{"id":1805,"date":"2016-09-26T19:15:29","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T23:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/?p=1805"},"modified":"2016-09-26T19:15:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T23:15:29","slug":"tampa-bay-lightning-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2016\/09\/26\/tampa-bay-lightning-resign\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning Re-sign Nikita Nesterov"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong>Tampa Bay Lightning<\/strong> re-signed restricted free agent defenseman <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/nesteni01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikita Nesterov<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0today. The one-year, $725,000 deal only brings one of the two Nikita&#8217;s that were awaiting contract from Tampa Bay back to the squad. Nesterov took a small pay cut from his $792,500 salary last season. The previous deal was a two-way contract, but his new deal is a one-way pact.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TBLightning?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#TBLightning<\/a> has re-signed restricted free agent defenseman Nikita Nesterov to 1 year deal ($725,000). Still working on RFA Nikita Kucherov<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Joe Smith (@JoeSmithNHL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JoeSmithNHL\/status\/780504063293227008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 26, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Tampa Bay Lightning re-sign Nikita Nesterov<\/h2>\n<p>Nesterov, 23, set career highs during the 2015-16 season in games played (57), goals (6), and assists (9). Nesterov&#8217;s Corsi-for percentage last season was 49.7 despite starting over 65 percentage of his shifts in the offensive zone. The 5&#8217;11, 191-pound left-hander\u00a0also appeared in 10 games with the <a href=\"http:\/\/theAHL.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>AHL<\/strong><\/a>&#8216;s<strong> Syracuse\u00a0Crunch<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently Nesterov skated with <strong>Team Russia<\/strong> in the <strong>World Cup of Hockey<\/strong>. He appeared in only one game for the Russian side and recorded on a single shot on goal.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom pairing for the Lightning will be a crowded place in Tampa Bay&#8217;s training\u00a0camp. A fifth-round pick of the Lightning in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, Nesterov will face competition for a regular roster spot.\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/koekksl01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Slater Koekkoek<\/a><\/strong> is another promising young blueliner and the Lightning also invited <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/w\/wisnija01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Wisniewski<\/a><\/strong> to camp on a PTO. \u00a0With <strong>Andrej\u00a0Sustr<\/strong> likely locking down the number five defenseman slot, whichever of Nesterov, Koekkoek, and Wisniewski wins the last spot should be in the lineup when Tampa Bay opens the season.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/generalfanager\/status\/780505901379837953<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Kucherov Still Unsigned<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The signing leaves the Lightning with around $5.8 million in cap space and still have RFA forward\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kucheni01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikita Kucherov<\/a><\/strong> to get under contract. Tampa Bay submitted a qualifying offer to the skilled forward, but he remains unsigned. While the signing of Nesterov is welcome news for the defensive depth of the Lightning, the signing of Kucherov is turning critical.\u00a0Kucherov posted a team-leading 66 points in the 77 games for the Lightning and has quickly established himself as a star in the <strong>NHL<\/strong>. While the signing of Nesterov is welcome news for the defensive depth of the Lightning, the signing of Kucherov is turning critical.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/520784116\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/520784116?et=ws8ne46cQdZPR3N2AXfgfw&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=hdaioI-3gZzT3vzWn9BHk5_xeCfuEgvhFrZ10LFB9v4=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Tampa Bay Lightning re-signed restricted free agent defenseman Nikita Nesterov\u00a0today. The one-year, $725,000 deal only brings one of the two Nikita&#8217;s that were awaiting contract from Tampa Bay back to the squad. Nesterov took a small pay cut from his $792,500 salary last season. The previous deal was a two-way contract, but his new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1607,"featured_media":1810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,9],"tags":[37,38,583,582,42],"class_list":["post-1805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-lightning","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-nikita-kucherov","tag-nikita-nesterov","tag-tampa-bay-lightning"],"modified_by":"Zachary DeVine","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}