As we vacillate between the Tampa Bay Lightning being buyers or sellers for the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline, a rare opportunity has arisen for general manager Julien BriseBois. At no point in his tenure, has Mr. BriseBois had the chance to be a salary broker for other teams trying to consummate high-salary deals. With some salary cap room created by Mikhail Sergachev being on LTIR, he might be able to exchange some of that space for draft picks if he isn’t going to use it all for a high-priced rental.
At this point, the Lightning are most likely cautious buyers. A lot of reports have linked them to defenseman Noah Hanifin, a pending unrestricted free agent who is allegedly interested in signing long term in Tampa. His history hasn’t been to target rentals, but the gap between the Lightning and the elite of the league hasn’t been this great in a long time. Mr. BriseBois might feel the need to swing for the fences this spring.
Cap Friendly has them at $7,383,333 in cap space when factoring in their LTIR cushion. More importantly, they have two of their three retention spots available (one is being used for some retained salary on Pat Maroon). They could theoretically be buyers and salary brokers at the same time with that much space. In doing so, they could help replenish their rather bare cabinet of draft picks.
Brokering salaries has become more common over the last few years as teams had to deal with a flat cap, and the Lightning have used other teams to help them out. Most notably was in 2021 when they brought the Detroit Red Wings into the deal with the Columbus for David Savard. In exchange for laundering a portion of Savard’s contract, the Red Wings picked up a fourth-round pick.
Last year the Minnesota Wild picked up a fourth-round pick as well for helping the St. Louis Blues and Toronto Maple Leafs facilitate the Ryan O’Reilly/Noel Acciari trade. The Canadiens played the role of broker in a San Jose/Pittsburgh trade and netted a fifth-round pick for their troubles. Arizona was able to pick up a third-round pick for their salary cap assistance in the Patrick Kane trade.
Since teams can only retain 50% of a players cap hit in a trade, being able to jump in and take another portion of the contract is tremendously helpful in a tight salary cap era and well worth a mid-round pick. Picking up another fourth or fifth-round pick could give Mr. BriseBois ammunition for another trade at the deadline, or later in the summer at the draft.
It’s unlikely that the Bolts will get involved in any deals that will help their direct competitors like the Bruins, Panthers, or Maple Leafs, but helping out a Western Conference team like Colorado or Vancouver would be worth the risk of helping them only to meet up in the Stanley Cup Final.
As the March 8th deadline looms closer, expect teams to start making moves. The Lightning have shown a willingness to use every trick in the book to make their team better in the past so weaponizing their unexpected cap space and retention slots would be right up their alley.
