Lightning sign Gage Goncalves to one-year, two-way contract

The Tampa Bay Lightning announced Friday they re-signed forward Gage Goncalves to a one-year, two-way contract.

The 23-year-old made his NHL debut last season, appearing in two games and recording six penalty minutes.

Goncalves played 69 games last season with the Lightning’s AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, where he had 13 goals and a team-leading 45 assists and 58 points. He also had a goal and five assists for six points during the AHL Calder Cup Playoffs. He was named an AHL All-Star in 2023-24.

Drafted by the Lightning in the second round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft, Gage has spent the last three seasons in the AHL, scoring 43 goals and 102 assists for 145 points in 212 games played.

Before turning pro, Goncalves played three full seasons with the WHL’s Everett Silvertips, where he scored 46 goals and 74 assists for 120 points in 151 career junior games, including a career-high 33 goals and 38 assists for 71 points in 2019-20.

Last season, the Lightning finished with a 45-29-8 record and 98 points, fourth in the Atlantic Division. They lost in five games to the eventual Eastern Conference champions, the Florida Panthers, in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Forward Nikita Kucherov led the league in scoring with 144 points, including 100 total assists, becoming just the fifth player in NHL history to achieve the feat (the other four were Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr and Connor McDavid, who did it just two days earlier).

What made Kucherov’s season all the more impressive was that he finished with 54 more points than Brayden Point, who was second on the team in scoring with 90.