from Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times,

There's the (10?) million-dollar question of whether Yzerman can re-sign captain Steven Stamkos to a long-term deal before or after he reaches unrestricted free agency July 1. There's wing Nikita Kucherov, another potential building block, a 30-goal scorer this season due a hefty raise from $700,000 as a restricted free agent.

Top defenseman Victor Hedman and forwards Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat are due new deals after next season, as is Vezina Trophy-finalist goaltender Ben Bishop, unless Yzerman decides to deal Bishop or 21-year-old Andrei Vasilevskiy in the next year.

And Yzerman has to balance all that with a relatively flat salary cap while considering a potential expansion draft.

"The next two summers will kind of define our team the next seven or eight years," Yzerman said Friday. "I have an idea of what we want to do. And we're doing our best to get everyone to buy in to what we're trying to do and keep it together."

But the Lightning realizes that after returning nearly the entire team from last season, next year's team could have a much different look.

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