The obvious first landing place for any of Tampa’s salary-cap headaches is Detroit, run by Steve Yzerman, the former Lightning GM, and the manager responsible for many of the contracts currently on Tampa’s books. For those who don’t follow it closely, Tampa has three middle of the lineup forwards with no-trade clauses (Ondrej Palat, Yanni Gourde and Tyler Johnson) and a fourth, Alex Killorn, with a modified no-trade. Of the four, the Lightning presumably value Palat the most. Truthfully, all four are probably overpaid for what they’re producing, which becomes a greater issue in a flat cap world. I see Palat as a likely survivor of the salary-cap purge to come. Johnson is 30, has four years left at $5 million and was waived earlier this year (and there were no takers). So, you’ll need both a sweetener to move his contract and permission from the players’ camp. Complicated, but not impossible.
In a perfect world, I would try to move not just one, but two of the remaining contract headaches (preferably Johnson and Killorn) to Detroit, and be prepared to surrender both a first-round pick and a quality young player to get the Red Wings to bite. Detroit would probably jump on that deal if that quality young player were Cernak, who is highly valued around the NHL. Tampa obviously wouldn’t want to pay that high a price. Sometimes, as an organization, you’re trapped and have to make hard choices. By solving all your financial problems in one fell swoop, you take your medicine, but you also create the necessary flexibility to operate with a little breathing room, as you pursue a Stanley Cup defence.
So, to Jeffrey M’s specific question, no, I can’t see them getting any players – or any value — in return for the players they’re off-loading. The problem for BriseBois is partly the times he’s living in. This offseason, every team was shopping for contractual bargains. The type of players BriseBoios has on offer were available on the free-agent market for a fraction of the cost. At some point, he’ll have to conjure up his own version of Marc Staal-to-the Red Wings for a second-round pick; only it’ll cost a lot more than that to extricate himself from this particular payroll jam.