The Lightning evened the series at two games apiece, after an early goal from Patrick Maroon who is looking for his fourth-straight Stanley Cup, and then two more from the big guns in Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov. Ondrej Palat (more on him later) notched the empty netter, for his third point of the night and 13th point of the post-season. The Rangers got one late goal, and head back home to last change needing to worry about Andrei Vasilevskiy regaining his form. With many of their top players labouring in the series, many of them game time decisions every day, the margin for error is thinning.

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For some off-day reading on Vasilevskiy (and a couple other fantasy relevant goaltenders) check out Rick Roos’ annual dive into the goaltending world with his Goldipucks and the three netminders column here.

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I wanted to take some time to take an early look into a few lineups for next year. Perusing at the Capfriendly pages, there are three teams that have 19 or more NHL players signed for the 2022-23 season.

Boston Bruins – 12 forwards, eight defencemen, and two goalies under contract for 2022-23

The Bruins look to have their lineup fairly set, as they can run back the same group, call up one contract from the minors, and have a full 23-man roster. That would leave them with around $1.5 million in cap space. It all sounds simple, but the issue is that Patrice Bergeron does not have a contract for the 2022-23 season, and it's unlikely that he would return just on a new deal with a cap hit of $2.5 million. That means, either Bergeron will indeed retire as some have speculated, or the Bruins will need to move out some money in order to fit Bergeron in. At least that would be the case, but to muddy the waters even further, Brad Marchand, Charlie McAvoy, and Matt Grzelcyk will be starting the season on the IR, possibly pushing the Bruins into a campaign spent entirely in the LTIR space.

On defence, the Bruins have their top six signed at cap hits of at least $3 million each. No efficient NHL team wants to be paying their bottom pairing on defence a combined $6 million. That means at least one of that group would be the spot to look at cutting. Mike Reilly, a healthy scratch on and off since the acquisition of Hampus Lindholm, would likely be the first pick of the Bruins to be shipped out. He has a manageable $3 million cap hit that another team would be able to take on without much fuss, and he can play at both ends of the ice. He paced for 40 points in 2020-21, but only paced for 20 this past year. His underlying numbers sagged, as did his power play opportunity, which was part of the reason that the final numbers don't look so shiny. He could be a decent number four elsewhere, and would be an asset to any team's power play as he sports an exceptional IPP with the man advantage. He has been involved in 80% of the power play goals scored while he was on the ice over the last three years, which is probably something that an NHL team should test out to see if there's something there. In the meantime though, as we mentioned, McAvoy and Grzelcyk being out to start the year should mean that Reilly gets the top spot with the Bruins by default in October.

All of these injuries and departures will likely mean that the goaltending won't be as valuable as a Bruins tandem has been in the past. Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark should come close to splitting duties, with Ullmark having the contract, but Swayman being the future of the Bruins' crease, and the better starter at present day.

Tampa Bay Lightning – 11 forwards, six defencemen, and two goalies

The Lightning are pretty much set on roster construction, with 11 forwards, six defencemen, and two goalies, there isn't much question with how the team is going to be built heading into next season, except again when it comes to the cap management. The Lightning are again heading into the offseason over the cap, and even though they don't have a full roster, they already need to shed $2M. That means we're looking at someone else being shipped off to solve the cap issues.

Looking at the core of the team, there aren't a lot of options if they want to keep the gang together while shaving off enough money. Alex Killorn appears to be as good as gone, with his $4.45 million price tag, and without a locked spot in the top-six. Killorn however doesn't have much more upside though even if he does get traded. He was up over 18 minutes of ice time per game for the first time in his career this past year, and put up a career high in points and power play points, shooting 15%. Unrestricted free agent Ondrej Palat is actually where you might want to look for the increased production with deployment on a new team. His 70-point pace from 2020-2021 could be reachable on a top line next season, which is where he should likely end up as a good option in the second tier of wings in free agency.

Assuming Killorn is gone, but the rest of the roster remains relatively untouched, Ross Colton stands to be one of the benefactors of the extra open ice time in the top six, but even more importantly, he should see time with the top power play unit. After the big three up front and Victor Hedman on the back end, it comes down to Corey Perry, Anthony Cirelli, and Colton for the last spot, and though Perry may have the history, Colton has shown well there down the stretch.

San Jose Sharks – 12 forwards, seven defencemen, and two goalies

The problem with the Sharks, as we all know, is that they have so much money tied up in their aging core and they don't have the supporting cast or the goaltending to keep them afloat. They look to have a full roster already, and that's with a number of RFAs at every single position. Players like Jonah Gadjovich, Jeffery Viel, John Leonard, Kaapo Kahkonen, and others are all players that could be full time NHL players in the right situation. Unfortunately, the Sharks seem to have a dozen of these players, and they aren't all going to get a shot. The one or two that win out from here and end up playing up the lineup are going to but it's a fool's errand trying to figure out who that might be up front.

On defence, Mario Ferraro is the underrated gem, and is also an RFA in need of a new contract. Once that's signed, the team will be up to eight defencemen, with five of them being the regulars from the 2021-22 season. That leaves one regular spot for Ryan Merkley, and it doesn't come with a lot of power play time. There's both Ferraro and Merkley would be better off if the Sharks do end up moving Brent Burns or Erik Karlsson, but with the team looking to run it back again, it seems unlikely.

In net, Kahkonen might have the highest individual upside of any of the Sharks' RFAs, but with two goalies signed in front of him, his path to starts this year is the least certain. He does have arbitration rights though, so a one-way deal should be a given, meaning it may push one of the incumbents (Adin Hill & James Reimer) out the door. In the past, when Kahkonen has had a string of starts in a row, he has performed very well. If he does get a shot to compete for the starting role with one of the other incumbents in San Jose this year, he could end up running with it and seeing 50+ starts.

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Dennis Gurianov was going to be one of my main cap league offseason targets, as someone that my projections had coming in at a lower cap hit, while looking at a guaranteed uptick in production with the coaching change (couldn't be any worse deployment than Rick Bowness gave him) and the positive regression of his luck metrics.

Yesterday, he signed a one-year, $2.9 million deal, which means he still expires as an RFA next summer, but if he can't put up numbers this season, then his rope will be just about at its end. He's someone to look into as a depth fantasy asset, and for more details on that, Michael Clifford has you covered with his thoughts from yesterday.

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Jack Roslovic was another one that my projections got a little low, and he came in with a two-year deal at $4 million per season, taking him to his UFA years. Columbus is taking a leap here with the chance that he could walk for nothing in just two years, and if they keep misusing him then he definitely will. With the collection of wingers that the Blue Jackets have, Roslovic should have an easy time putting up better numbers than he has to date, but things just haven't clicked. What's different this year is that the Blue Jackets finally have a few good centre-men coming up in Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger. If Roslovic can't establish himself this year, then for better or for worse he may just get pushed out of town even before those two years are up.

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Find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.