The Tampa Bay Lightning basically gave away defensemen Nikita Nesterov to the Montreal Canadiens prior to tonight’s game, for defenseman Jonathan Racine and a sixth-round pick in 2017. Racine spent the year in the American Hockey League after being acquired by Montreal in return for Tim Bozon. He didn’t appear in an NHL game with Montreal, but had three assists in 26 games with the American Hockey League’s St. John’s IceCaps.
Nesterov is having his best season as a pro with 12 points despite playing in just 35 games with the Tampa Bay. He’s a depth player with upside potential. .
The Lightning get a sixth-rounder and Racine, a 23-year-old who was the 87th pick of the 2011 NHL Draft by the Florida Panthers. Racine is a penalty waiting to happen, as he had 149 in 70 AHL games in 2014-15.
It is a straight trade with no salary retained.
Montreal gets the better of this trade, by far as Yzerman begins to set the team up to sign his free agents, including Tyler Johnson , Jonathan Drouin and Ondrej Palat. Nesterov is a pending RFA.
According to Erik Erlendsson:
[protected-iframe id=”0b16c769eced3a56c07039ecaf98cde7-114320562-46289989″ info=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” class=”twitter-tweet”](Feature Photo by Christine Gunn)
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