{"id":444098,"date":"2024-07-01T20:53:13","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T00:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=444098"},"modified":"2024-07-01T20:56:41","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T00:56:41","slug":"zemgus-girgensons-signed-to-new-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/07\/01\/zemgus-girgensons-signed-to-new-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Latvian Forward Signs New Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nearing the twilight of the NHL&#8217;s 2024 free agency day, and another veteran NHLer is on the move. News emerged this evening that longtime NHL forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/girgeze01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-29_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zemgus Girgensons<\/a> signed a new contract with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/lightning\/\" target=\"_self\">Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a>. The deal is for three years and carries an annual average value of $850,000. This deal will run out at the end of the 2026-27 season. Furthermore, General Manager Julien BriseBois must be ecstatic for this type of veteran addition to the roster.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">From Buffalo to the Bay \ud83c\udf34<\/p>\n<p>We have signed free agent forward Zemgus Girgensons to a three-year contract worth an AAV of $850,000. <\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcdd: <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rqEFna4dOM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/rqEFna4dOM<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZcDlecEVKO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ZcDlecEVKO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TBLightning\/status\/1807923558917492949?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 1, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Zemgus Girgensons Signed by the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/h2>\n<p>Girgensons has only played for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/06\/19\/nhl-rumours-buffalo-sabres-jeff-skinner-buyout-candidate\/\" target=\"_self\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a> during his 10-year NHL career. The Latvian forward netted eight goals and six assists for 14 points in 63 games this campaign. He had a Corsi for of 45.9 and a relative Corsi of -5.0. The 30-year-old has 89 goals and 99 assists for 188 points in 688 career games. Buffalo originally took Girgensons in the first round, 14th overall of the 2012 NHL Entry Draft.<\/p>\n<p>His best season was when he got 15 goals and 15 assists for 30 points in the 2014-15 campaign. He also was the runaway fan vote winner for the 2015 All-Star Game after getting bolstered by <a  href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zemgus_Girgensons\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">votes from his home nation. <\/a>Girgensons has played for his native Latvia and the junior and senior level. He helped his country finish eighth at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.<\/p>\n<h3>What It Means<\/h3>\n<p>The Sabres seem to have a lot of younger prospects itching to get game time. This meant that Girgensons likely <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/05\/19\/nhl-rumours-dallas-stars-and-buffalo-sabres\/\" target=\"_self\">wasn&#8217;t going to have a spot<\/a> on the club. Buffalo<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/22\/lindy-ruff-hired-again-by-buffalo-sabres\/\" target=\"_self\"> is trying to end<\/a> the 13-year Stanley Cup Playoff drought and it feels its time for<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/05\/09\/nhl-rumours-buffalo-sabres-and-philadelphia-flyers\/\" target=\"_self\"> some fresh faces.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Girgensons is a decent bottom-six forward. He can help kill penalties and plays a physical game as well. Given all <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/06\/30\/top-pending-ufa-acquired-in-trade-lightning\/\" target=\"_self\">the moves the Lightning made today<\/a>, and their propensity for perennial playoff contention, his veteran presence in the lineup will not hurt. He can be a depth piece in the squad for a Lightning team looking for solid defensive forwards. It&#8217;ll be odd seeing him in something other than a Sabres sweater. However, that&#8217;s the nature of the hockey business.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo by: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nearing the twilight of the NHL&#8217;s 2024 free agency day, and another veteran NHLer is on the move. News emerged this evening that longtime NHL forward Zemgus Girgensons signed a new contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The deal is for three years and carries an annual average value of $850,000. This deal will run [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":135866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[4547,34,4548,9],"tags":[662,955,42,183],"class_list":["post-444098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-lightning","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-nhl-news","tag-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-zemgus-girgensons"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444098","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\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}