In the process of trying to confirm the information, it was reported that Alex Killorn has agreed to a seven-year contract that carries a salary cap hit of $4.45 million per season.

EDIT: Team confirmed the deal was 7 years at $4.45 million cap hit.

The deal is also believed to include a no-move clause that kicks in when he would have become an unrestricted free agency. This is an bit of an important point because that means he is not eligible to have that clause in his deal for this season, therefore is not required to be protected for the expansion draft that will take place in June.

Now, I know what many are thinking here . . . . . seven years?

But here's the bottom line on that, in my opinion - Killorn is a unique type of player, a new style power forward who can skate well, go to the net, win battles in the corners, play in a top-six role and is a responsible defensive zone winger.

And since he was eligible for arbitration with a hearing scheduled on Tuesday, he could have made more in arbitration on a shorter term deal, possibly in the $5 million range. So in that aspect, it's a team friendly deal in terms of cap space, and for Steve Yzerman, cap space is a commodity these days.

Go seven years seems like, but it's the way of doing business these days and in this case you extend the term to lower the cap hit.

Does this mean Killorn is now considered part of the team's core? Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman are already in that category after signing eight-year deals. And the seven-year deal for Killorn is just the third contract beyond six years that Steve Yzerman has handed out since he became general manager in 2010.

Where does Nikita Kucherov fit in this equation?That remains to be seen as he remains a restricted free agent, but it's safe to assume that he, too, is part of that core and I'm sure that will become evident whenever he signs a new deal.

There is still plenty of summer work to be done for Yzerman and Co. as in addition to Kucherov, Vladislav Namestnikov and Nikita Nesterov remain restricted free agents, with Namestnikov scheduled for an arbitration case on July 27.

So there is more to come, but the picture of what the Lightning figure to look like down the road is starting to come in to more focus.

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