BRANDON, Fla. — Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois has been forced to make some difficult decisions over the past two weeks.
After the team’s first-round playoff exit, he said this might be his toughest salary-cap crunch yet. He wanted to keep the group together but knew he’d face vast obstacles. As he does every offseason, he promised he’d do all he could to identify where the Lightning needed to improve and address it.
BriseBois knew forward Alex Killorn wanted to end his career in a Lightning uniform, but he could offer only so much in trying to retain the unrestricted free agent. With just $7.325 million in cap space, BriseBois had to shop for bargains and then cut loose players who no longer fit. During draft week, he traded forwards Ross Colton and Corey Perry, recouping some of the draft capital that had been depleted through deadline deals.
On the first day of free agency on July 1, BriseBois rebuilt the Lightning’s bottom six and watched Killorn head west to accept a four-year deal with Anaheim. The next day, he traded forward Pat Maroon to Minnesota with one year left on his deal to clear cap space and recoup a draft pick.
“The guys that really want to stay here, it’s a lot harder for them to hear that they may not have an opportunity moving forward than it is for me to deliver the news,” BriseBois told the Tampa Bay Times on Wednesday. “So, I try to be sensitive to that.
“But sometimes, too, I also know it’s in their best interest, whether they realize it in the moment or not. I know they’re either going directly to a better option for themselves or the fact that I’m not bringing them back will probably allow them to get a better offer somewhere else.”
Everybody knows: It’s a business.
What has been accomplished?
BriseBois leaves no data point unexamined, and in looking at this year’s team, he wanted to get better defensively while adding speed. He also knew he’d have very little cap space to fill a lot of holes, particularly at forward. As BriseBois has said many times, the Lightning have a winning core still in its prime — Andrei Vasilevskiy, Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergachev and Brandon Hagel. Assembling that core is the hard part. Building around it, he can do.
“So, how do we go about icing the best team possible going forward?” BriseBois said. “Offense is very expensive. Guys that put up points get paid, but players that are really good defensively and help you win hockey games, sometimes they’re somewhat undervalued by the market. So, we kind of focused on those guys improving the defensive ability of our bottom six. And that was the philosophy behind how we attacked the offseason.”
In signing Conor Sheary, Luke Glendening and Josh Archibald, BriseBois said the Lightning addressed those needs in the bottom six at a combined cost of just $3.6 million in cap space.
“All those guys can defend and can be entrusted by our coaches to go out on the ice at any point against anyone and play significant minutes for us,” BriseBois said, “and they all came in relatively small cap hits.”
Those signings put Maroon on track for less playing time moving forward, and trading him allowed the Lightning to get more cap space ($800,000 of his $1 million salary) as well as a draft pick. Maroon’s modified no-trade clause allowed him to maneuver himself to a winning team (the Wild) where he can both play and chase another Stanley Cup.
“It ends up being a win-win on both sides,” BriseBois said. “I look at our bottom six now and how we set it up. All those guys can defend. They’re really good forecheckers, but they’re good defensive players. They can take D-zone faceoffs, which then opens up the possibility for some of our higher-end players to not have to assume those defensive responsibilities and start more shifts in the offensive zone.”
What’s still left to do?
The first item of business will be signing forward Tanner Jeannot to a new contract. Jeannot, a restricted free agent, filed for arbitration this week and will have a hearing sometime between July 20-Aug. 4. The sides can negotiate up until the hearing, and BriseBois remains confident a deal will get done before then. The Lightning haven’t gone to arbitration with a player since 2007. They came close with Colton two years ago but worked out a two-year deal two days before his hearing.
The Lightning have just under $3 million in remaining cap space, according to CapFriendly, which will leave plenty for a raise for Jeannot, who is coming off a two-year deal worth an average annual value of $800,000. Expect the Lightning to try to sign Jeannot to a two- or three-year contract to prevent him from reaching unrestricted free agency next summer, when he will turn 27.
After rounding out their roster by signing veteran defenseman Calvin de Haan, coming to two-way deals with forwards Logan Brown and Mitchell Chaffee, and retaining Cole Koepke on a two-way contract, it appears the roster is set for next season. There will be another buyout window for players that reach arbitration, and BriseBois will monitor that for opportunities. But he said it’s unlikely the Lightning will be able to sign another player who would make more than $1 million.
“I don’t have anything imminent, but we’re always on the lookout,” BriseBois said. “If something comes up that makes sense either via trade or free agent, there is a second buyout window. We will see if something comes of that. But we might also go with the guys we have right now, and we’re fine. If we do that, we still have all those great players.”
The next challenge will be pursuing extensions for Stamkos, who could become an unrestricted free agent after next season; and Hagel, who could become a restricted free agent. Though the salary cap is expected to make a 5% jump (or $4 million) to $87.5 million, the fact that it’s only gone up $2 million the past five seasons hinders teams from getting extensions done early.
“I think the cap being as tight as it is for the foreseeable future, even though we’re expecting a 5 percent increase next year, it just makes it harder to commit that cap space sooner,” BriseBois said. “You want to get all your information, have as much information as possible before you actually make those decisions. Because, again, we’re not able to bring everyone back necessarily. Other decisions are going to have to be made, and we want to make sure that they’re the best decisions possible.”
