-Joe Smith recently caught up with Ryan Callahan as rumors about a trade start to swirl (pay-walled).
It’s one thing to accept being part of a forward rotation for the league’s top team. But for the 34-year-old, veteran wing — a former Rangers captain — to be a regular healthy scratch, it sent another big-picture signal.
Callahan realized that with a diminished role and a $5.8 million salary cap hit in 2019-20 he was probably in his final months in a Lightning sweater.
“Obviously there’s a salary cap crunch, and it doesn’t take a scientist to figure out right now I’m on the outside looking in,” Callahan told The Athletic.