It was only a matter of time before the Lightning made a move to get cap compliant for the upcoming season. That move has now been made as they shipped defenseman Braydon Coburn, center Cedric Paquette, and a 2022 second-round pick to Ottawa in exchange for Marian Gaborik and Anders Nilsson. Both teams have announced the move.
Recent contracts to Mikhail Sergachev, Erik Cernak, and Anthony Cirelli pushed Tampa Bay well above the $81.5MM cap ceiling, even with winger Nikita Kucherov being ruled out for the entire regular season due to a hip injury. While Gaborik and Nilsson carry combined cap hits of $7.475MM, both have been ruled out for the season and can be added to their LTIR pool which now stands at $16.975MM with Kucherov’s deal included. By clearing out Coburn ($1.7MM) and Paquette ($1.65MM), the Lightning sit $15.816MM over the salary cap. With that amount being lower than their LTIR pool, they’re now back in cap compliance.
Meanwhile, the Senators pick up a pair of veterans for two players they weren’t going to be able to use this season anyway while recouping a second-rounder to replace the one they parted with yesterday to acquire Derek Stepan from Arizona.
Coburn becomes the elder statesman of Ottawa’s back end. The 35-year-old played in 40 games for Tampa Bay last season, picking up a goal and three assists while averaging 14:03 per game. He had a limited role in their Stanley Cup run, suiting up just three times. The pending unrestricted free agent will likely have a depth role in Ottawa though he will serve as injury insurance.
As for Paquette, the 27-year-old has been an effective fourth-line energy player for the Lightning the last several years. In 2019-20, he had one of his better offensive seasons, notching seven goals and 11 assists in 61 games; his assist total was a new career-high. He will bring some more physicality to Ottawa’s lineup, an element they have brought in quite a bit of this offseason in winger Austin Watson plus blueliners Erik Gudbranson and Josh Brown. Paquette is also slated to be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.
Tampa Bay’s clear preference this offseason was to try to clear Tyler Johnson’s $5MM price tag as evidenced by the fact they put him on waivers back in October after they couldn’t find a taker for him in a trade. While that one fell through, this is a pretty good Plan B for Julien BriseBois who was able to get the team back to compliance without having to trade a core player away due to Kucherov’s injury. There will still be work to be done as with $85MM in commitments for 2021-22 already, they’re already over the expected cap for 2021-22 which should be at or very close to the current $81.5MM Upper Limit. But that’s a problem for another day; for now, they’re good to go.
Ottawa making moves. Essentially got stepan, Coburn and Paquette for the price of their contracts. Not bad depth moves all put together Ottawa could easily be better then Winnipeg, Edmonton and Montreal. But don’t see them standing a chance of being better then the leafs, van or flames
It’ll really all come down to how much their top prospects perform. The talent level of their established players isn’t that great, but if Stutzle, Batherson, and L. Brown can be top players they might be a team to watch. The defense still looks pretty scary though. It wouldn’t make them a playoff team or anything but I think Vatanen or Hamonic on the right side would be a massive upgrade over the current options.
Uhhhh, Edmonton was better than Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto last season. And none of them got significantly better or worse this offseason.
Ottawa’s season will depend on Matt Murray.
If he’s 2017 good, they could sneak into an 8th seed or so. If he’s more like the past two years, they’ll be a lottery team again.
The sens are just picking up garbage they will still be in the basement with the Canucks and jets! The top 4 in whatever position pretty much already decided
Edmonton lost their best D has a goalie tandem that is the worst in the division by a far and has had depth issues up front. Ottawa is coming into this season with a solid group of veterans and young prospects that should be ready to take a step forward but has 0 pressure to perform. Edmonton is close to getting blown up if they can get it together this season.
uhhh did you not see calagry address their goaltending? Also signing Tanev and having Valamki come up gives them an insane top 6 group with Anderson and Gio and Hanifin. With that D grouping Markstrom is going to be in beast mode this year. All Calagry needs to be best team in the North is for Johnny and Monny to show up hungry
Listen anyone who is a cap dump is not a solid veteran bottom 6 at best, and coburn should have retired already! Tanev is just ok and not an upgrade on Brodie who I think we over paid, I don’t see markstrom having a year like last year Calgary will be battling it out for the 4th playoff spot. The Habs defense is by far the best it’s really not close
You can look at as if they got them for nothing!
Or the better way is they got nothing for taking them off the hands of teams needing to shed salary!!!
Like last year when they took the bad contract from TB and only got a 5 th round pick to do it.
Ottawa is the only team that doesn’t need a sweetener to help out the teams over the CAP.
How are they sneaking into an 8th seed when they are in a 7 team division that 4 make the playoffs?
You aren’t suggesting that they will be 4th in the Canadian division are you?
And, they will be nowhere close to 8th in east if this was a normal year.
It’s all about the second round pick. Check out @innefectivemath, Micah lays it out clearly. (Not my take, but I stand by the take)
Look back at the stats. Talbot had a better GAA and Sv% than Markstrom last year, fact.
Flames lost Brodie and Hamonic. Replaced with Tanev. Gio showed last year he has lost a step and is now another year older.
Edmonton lost Klefbom again, replaced him with Barrie. Lost Sheahan replaced with Turris. Added Kahun and Ennis to depth chart and have 2 of the best 3 players to begin with.
Jenny hockey and Moneyhands haven’t shown up in almost 2 years. Why should they suddenly have grown a heart?
Edmonton is just about done cleaning up the mistakes of Chia to finally give Holland a clean slate. They are nowhere close to blowing it up.
Ottawa has ghosts in de ‘ead
Ottawa is just preying on the rest of the league with their cap space. I love it.
Seems the NHL has “evolved” in it’s stance towards obvious cap circumvention in recent years.
Are they really trying to make the playoffs or just trade guys at the TD. They are better I give them that.