On Thursday, the Tampa Bay Lightning agreed to a two-year contract with one of their pending free agents. Declan Carlile, a 24-year-old defenseman, was set to be a restricted free agent this summer, but the club avoided that process by signing him to a two-year, two-way contract that will keep him in the organization through the 2025-26 season. When the deal expires following the 2025-26 season, he is scheduled to be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights.
It was another solid year for the undrafted college free agent that the Lightning signed in March of 2022. He appeared in 61 games for the Syracuse Crunch and set a career-high with 27 points (7 goals, 20 assists). With the amount of shuffling that the AHL team had to go through on the defensive side due to injuries and call-ups, he emerged as a steady presence for Joel Bouchard’s squad and added another 5 points in 8 playoff games.
The Merrimack College product’s production wasn’t unnoticed by the Lightning, as he made his NHL debut on January 4th against the Minnesota Wild. Carlile, who plays on the left side of the defense, recorded one hit and blocked two shots in 11:27 of ice time. In other words, he played a Declan Carlile type of game.
As the contract is a two-way deal, and he is still waivers-exempt next season, expect him to start the season in Syracuse where, depending on how active the Crunch are in free agency, he could earn a lot of time on the top pairing. Depending on his play and injuries in Tampa, he should be one of the top call-ups throughout the season.
A smart defenseman who can defend the rush very well, Carlile finished 11th in our most recent Top 25 Under with the recently departed Jack Thompson as the only defender ranked higher. We’ll see if he moves up in the rankings or if the breakout seasons by Emil Lilleberg and Eamon Powell carry them past him.
Carlile is likely on a similar developmental path as Nick Perbix. There aren’t many things that really stand out in his game, but at the same time, there aren’t many things that he really struggles with, either. He has decent size at 6’2″ and 192 lbs and is willing to use that size to block shots and his reach to break up passes in the neutral zone. He has shown that he can handle his own in the AHL and the next step will be to see if he can handle the speed and skill of NHL players at the next level.
The addition of Ryan McDonagh and the return of Mikhail Sergachev does clog up the left-side of the defense for the next year at least, so it’ll be tough for Carlile to make the team out of camp, even as a seventh defenseman, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him get into a handful of games throughout the season.
One thing to watch out for down the road is his free-agency status. If he spends the majority of this deal with the Crunch, he likely won’t hit the 80-game played mark by the time it ends. As a 26-year-old at the time of it’s expiration, and with more than three seasons of professional experience under his belt, that means he’ll qualify as a Group VI unrestricted free agent and able to sign with any club.
The clause allows players that might otherwise be buried on an organization’s affiliate squad to sign with another organization to provide a path to the NHL. Normally, these players are fringe-level prospects, but every once in a while, a player takes advantage of the ability to move. Johnathan Marchessault was a Group VI free agent in 2016 after amassing just 49 games in the NHL for the Columbus Blue Jackets and Tampa Bay Lightning. He signed a two-year deal with the Panthers that summer and put up 30 goals for the Panthers before they lost him in the expansion draft to Vegas.
It’s not just Carlile that will find himself in this boat over the next few seasons. Cole Koepke is currently set to be a Group VI free agent on July 1st if the Lightning don’t re-sign him. Other prospects like Gage Goncalves (currently 23 with 2 NHL games), Gabriel Fortier (24 with 11 games), Max Crozier (24 with 13 games) could find themselves in the same situation following their next contracts.
With the Lightning having locked in their core players for such a long time, and a preference for signing older players to fill out bottom-six roles, that hasn’t left a lot of playing time for their prospects, especially their forwards. That will likely change when the Stanley Cup window closes as the veterans age out, but for this current crop of prospects, it could lead to them finding new opportunities in different organizations.
