Goaltender Ray Emery and forward Ryan Martindale will be heading to Tampa Bay Lightning training camp on professional tryout contracts (PTOs), according to Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times.
We speculated last week that Emery may make sense as a PTO candidate for Tampa Bay after they learned that goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy will miss 2-3 months following surgery to remove a blood clot.
The team’s options to replace Vasilevskiy internally are both prospects who probably benefit from getting more games playing for the Syracuse Crunch in the AHL instead of being buried behind Ben Bishop to start the season. That’s particularly true for Adam Wilcox, who will be transitioning from the NCAA to the pro ranks this season.
The soon-to-be 33-year-old netminder spent last season backing up Steve Mason with the Philadelphia Flyers, playing 31 games with a .894 save percentage in all situations and a .913 save percentage at even strength.
Martindale was a third round draft pick in 2010 for the Edmonton Oilers. He has bounced around a fair amount in his pro career, finishing last season with the Lightning’s AHL affiliate in Syracuse after playing most of the season with the San Antonio Rampage. Between the two teams, he played 64 AHL games, scoring 16 goals and 11 assists, with a big portion of that coming in just 19 games with the Crunch. He had more goals and assists with the Crunch than he did in his 45 games with the Rampage.
Lots of familiar names are taking PTOs this season. Keep up with all the tryout contracts with The Hockey Writers’ 2015 PTO Tracker.