TAMPA — For nearly two months, the rest of the NHL had a close-up look at what a championship team looks like, including Seattle Kraken general manager Ron Francis, who watched at least one Lightning playoff game with a bird’s-eye view from the Amalie Arena press box.
Now Francis will be able to pick from the Lightning’s treasure trove of depth pieces in building his own team from scratch in Thursday’s expansion draft. In a lot of ways, it’s a no-lose situation.
Building an expansion team is much like a puzzle, putting the right pieces in the right positions to form a competitive roster. But the expansion format is built to allow first-year clubs to be competitive right away, as the Vegas Golden Knights were in their rookie season (2017-18) when they advanced to the Stanley Cup final.
Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois has been in regular contact with the Kraken, discussing trade scenarios that would allow him to determine who on his roster goes to Seattle, but any deal would involve a sweetener that Tampa Bay is running low on after dealing top draft picks to build back-to-back Cup champions.
The Lightning submit their protection list today and it’s released by the league Sunday. Teams can go two ways in deciding their protection lists with either a combination of seven forwards, three defensemen and a goaltender, or eight skaters regardless of position and a goaltender.
“There isn’t one (factor) that’s overriding,” BriseBois said about choosing which players to protect. “Ultimately, we’re trying to try to keep the strongest group possible so that we can hopefully get on another ride and bring the Cup back again next year.”
Ultimately, the Lightning’s biggest decision is expected to be whether they protect veteran defenseman Ryan McDonagh, whose stock skyrocketed during a postseason in which he arguably was the league’s top defenseman.
If the Lightning go that route, they likely will protect four defensemen: Victor Hedman, Mikhail Sergachev, Erik Cernak and McDonagh. That would leave just four forwards to protect. Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos have no-move clauses so they are automatics. The other two forward spots presumably would go to Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli.
That scenario would leave several key pieces to the Lightning’s run vulnerable, including veteran forwards Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat, Yanni Gourde and Tyler Johnson — all of whom make between $4.45 and $5.3 million.
Even if one of those players doesn’t get selected, the Lightning might be forced to move one — maybe two — to get under the salary cap.
The best teams are built from the back out. You need a good goaltender, but after that, building a stout defenseman corps is paramount to winning, especially in the postseason, which is what we saw from the Lightning during the past two playoff runs.
If the Lightning opt to leave McDonagh unprotected, would the Kraken take him? McDonagh just turned 32 last month, and he’s owed $6.75 million a year for the next five seasons. That’s a huge financial commitment for a new team to take on. But there might not be a player available with a better combination of playoff experience, leadership and toughness to build a D-corps around than McDonagh.
“I would assume that would be the guy that Seattle would take,” Lightning TV broadcast analyst Brian Engblom said. “I certainly would. What a player, what a person he is, that would be the cornerstone of your D all around. He’s top level. So if you decide to go that route, I think you’re pretty much guaranteed to lose him.”
Aside from all those possibilities, the Kraken could choose one of the Lightning’s younger — and cheaper — contributors, like forwards Ross Colton and Mathieu Joseph or defenseman Cal Foote, all of whom are in line for more significant roles next season because of the inevitable cap turnover.
When Vegas entered the league four years ago, the Lightning — also handcuffed by cap issues — dealt veteran defenseman Travis Garrison and his $4.6 salary to the Golden Knights. They also shipped Russian prospect Nikita Gusev and swapped a second-round pick in that year’s draft for a fourth-rounder the following year.
That trade allowed the Lightning to keep a pair of young defensemen — Jake Dotchin and Slater Koekkoek — neither of whom are still with the team. Koekkoek was traded to Chicago in 2019 in a deal that netted current Lightning defenseman Jan Rutta.
That offseason, the Lightning needed cap space to re-sign Palat, Johnson and Gourde, and previously made the deal to acquire Sergachev from Montreal for Jonathan Drouin.
The expansion draft could be just the beginning of a trade-heavy offseason. Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow and David Savard all become free agents, and in the cases of Coleman and Goodrow, both are looking at significant raises that might price out a return to the team. With the amateur draft and free agency opening in the coming days, the Lightning will be busy with the No. 1 priority of clearing cap space.
“I would expect that once we’ve passed the expansion draft, I think there will be a certain number of trades coming up,” BriseBois said of potential movement around the league. “We’ve got our reasons why we need to make trades that are mostly cap related, but other teams are out there trying to win the Stanley Cup as well. They’re trying to improve their team. They’re looking for players and maybe they have cap issues of their own, so there’s a lot of chatter going on, as there usually is at this time of the year.”
• • •
The Tampa Bay Times will commemorate the Lightning’s second consecutive Stanley Cup title with a new hardcover coffee table book, Striking Twice. Pre-order now.
Sign up for Lightning Strikes, a weekly newsletter from Bolts beat writer Eduardo A. Encina that brings you closer to the ice.
Never miss out on the latest with the Bucs, Rays, Lightning, Florida college sports and more. Follow our Tampa Bay Times sports team on Twitter and Facebook.