tbl-Lightning Place Jonas Johansson On Waivers

Summary

The Tampa Bay Lightning continue to adjust their roster as the calendar moves closer to October 1st. On Wednesday they placed goaltender Jonas Johansson on waivers, indicating that the newly acquired Dennis Hildeby, who had 23 saves in his preseason debut Tuesday night, will be Andrei Vasilevskiy’s back-up for the upcoming season. When Hildeby was acquired in a trade that sent Nick Paul to Toronto the writing was on the wall for Johansson, and general manager Julien BriseBois acknowledged it, stating that he would be working with Johansson and his agent to find the best possible landing spot. While playing admirably for a few stretches when Vasilevskiy was injured, Johansson’s overall tenure in Tampa was a little rough. He appeared in 70 games for the Bolts and posted a 32-23-10* record with a 3.28 GAA, .889 SV%, and -11.87 GSAx. While Mr. BriseBois has stated that he didn’t go into the off-season looking to replace Johansson, that last stat is perhaps a big reason why he isn’t losing any sleep over acquiring Hildeby. With Vasilevskiy in net, the role of a Lightning back up goaltender is to basically make the saves he’s supposed to make and Johansson just wasn’t doing that in enough of his starts. He would go on stretches where he was really, really good, but all too often there were games where he’d allow one or two goals that he shouldn’t have. In the ultra-competitive Eastern Conference, the Lightning can’t afford to give games away. Placing Johansson on waivers does give the Lightning a few options. They can hope a team claims him and absorbs the entire $1.25 million cap hit (and $775,000 salary), or, if he clears, they can assign him to Syracuse and see if have the majority of cap hit off of the books and wait to see if anything happens. Injuries happen (see Vladar, Dan) especially early in the season, and just because a deal isn’t out there right now, things could change. Assuming he is assigned to Syracuse, the crease could be a little crowded to begin the season for the Crunch as Mads Sogaard and Olivier Rodrigue will also be on the roster once they go through the waiver process in the next week or so. Oddly enough, Johansson was one of several goaltenders placed on waivers today, including former Bolts Spencer Martin and Pheonix Copley. *Johansson’s 32 wins ranks 8th all-time in Lightning history.