{"id":68586,"date":"2025-12-02T21:50:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T21:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/68586\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T21:50:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T21:50:18","slug":"tampa-bay-lightning-terminate-young-players-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/68586\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning terminate young player&#8217;s contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>PUBLICATION<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.houseofhockey.net\/collaborators\/tom-banks\" class=\"lediv\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tom Banks<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDecember 2, 2025\u00a0\u00a0(4:14 PM)<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/620234.webp.webp\" style=\"width:100%;\" border=\"0\" alt=\"The Tampa Bay Lightning.\" title=\"The Tampa Bay Lightning.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: The Hockey News<\/p>\n<p>The Tampa Bay Lightning have some intriguing prospects, but shockingly, the team have now officially parted ways with Niko Huuhtanen.<\/p>\n<p>The Tampa Bay Lightning&#8217;s core group has been together for quite some time to great success for the organization, but around them, the supplemental pieces have continued to change.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve seen some intriguing young players emerging in the organization, but according to recent reports, it appears as though one talented prospect won&#8217;t get that opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay waive prospect Niko Huuhtanen<\/p>\n<p>In addressing <a href=\"https:\/\/puckpedia.com\/waiver-wire\" class=\"lien_marqueur\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Tuesday&#8217;s waivers<\/a>, NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman surprisingly revealed that the team are parting ways with Niko Huuhtanen, who has been placed on waivers for the purpose of contract termination.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s unclear exactly what happened between the two parties to make this change, but even as late as this off-season, Huuhtanen was regarded as a top-10 prospect in the Lightning organization by many.<\/p>\n<p>The 22-year old was a seventh-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft by Tampa Bay, and after putting up 8 goals and 20 points in 51 games of his first professional season in the AHL in 2024\/25, hopes were very high.<\/p>\n<p>However, he was demoted to the ECHL this season after posting 3 assists in 5 AHL games, with something clearly going wrong between the two parties to cause him to be sent to the ECHL, and now waived by the team.<\/p>\n<p>At this point in time, it&#8217;s unclear what exactly happened to cause the Lightning to make this move, as Huuhtanen appeared to be a very solid prospect for the future of this organization, but now, he&#8217;ll be looking for his new home in professional hockey.<\/p>\n<p>Previously on House Of Hockey<\/p>\n<p>POLL<\/p>\n<p>2 HOURS AGO\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0\u00a015 ANSWERS<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay Lightning terminate young player&#8217;s contract<\/p>\n<p>Was this the right decision for the Lightning?<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PUBLICATION Tom Banks December 2, 2025\u00a0\u00a0(4:14 PM) Photo credit: The Hockey News The Tampa Bay Lightning have some&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[21514,39959,5691,39957,39958,135,862,137,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-68586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-jon-cooper","9":"tag-julien-brisebois","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-niko-huuhtanen","12":"tag-syracuse-crunch","13":"tag-tampa","14":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","15":"tag-tampa-headlines","16":"tag-tampa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}