way contract , which is nice. PuckPedia lists the te...
Folks, it’s that time of year where your friendly neighborhood managing editor disappears into the woods for a few days to recharge the ol’ mental battery. So the site will go dark until Monday.
We’re heading deep into a national park for some hiking and hammocking. No cell service. No social media. Limited news. So congrats to whichever team wins games in the Conference Finals this weekend.
That being said, if anything major happens you might see a basic information post that I bang...
about 1 month ago
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Jakob Pelletier only appeared in five NHL games this season, his lowest since he made his debut in 2022-23. While that probably wasn’t what he was hoping for when he inked his three-year deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning last summer, he didn’t let it affect his game. Instead, he put up a career season with the Syracuse Crunch, leading the AHL in points.
In turn, he was named the Fortune Tires “Expect More” AHL Player of the Year. In 63 games, Pelletier put up 28 goals and 49 assists. Five...
about 1 month ago
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Well, there will be no arbitration hearings this summer for the Tampa Bay Lightning (unless, of course, Julien BriseBois pulls off some sort of trade). The Bolts headed into the off-season with one restricted free agent that had arbitration rights, and on Tuesday, they agreed to a contract with that player. Max Groshev is now under contract for another two seasons as he agrees to a two-year, two-way deal with the Lightning.
Groshev was selected in the third round of the 2020 draft and has...
about 1 month ago
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The Tampa Bay Lightning want to sign Darren Raddysh. After all, it’s always easier to predict the future with known commodities. Unfortunately, teams don’t always get what they want, especially in free agency. There are a lot of factors out of their control that can determine where the Bald Eagle decides to nest next season. So, if he does take flight in free agency, can the Lightning bring someone else in to help fill the hole? Maybe.
In fact, there could be a player that is pretty much ...
about 1 month ago
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The Montreal Canadiens sure aren’t doing anything the easy way this spring. For the second series in a row, they blew a chance to clinch a round on home ice in Game 6 as they blew a 3-1 lead on their way to an 8-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday. Now they’ll have to head into Buffalo tonight and try to win another Game 7 on the road if they want to advance to the Eastern Conference Final.
Meanwhile, Carolina is more than happy to watch the two teams beat each other up as they set a...
about 1 month ago
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