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It's official. At the age of 42, Gary Roberts will play his 22nd NHL season next year with his sixth team, the increasingly newsworthy Tampa Bay Lightning. Roberts agreed to a one-year contract with the Lightning on Monday. It's worth $1.25-million (U.S.) in base salary and games-played bonuses that could up to the ante to just over $2-million, sources confirmed.
The official announcement of Roberts's signing is expected later today, once all the paperwork is completed. The Lightning acquired Roberts' playing rights, along with those of Ryan Malone, from the Pittsburgh Penguins over the weekend, trying to get a jumpstart on the free-agent market which officially opens for business Tuesday at noon Eastern. They also have an agreement in principle for Malone, a seven-year, $31.5-million contract that could also be announced as early as later today.
In Roberts, the Lightning believes that they can inject some leadership into the dressing room of a team that figures to be fairly young at the bottom end of the roster. If Roberts can help Steven Stamkos, their top choice in the 2008 entry draft, adapt to professional life, they believe the investment will be well worth it.
Injuries limited Roberts to only 38 regular-season games last season and he started the Stanley Cup final on the sidelines in favour of Georges Laracque, but eventually the Penguins put him in the line-up and he dressed for the final five games of the series against the Detroit Red Wings.
Gary Roberts, shown in this 2007 file photo upon his introduction to the Pittsburgh Penguins (Jason Cohn/Reuters)
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Roberts was reportedly intrigued by playing for the Lightning, who had taken an unorthodox but aggressive approach to rebuilding a team that was in the Stanley Cup winner's circle just four years ago, dusting off a new/old coach in Barry Melrose and aggressively pursuing player reinforcements, even in advance of the opening of free agent season.
This will be Roberts's second stop in the Sunshine State, after playing parts of two seasons with the Florida Panthers, prior to joining the Penguins at the 2007 trading deadline.
Roberts will enter next season, only six games short of 1,200 for his career, a hefty total considering he missed a full season (1996-97) to injury and another (2004-05) as a result of the lockout. He has scored 903 career points.
