Bolts sign goalie Ellis, trade defenseman Meszaros

Steve Yzerman filled an open goaltender spot on the first day of free agency, but his biggest move of the day may have come via the addition-by-subtraction route.

While Tampa Bay landed former Nashville goaltender Dan Ellis, inking the 30-year-old to a two-year contract worth a reported $3 million, to compete with incumbent Mike Smith for playing time, Yzerman created some cash and salary cap flexibility with the trade of underachieving defenseman Andrej Meszaros.

Tampa Bay also re-signed minor-league enforcer Mitch Fritz to a one-year, two-way contract while seeing leading point scorer on defense Kurtis Foster depart for Edmonton after signing a two-year deal worth $3.6 million. In addition, goaltender Antero Niittymaki signed a two-year deal with San Jose worth $4 million.

Outside of re-signing Marty St. Louis to a four-year extension, Yzerman's biggest move of the day was sending Meszaros to Philadelphia in exchange for a second-round draft pick in 2012. With four years left on an original six-year deal, Meszaros is set to earn $18.25 million of the $24 million he signed for before the 2008 season, when he was acquired from Ottawa in exchange for defensemen Filip Kuba and Alex Picard as well as the first-round pick in the 2009 draft.

Moving Meszaros removes one of the long-term commitments already on the books for Yzerman, and it allows some wiggle room as he tries to rebuild the roster while keeping an eye on the future signings of Steven Stamkos, Steve Downie and Victor Hedman as well as Thursday's re-signing of St. Louis.

"It helps really all deals in our ability to move forward," Yzerman said of the trade. "I had to prepare for next year and years moving forward looking out. I had an opportunity to free up money to sign some other players. ... You only have X amount of dollars to spend, and you have to decide where you are going to spend them."

In his two seasons with Tampa Bay, Meszaros was a disappointment, scoring eight goals and 33 points in 133 games while compiling a minus-18 rating after posting 26 goals, 110 points and a plus-24 rating in his first three seasons with Ottawa.

Yzerman immediately put some of that salary space to use in signing Ellis, who was a second-round draft pick of the Dallas Stars but made his mark with Nashville the past three seasons. While with the Predators, Ellis compiled a 49-42-10 record with a 2.64 goals-against average and .912 save percentage in 110 games.

Ellis will immediately compete for playing time with Smith, reuniting the two former teammates with the Stars.

"In my heart, this was the No. 1 place I wanted to go," Ellis said. "There were a lot of options out there, we looked at all of them, and I don't know what it was, but there was some eager draw toward Tampa the whole time."

Smith said the Lightning acquired a solid player and a solid person.

"I got the chance to really know him, and he and I really hit it off," Smith said. "I think we complement each other really well, and I think people will see a well-structured goaltender that works really hard. We are definitely looking forward to getting back together and having a great year together."

Yzerman's work is far from done, however, and he still has offers out.

"What I would like to do on our defense is add more puck-moving guys, guys that can generate some offense," he said. "We are going to need to fill out our defense, we have contracts and players but I'm looking for a little bit of experience."