While the Lightning are the most successful franchise of the last 10 years, back-to-back first-round losses have them at risk of slipping into mediocrity. That’s exacerbated by a salary cap crunch this summer that, if not handled with care, could result in the loss of captain Steven Stamkos to free agency.
General manager Julien BriseBois has no intention of letting his team slip out of contention anytime soon. He’s already made one move to fill out his roster this summer, re-acquiring Stanley Cup champion defenseman Ryan McDonagh from the Predators shortly after both teams were eliminated from the playoffs.
Aside from Stamkos and future Hall-of-Famer Victor Hedman, the Bolts have much of their core signed long-term. Erik Černák, Anthony Cirelli, Brandon Hagel, Brayden Point and Mikhail Sergachev are all signed through at least 2030 with cap hits north of $5MM. Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy have matching $9.5MM cap hits through 2027 and 2028, respectively. While it could likely change as the salary cap rises, none of them are significant bargains for what they’ve contributed the past couple of seasons, aside from Kucherov and Point.
The salary cap jumping to $88MM next season does offer BriseBois some much-needed flexibility, but they do still have just $5.335MM in projected space with at least three roster spots to fill if they want to have any sort of in-season wiggle room. Even with a significant discount, that’s likely not enough to sign anyone other than Stamkos, posing an obvious issue.
Tampa doesn’t have a recent history of buyouts, but it could be a decent last-ditch way to shed ill-advised cap hit allocation. In a piece for The Athletic on Monday, Harman Dayal and Thomas Drance name Lightning winger Conor Sheary a player to watch as the first window to buy out players, which opens 48 hours after the Stanley Cup Final ends, approaches.
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Often a strong secondary scoring threat throughout a 500-plus game career with the Capitals, Penguins and Sabres, Sheary became a UFA last summer. BriseBois pounced, hoping to add a cost-effective top-nine scoring option while inking him to a three-year, $6MM deal ($2MM AAV) with trade protection. The 32-year-old flamed out in Tampa, though, limited to just four goals and 15 points in 57 games on the year after scoring double-digit goals for the last seven years. He was a frequent healthy scratch near the end of the regular season and didn’t play at all in their first-round loss to the Panthers.
Sheary’s role was limited under head coach Jon Cooper. His 11:06 average time on ice was the lowest since his rookie season. There’s likely some bounceback potential there, as indicated by his career-low 8.0% shooting rate, but the risk of him declining further isn’t one the cap-strapped Lightning can afford to take.
Trading him and removing the final two years of his contract would be ideal, but a 16-team trade list complicates things. A buyout would at least reduce his cap hit from $2MM to $583K next season, opening up an additional $1.417MM in space, per CapFriendly. That’s easily enough to add a cost-effective depth option on the UFA market and opens up additional flexibility for a Stamkos extension.
The rest of the buyout isn’t awful, either. It would carry a $1.083MM hit in 2025-26, still saving the Bolts over $900K in the final season of his deal, before a sub-league minimum penalty of $583K in 2026-27 and 2027-28.
Whether they trade or buyout Conor Sheary, either way he’s highly likely not going to be with TBL in the end as his cap space will help TBL’s cap flexibility for re-signing Steven Stamkos & also allowing TBL to add a few potential low cost depth pieces.
Also, saying the long-term deals of Vasilevskiy, Hagel, Sergachev, Cirelli, & Cernak are not worth their current value is pretty misguided if not out-and-out wrong assessment for the author of this article to claim.
That’s not at all what’s stated in the article. What is stated is that none of them are “significant bargains.” Nowhere does the article state that the players aren’t fully worth their cap hits.
With the cap rising GM Julien BriseBois on TBL’s podcast that the deals with Hagel, Sergachev, & Cirelli will be looked upon as steals in 2 years or so. Paul is already outperforming his contract especially this past season. Vasilevskiy is a bargain actually as he could have set the goalie market but took less. It’s no different than Point & Kucherov could have taken much more but took less.
The only one that’s overpaid on the article’s list of names is Cernak & pending on Cernak upcoming season (he needs a bounce back season) that will dictate his future with TBL.
The slow decline has already started.
Not really…as the decline doesn’t have anything to do with the actual players (the core group hasn’t declined) as the decline has to do with the flat cap that’s effected the overall roster but now the cap is going to be rising moving forward which in turn will increase the chances of building the supporting cast.