Hockey

What will the Lighting look like after offseason roster retooling?

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TAMPA — Saturday’s signing of forward Tanner Jeannot, the team’s only remaining restricted free agent, to a two-year contract essentially ended the Lightning’s roster retooling.

The team is just under the $83.5 million salary cap, with 22 players on NHL deals. That doesn’t include defenseman Darren Raddysh, who is currently on a two-way deal but will almost certainly make the opening night roster.

General manager Julien BriseBois is always looking to upgrade, but he’d have to unload a player to create cap space. That’s not entirely impossible, but at this point in the free agency season, this is the roster we should expect going into training camp in September.

The Lightning have had to part ways with several key pieces — Alex Killorn, Ross Colton Pat Maroon and Corey Perry among them — and BriseBois brought their replacements in with a focus on becoming faster and better defensively. Now that the roster for the upcoming season appears to be complete, what do we make of it?

Where does Conor Sheary fit in?

Among the Lightning’s free-agency additions, the 31-year-old Sheary figures to make the biggest impact among the newcomers. He averaged 16 goals a year in his past three seasons in Washington. The Lightning had to go bargain shopping in free agency and Sheary — signed to a three-year, $2 million average annual value contract — is the only newcomer making more than a $1 million annually and the only one to get a deal of more than two years.

Sheary can play across any of the top three lines; in Washington, he shared a line with Alex Ovechkin. Last season, he assisted on seven of Ovechkin’s goals. As part of Pittsburgh teams that won back-to-back Stanley Cups, Sheary played with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Not every player can excel skating with elite talent, and Sheary could get a look with Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov on the Lightning’s top scoring line. Brandon Hagel showed he could mesh with Point and Kucherov, but he might be…

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