A couple of finnish players have signed entry level contracts with the bolts. The first signing is of 2011 1st round pick Joel Armia who was selected 13th overall. Joel is a big bodied winger who's got good hands with great goal scoring abilities. He will have a chance to make the buffalo sabres out of camp next season in the nhl and if he could get some experience at the nhl level next season we will be very happy.
The second finn to sign was Markus Granlund who will be joining brother Mikael Granlund in the syracuse crunch lineup for the upcoming NEFHL season. Markus who doesn't quite have as much skill as brother Mikael still is a very talented winger and will be trying to make name for himself in north america and try to step out of his brother's shaddow. Unlike Armia, Markus is more of a project and isn't projected to play in the NEFHL for another 3 or 4 seasons.
In other news, the lightning have also decided that Derek Roy was going to be their loyaltied player this season. Despite Derek's subpar last couple of seasons, we feel at 30 that he still has lots of hockey left in him and expect him to bring back up those offensive numbers with a new team and a healthy season!