Tampa Bay Lightning place J.T. Brown on waivers

The Tampa Bay Lightning announced earlier today they have officially placed Lightning forward J.T. Brown on waivers.

The Tampa Bay Lightning has had to do a lot of roster shifting this season. Injuries have crept back into the Lightning’s everyday affairs and have cause Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper to make some interesting moves in order to keep the Lightning at the top of the National Hockey League.

Today, it was Lightning Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman who was making the interesting moves. According to Hockey Night In Canada’s Elliotte Friedman, the Lightning has officially placed forward J.T. Brown on waivers.

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with what this means, it means the other 30 teams in the NHL are free to claim him as their own within 24 hours of the player being designated as “on waivers”.

Should all teams decline the player (or waive) the player can then be re-assigned to the team’s American Hockey League affiliate, which in this case would be the Syracuse Crunch, or can be released from their contract altogether.

According to Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times, Steve Yzerman has stated the move was motivated by a desire for more roster flexibility and the provide opportunities for some of the Lightning’s younger players.

“I wanted the flexibility within our roster, when the time comes, to recall players currently excelling in Syracuse and give them an opportunity to play,” Steve Yzerman via Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times

Ideally, there is a good chance this situation stemmed from the decision between potentially losing Brown or Lightning forward Cory Conacher to waivers. The way Conacher has been playing of late, there is no doubt in the minds of anyone here in the Bolts Nation another team would quickly claim him.

Now that Lightning alternate captain Ryan Callahan returned after missing eight games with an Upper-Body Injury, the Lightning found themselves short on roster space at the forward position, which has resulted in a few players being deemed the dreaded “healthy scratch.”

J.T. Brown has played in a total of 24 games with the Lightning so far this season. In this amount of time, Brown has brought home a lone goal and three assists. Moving a player like Brown, who has little offensive production to date, makes much more sense than moving someone like Conacher, who has brought home three goals and three assists in 17 games and has a plus-2 rating.

It will definitely be interesting to see how this situation plays out, whether or not Brown is re-assigned to Syracuse or whether he will be calling a new team home sooner rather than later. In any case, it’s going to be interesting to see how the Lightning responds when they return after their bye week to take on the Vegas Golden Knights.

Next: Victor Hedman Out 3-6 Weeks With Lower-Body Injury

Tomorrow afternoon, there should be some sort of resolution to this matter. Either the Syracuse Crunch will have a new player who will be psyched for some more ice time, or the Bolts Nation will be saying farewell to J.T. Brown.