Raw Charge
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Tampa Bay Lightning 2026 NHL Draft Profile: Max Vilen
Name: Max Vilen Drafted: Seventh Round, 218th overall Bio: 19-years-old, left shot, Hammarlov, Sweden, 6’3″, 209 lbs. Position: Defenseman 2025-26 Team: Moncton Wildcats (QMJHL) With their final pick of the draft, the Lightning went back to the overage market and drafted the soon-to-be 20-year-old Max Vilen from Moncton. In his third trip through the draft process, the Swedish defender finally found a home with the Tampa Bay Lightning. A big guy with decent m...
Tampa Bay Lightning 2026 NHL Draft Profile: Stepan Shurygin
Name: Stepan Shurygin Drafted: Sixth Round, 186th overall Bio: 18-years-old, Samara, Russia, 6’3″, 207 lbs. Position: Goaltender 2025-26 Team: Saginaw Spirit After a solid season with MHK Molot Perm in the MHL where he posted a .904 SV% and 2.74 GAA in 44 games, Stepan Shurygin crossed over and manned the nets for the Saginaw Spirit in the OHL after being drafted in the second round of the CHL Import Draft. It was a busy season for Shurygin as he appeared in ...
Tampa Bay Lightning 2026 NHL Draft Profile: Cooper Soller
Name: Cooper Soller Drafted: Fifth Round, 154th overall Bio: 17-years-old, right shot, Los Angeles, CA, 5’10”, 172 lbs. Position: Forward 2025-26 Team: Sioux Falls Stampede (USHL) Jon Cooper won the Clark Cup in the USHL. Cooper Soller won the Clark Cup. It’s a match made in draft heaven. Honestly, there is a much better than zero chance that Jon Cooper is no longer the Tampa Bay Lightning head coach if and when the Bolts’ second fifth-round pick of...
Tampa Bay Lightning 2026 NHL Draft Profile: Morgan Anderberg
Name: Morgan Anderberg Drafted: Fifth Round, 134th overall Bio: 18-years-old, right shot, Stockholm, Sweden, 5’11” lbs. Position: Center 2025-26 Team: Vaxjo Lakers HC, SHL Alright, now we’re back on track. With their fifth-round pick, the Tampa Bay Lightning selected a smaller center that is an absolute defensive menace. Anderberg earned the trust of his coaching staff as the season went on and was playing a third-line role on a good Vaxjo team. Not bad for an 18-...
Tampa Bay Lightning 2026 NHL Draft Profile: Tomas Kralovic
Name: Tomas Kralovic Drafted: Third Round, 90th overall Bio: 20-years-old, right shot, Bratislava, Slovakia, 6’3″, 203 lbs. Position: Defense 2025-26 Team: HC Slovan Bratislava, Slovakia Not every player takes a straight line to the NHL. Nor are they on the same timeline. Tomas Kralovic is not a 17- or 18-year-old kid going through the process for the first time. He’s been through a draft or two or three before. Finally, he gets to hear his name called by a NHL te...
Tampa Bay Lightning 2026 Draft Pick Profile: Oleg Kulebiakin
Name: Oleg Kulebiakin Drafted: Second Round, 52nd overall Bio: 18-years-old, St. Petersburg, Russia, left-shot, 5’10, 179 lbs. Position: Left Wing/Right Wing 2025-26 Team: Halifax Mooseheads, QMJHL The Lightning traded up a handful of spots in the second round to draft a player that a lot of the prognosticators had going in the middle rounds. When they have their sights set on a player, they aren’t going to let him get away, be it at the trade deadline or at the d...
The Tampa Bay Lightning’s 2026 NHL Draft Tracker
[Evening update] Thank you to everyone who stopped by to comment. Big shoutout to scharms for posting some more information on the kids drafted today. We are back from work, showered, beer in hand and ready to start digging into the information on these kids. Should have some of them posted tonight, and then the rest tomorrow morning. [End Update] After a first round that went pretty close to the way the prospect analysts thought it would go, Day Two of the NHL draft gets underway th...
Raw Charge’s Live Draft Thread: Round One
C’mon on down and join us for tonight’s NHL festivities. There will be “A list” celebrities. There will be lives changed. There may even be a trade or two. There won’t be any Tampa Bay Lightning picks (probably). As long as our laptop battery holds up, we’ll cover each and every pick of the first round. No, we don’t have anything better to do on a Friday night. 7:00 – We’re live! The Lightning dropped a quick social media post while it sounds like Boston and Utah are working on a J.J. Pet...
