Sunday, July 17, 2016

Tampa Bay Lightning Resign Alex Killorn Avoiding Arbitration




The Tampa Bay Lightning signed Alex Killorn to a seven-year contract on Sunday, avoiding an arbitration hearing set for Wednesday July 20. 

Lightning general manager, Steve Yzerman told the Tampa Bay Times, “We are very comfortable doing a long-term deal at the right cap number with Alex. He has been with us his entire career. He is a high-character young man, tremendously fit and a part of the core of our team. We are trying to keep the core together as much as we can.”

Killorn, 26, put up 14 goals and 26 assists in 81 games for the Bolts this past season. In 17 Stanley Cup Playoff games, he added five goals and eight assists. During the team’s run to the Stanley Cup Final, in 2014-2015, he finished third on the team with nine goals and 18 points, before falling to the Chicago Blackhawks in six games.

Yzerman added, “He is a very reliable, very useful in all situations player. He can play right wing, can play left wing, can play in all spots. He has played very well in the playoffs for us. One thing that was important to Alex is that he wants to play in Tampa and he would like a long-term deal. And we were able to work it out.”
 
The Lightning selected Killorn in the third round, 77th overall, of the 2007 National Hockey League Entry Draft. In 272 regular season games with the Bolts, he has scored 53 goals and 85 assists, while adding 15 more goals and 18 more assists in 47 playoff games. 

The Lightning have three restricted free agents left to get under contracts for the upcoming season, forwards, Nikita Kucherov and Vladislav Namestnikov as well as defenseman, Nikita Nesterov. 

Namestnikov is scheduled to have an arbitration hearing on July 29. Yzerman said, “We will certainly try to get something done before the hearing. But if we have to go, we have to go.”

The Lightning also recently resigned forward Cory Conacher to a one-year, one-way 575,000-dollar contract last Wednesday as well. The Killorn deal is worth almost 4.45 million-dollars per season. 

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