The Lightning picked up the Solar Bears as their new ECHL affiliate.
Maybe this is a precursor to the DeVos family swapping the Solar Bears to the owners of the Syracuse Crunch for his AHL franchise, resulting in the AHL Crunch becoming the AHL Solar Bears and the ECHL Solar Bears becoming the ECHL Crunch. With the Crunch moving down to the ECHL level I can see them hooking up with Buffalo (making for a progression along I-90 West in that system - from Syracuse to Rochester to Buffalo).
Nah. TB also renewed their Syracuse affiliation for like 7 more years shortly after announcing Orlando as everyone was speculating that.
Orlando to the AHL doesn't make sense to me at the moment. The Bears have no one to play with the nearest team in Charlotte. TB wanted to be with the Crunch partly because they could bus and be back in their own beds for sleepytime from certain cities, it'd be late, but guys can't sleep for a few hours anyway. With Orlando, you can't even bus and the costs explode.
Now, if Atlanta, Jacksonville, and maybe Estero (Florida Everblades), SC? (stretch goal), etc., make a move into the AHL together like what happened with the AHL west division, I think we've got a stew going.
edit: also, Archambault was placed on IR again yesterday, he's eligible to come off anytime given the last time he played. I made an estimate that moving Kalk seemed to most strongly indicate Archambault. That was incorrect. Instead, Orlando got Shaq.