A quick look at the 2026 NHL Draft
The first round of the NHL Draft gets underway tonight at 7:00 PM EST. For some fans, it will be a chance to dream of better days ahead. For other fans, it’s just another Friday night in June. As of the time of publication, the Tampa Bay Lightning do not have a selection in the first round, having traded the 25th overall pick to Seattle at the 2025 NHL deadline as part of a larger deal for Oliver Bjorkstrand and Yanni Gourde. Seattle has since moved that pick to Florida for Mackie Samoskovich....
Latest NHL sign-and-trade takes potential Lightning free agent target off market
Well, at least we won’t have to write any more Alex Tuch profiles in the near future. After speculating that the big winger could be a trade deadline acquisition in 2025, and a possible free agent signing this summer, things went in a different direction as the Buffalo Sabres signed the 30-year-old to an 8-year, $84 million contract before trading him to the Washington Capitals for a third-round pick and David Kampf. With that move, the top forward was erased from the top of free agent bo...
2026 NHL Draft: Three potential forwards for the Tampa Bay Lightning
We’ve tackled the defense already. Now it’s time to look for offense. In the seven drafts where Julien BriseBois has been the final voice, the Tampa Bay Lightning have picked a forward with their top selection. The two times he went with defense was Jan Golicic in the fourth round of the 2024 draft and Roman Schmidt in the third round of the 2021 draft. So, when he’s had a pick in the top two rounds, he’s gone on the offensive. Will history repeat itself this year? In all likelihood, yes....
Lightning Morning News: Tuesday was Trade Day in the NHL
As the clock ticks down to the draft and free agency, teams are starting to make some moves. The dust had barely settled on the Brady-Tkachuk-to-Florida deal when the league office was inundated with several trade calls. You are going to need a scoresheet to keep track of who is drafting when on Friday. Speaking of the draft, we pondered a few possibilities for the Tampa Bay Lightning when it’s finally their time to draft. [ Raw Charge ] While we were working on that, the rest of the...
2026 NHL Draft: Three potential defensive picks for the Tampa Bay Lightning
It’s the end of June and that means one thing, and one thing only. The busiest two-week stretch of the NHL season is here. First up is the draft. Then it’s the deadline for qualifying offers to restricted free agents. And finally, Hockey Christmas in July – Free Agency! We plan to cover it all starting with the draft. Thanks to last week’s trade , the Tampa Bay Lightning now hold seven picks in the 2026 NHL Draft. They are as follows: Round 2 – 58th overall Round 3 – 90th overal...
Lightning Morning News: Patrice Bergeron headlines 2026 Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
The phone calls have been made and the 2026 Hockey Hall of Fame class has been announced. Patrice Bergeron, Carey Price, Pekka Rinne, Keith Tkachuk, and Cindy Curley were inducted as players while Brian Burke was honored in the Builder Category. The Induction Ceremony is set for November 9. It’s always a fun weekend in Toronto with the honored members descending upon the city for various activities. With the announcement of this year’s class, we can also talk about the snubs. So far, Patr...
How about if we just traded everybody?
What’s the point, right? Why run it back with the same line-up only to get the same result? It’s done. The window is closed. Time to start fresh. At various points throughout the season we’ve all had these thoughts, right? So, since the Darren Raddysh drama has reached a conclusion, and we’re still a few days away from the draft, we here at Raw Charge decided to have some fun. We could all use a little more fun, right? Yes, other teams are actually making deals right now. The Bolts w...
Lightning Morning News: Division rival makes a big move while a potential free agent target stays put
The week before the NHL Draft has kicked off with a flurry of activity. After the Tampa Bay Lightning started things on Friday by pulling off a sign-and-trade with Toronto, their down-state rival ended the weekend with a blockbuster deal of their own. It started innocently enough as they sent Mackie Samoskevich to Seattle for the 25th pick in the first round (originally the Lightning’s) and a second-round pick in 2027. Armed with two first-round picks, it was almost certain that the Panth...
