Lightning waive Stanley Cup winner Zach Bogosian, Gabriel Fortier
TAMPA — On the eve of the NHL’s deadline to set opening-night rosters, veteran defenseman Zach Bogosian was among the players the Lightning placed on waivers Sunday afternoon, the organization potentially parting ways with another member of a Stanley Cup championship team.
Heading into Monday’s 5 p.m. deadline, Tampa Bay faces a unique roster crunch because it has to carry three goaltenders on its 23-man, opening-night roster before it can place starter Andrei Vasilevskiy on long-term injured reserve on Day 2.
Because of that, the Lightning can have no more than 20 skaters for Tuesday’s 5:30 p.m. game against the Nashville Predators at Amalie Arena. So if they carry 13 forwards, they can keep only seven defensemen.
For now, the odd man out appears to be Bogosian, a member of Tampa Bay’s 2020 Cup squad who has played 102 regular season and 47 playoff games with the team during two stints over the past four seasons.
The Lightning also waived center Gabriel Fortier, their second-round pick in 2018. Fortier, with just 11 games of NHL experience under his belt, is expected to clear and be assigned to AHL Syracuse.
But putting Bogosian on waivers makes him available to any NHL team seeking to round out its blueline corps with a veteran right-shot defenseman. Teams have 24 hours to put in a claim.
Tampa Bay is taking a calculated risk that teams will pass on Bogosian, and players are more likely to go unclaimed at this time of the year after an entire preseason focused on their own organizational roster.
The move also indicates that the Lightning are content to start the season with just seven defensemen.
Bogosian, 33, initially signed with the Lightning as a free agent in February 2020, just before the start of their first of back-to-back championship runs. He missed the second, spending the year in Toronto, before rejoining Tampa Bay in July 2021.
Bogosian missed the first six weeks of last season with a shoulder injury, then had one goal and four assists and a minus-4 plus/minus rating in 46 regular-season games. He played in five of the six games of the opening-round playoff series, which the Lightning lost to the Maple Leafs.
With Vasilevskiy expected to be out for the first two months, Tampa Bay can get salary-cap relief while he is inactive by placing him on long-term injured reserve. But he must be on the active roster for the first day of the season.
The Lightning’s main roster crunch is at forward, where longtime prospect Alex Barre-Boulet, international free-agent signing Waltteri Merela and veteran Austin Watson are battling for the 12th and 13th spots.
Barre-Boulet, 26 and in his sixth training camp with the Lightning, has been a mainstay on the third line and second power-play unit during the preseason. Merela, a former standout in Finland, make a quick impression on the organization with his tenacity, both with and without the puck.
Watson, in camp on a personal tryout, has fit easily into the dressing room and adds an enforcer equivalent the team could use following the trade of Pat Maroon to Minnesota in July.
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