3 Lightning Who Won’t Be Back Next Season

The Tampa Bay Lightning are securely locked into a first round matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the second season in a row, but their team is getting younger. While some of the players are starting new contracts that carry a higher cap hits, the team will have to move on from others who won’t fit anymore. Here are those three players who won’t be back next season for the Lightning.

Alex Killorn

The old core is starting to fade away as Alex Killorn will be the next to go. Due to the money he will require and the fact that he is an unrestricted free agent after the season, it is inevitable that the Lightning must let him go in free agency. As a member of the team for all of their recent trips to the Stanley Cups Final, Killorn has been a key piece in the top-six, but the Lightning have started to acquire younger pieces and sign them.

Killorn is 33 years old and is having another great season. He is three goals and five points away from matching his offensive totals from last season where he set a career high in points with 59. He is playing 1.5 fewer minutes per game and is slotted in on the third line at the moment. The team now has Ross Colton, Brandon Hagel, Nick Paul, and Tanner Jeannot filling their top-nine on the wing, and like Ondrej Palat last offseason, the Lightning aren’t going to be able to afford Killorn’s next contract.

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare

Another veteran the Lightning are going to be moving on from is Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. His role with the team has become less significant in 2022-23 than it was last season as he’s playing far less now that he’s 38 years old. While he’s still very good in the faceoff circle, the Lightning have opted to get Michael Eyssimont in the lineup at fourth line center more since he was acquired at the trade deadline.

Related: 5 Maple Leafs Who Won’t Be Back Next Season

Eyssimont is younger and while Tampa Bay is +29 on the year, Bellemare is a -9. He was much more effective last season with double the goals and points while finishing the season as a +24. The average age of the fourth line was over 36 years old with Bellemare on in. As the Lightning try to integrate more youth into their ranks, Bellemare is an easy player to move on from because he is a UFA as well.

Brian Elliott

The Lightning seem to continue to get veteran backups to play behind Andrei Vasilevskiy and they typically don’t work out the greatest. Brian Elliott did great in his first season with the team as he finished with a .912 SV% and a 2.43 GAA. But this season he has really dropped off and not provided the goaltending the Lightning need. He has a .895 SV% and 3.15 GAA this time around and he is a UFA at the end of the season as well.

He will be 38 in a couple of weeks and the Lightning will either go out and sign another veteran they think will do better for a year or two or finally look at some younger options. I don’t expect Tampa Bay to fall off any time soon, but getting good goaltending every night is a key to staying at the top.