Tampa Bay Lightning trade Darren Raddysh to division rival
If, as Tom Petty once sang, the waiting is indeed the hardest part, then things are about to get a lot easier in the Darren Raddysh saga. The 30-year-old defenseman will not make it to July 1st and free agency. Nor will he be a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning next season. The Lightning have announced that they have traded Raddysh to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return for a fifth-round selection in the 2026 NHL draft. Thus ends one of the big question marks for the Lightning and the NHL t...
Looking back at the Lightning’s 2025 Draft
Believe it or not, the 2026 NHL Draft is right around the corner. Soon, all of the top prospects will be gathered in Buffalo, hoping to hear their names called on night one of the draft. There will be hugs and hats. Fans will put too much expectations on their shoulders, and in the end, if even a handful of them have a productive NHL career, it will be considered a successful draft. The Lightning are not drafting on night one. To be fair, that’s par for the course as 2026 will be the four...
Lightning Morning News: The trades…they’ve begun
It didn’t take long for the general managers around the league to start reshaping their rosters. The Carolina Hurricanes have yet to recover from their Las Vegas-sized hangovers and a couple of trades have been pushed through already. The first deal involved a divisional rival and the second contained a couple of familiar names. Trade #1 – Toronto sends goaltender Joseph Woll and defenseman Simon Benoit to the Philadelphia Flyers for goaltender Samuel Ersson, defenseman Emil Andrae, ...
Lightning Morning News: Dates to know in the off-season
We’re in the offseason, folks. There is no more competitive hockey until this fall. While you’re catching up on your laundry and reintroducing yourselves to family members, not all is lost in the world of the NHL. There are still some things coming down the pipe, so here are a few dates to keep an eye on as the summer heats up. The Buyout Window Opens – 48 hours after the Stanley Cup Final until 5:00 PM EST, June 30th. This is the first buyout window, and there is a chance that some ...
The Raw Charge Awards Show – Tampa Bay Lightning Edition
Folks, at long last the 2025-26 NHL season is finally over. Congratulations to Amir Miftakhov and the Carolina Hurricanes for winning the second Stanley Cup in franchise history. Long live the Southeast Division! With things wrapped up nicely in a bow, we can start looking forward to next season, where the Tampa Bay Lightning are +1000 to win the 2026-27 Stanley Cup. Only Carolina (+650) and Colorado (+700) are heavier favorites. Well, let’s not quite move forward yet. We still need to ha...
Lightning Morning News: Hey now, you’re an all-star, and so are you
Way back on Friday the NHL announced their First and Second All-Star teams. For a couple members of the Tampa Bay Lightning, it was another chance to see their name in bold print. Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy joined Jason Robertson, Connor McDavid, Cale Makar, and Zach Werenski on the First All-Star team. Of the six Second Team All-Stars, four of them received the honor for the first time. Cole Caufield, Nathan MacKinnon, David Pastrnak, Rasmus Dahlin, Evan Bouchard, and Logan T...
Nikita Kucherov wins second Hart Trophy
The individual awards keep rolling in for the Tampa Bay Lightning. After Jon Cooper nabbed his first Jack Adams and Andrei Vasilevskiy was awarded his second Vezina Trophy, Nikita Kucherov became the Lightning’s first multi-Hart Trophy winner as he bested Connor McDavid by ten points in the overall voting. Really wonder who gave McDavid those two fifth-place votes. Depending on how their ballot looked, that might have been the difference. In the end, Kucherov nabbed enough votes to...
2026 NHL Free Agent Check-in: Alex Tuch
Another day, and another potential unrestricted free agent is taken off of the board. In this case it’s Michael McCarron choosing Jucy Lucy burgers over free agency as he stays in Minnesota for six years at $3.33 million a year (the Yanni Gourde special!). With the big, bottom-six forward off of the market, things are getting bleak for anyone hoping to improve their offense on the free-agent market. One name is still out there, though, and unlike Dylan Larkin, could fill a need that the Tampa ...
Let’s talk about Dylan Larkin and the Tampa Bay Lightning
So. Dylan Larkin reportedly wants out of Detroit. Good to see the Yzerplan is going swimmingly in the Motor City so far. So, what does this have to do with the Tampa Bay Lightning? Well, probably not much to be honest. In fact, we wouldn’t be writing this except for a few things. One, there isn’t much happening at Channelside Drive these days. Two, the Lightning are a team in contention, and that seems to be what Larkin is looking for. Three, a couple of rather prominent journalists haven’t ru...
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