Five Years for Jeffrey Viel: What to Make of It

By Michael Wax

July 1st saw the Lightning make four moves of significance: Ilya Mikheyev was the first domino to fall, signing a 4-year, $15.4M deal. Nick Paul was shipped to Toronto for goaltender Dennis Hildeby. Late that night, the long-awaited rumor of John Carlson to Tampa finally went down. However, buried underneath it all was the deal that had many scratching their heads.

Right after Mikheyev, forward Jeffrey Viel signed a five-year contract worth $12.5 million ($2.5M per season through 2030-31), with a full no-trade clause the first two seasons. That is the longest term Julien BriseBois handed out on the opening day of free agency ever (Jake Guentzel signed a seven-year deal but never officially made it to free agency).

Viel has played 99 NHL games in his career. He has 15 points and 232 penalty minutes, and didn’t really make an NHL impact until last year. So the main question still stands: why Viel, and why now?

The Money Isn't the Problem

To start: the money isn’t really an issue: $2.5 million against a $104 million cap is not a franchise-altering figure. Long are the days when a $5.8M Ryan Callahan or a $4.5M Olivier Bjorkstrand are taking up spots on the 4th line. The NHL free agency market also saw some wild contracts handed out on July 1st, so getting someone for $2.5M isn’t necessarily crazy.

While not a top name, Viel did provide a little bit of everything in his first real NHL season. In 45 games between Boston and Anaheim, he posted three goals, seven assists, 121 hits, 79 penalty minutes and 21 blocked shots in just under 12 minutes a night. At 6’1, 214 ibs, he’s what many in the hockey world would call a “big boy”.

Viel also showed up in the postseason. In a stunning first-round win over Edmonton, Viel scored two goals in six games, including the tying goal in the 3rd period, assisted by Duck teammate and now Lightning teammate John Carlson. In the second round, Viel picked up two assists in six games. The Lightning clearly need guys who get better as the postseason comes around, and Viel has shown that, albeit only one.

The Term

As mentioned previously, this five-year deal for Viel is the longest term ever handed out by BriseBois in free agency. While BriseBois is always searching for the next market inefficiency, taking the jump for Viel feels like a big risk.

One of the main reasons that the Lightning have been able to stay competitive in the JBB era is by not hamstringing themselves to long-term deals in free agency. After Viel’s 5-year contract, Mikheyev was signed for four years, Zach Bogosian for three, and Jakob Pelletier for three.

Viel will be 34 when this contract expires. Betting on this player is a risk: if it hits, it might change the NHL landscape. If not, it might be an issue.

Conor Geekie is Now in No Man’s Land

In a make-or-break year, Conor Geekie no longer finds himself with a spot.

Right now, as we enter August, the Lightning forward lines look like this:

• Guentzel-Point-Kucherov

• Hagel-Cirelli-Goncalves

• Girgensons-Gourde-Holmberg

• Viel-James-Mikheyev

There’s no place for Geekie, at least for now.

The 22-year-old will be in his third professional season and has yet to find his footing at the highest level. After 52 games in Tampa in his rookie season, Geekie played in just 14 regular-season and two playoff games for the Lightning. He excelled in the AHL with the Syracuse Crunch, but the AHL is not the same (see Alex Barre-Boulet).

If Geekie’s going to play, he needs to play every day. Is he replacing Viel? Mikeyev? Probably not, as those guys just got brought in. James? Goncalves? Unlikely, as they demonstrated a lot in their first and second NHL seasons, respectively.

There’s no real spot for the former 12th overall pick, and he might be running out of time.

The 86th Shadow

Everything Tampa Bay does this year gets measured against one looming item. Nikita Kucherov, the reigning Hart Trophy winner, can become an unrestricted free agent after this season and became eligible to sign an extension on July 1. That contract is coming, and it will be enormous.

$2.5 million a year isn't what stops the Lightning from paying Kucherov. But it's $12.5 million of long-term commitment on a roster that already has J.J. Moser for eight more years,  Brandon Hagel for six, Jake Guentzel, Anthony Cirelli, and Yanni Gourde for five, and Brayden Point for three. The flexibility BriseBois had described in the past is exactly the thing this deal chips away at.

The Verdict

If Viel is what Tampa Bay believes he is, a legitimate playoff-caliber agitator who makes the bottom six harder to play against in April, nobody will remember the term. Depth players who move a playoff series are worth overpaying for (see Josh Anderson), and this front office has been right about that kind of thing before.

If he's the guy who had 15 points in his first 99 NHL games, this is a contract Tampa Bay will be trying to move by 2028 and won't be able to.