Salary Cap Projections Update For Next Season Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MTk2MTg2OTU5NzkzMTA0MDE3/usatsi_19864402.jpg] Let’s get one thing clear right off the hop – the Tampa Bay Lightning have earned the benefit of the doubt on just about every front there is. You don’t become the standard-bearer of annual competitiveness the way the Lightning have because your GM lucked out on a few draft picks and trades. In this case, Bolts GM Julien BriseBois has shown he has a firm finger on the pulse of his team. He’s unafraid to come out by every trade deadline and make a deal or two that can help put the Lightning over the top. However, like every NHL team, Tampa Bay has had its roster slowly whittled away by the wear and tear of multiple deep playoff runs and the restricting effects of the salary cap. And BriseBois understands full well that the Lightning’s window to win is slowly but surely closing down. So, you can understand why the Bolts have moved relatively quickly ahead of the March 3 trade deadline, striking late Sunday night in a trade with Nashville that sent forward Tanner Jeannot to Tampa in exchange for a massive package of assets, including defenseman Cal Foote and five draft picks – a conditional first-round pick in 2025, a second-rounder in 2024, and a third, fourth, and fifth-round pick in this summer’s draft. If that sounds like a gigantic amount for a fringe player, that’s because it is: Jeannot has five goals and 14 points in 56 games this season. BriseBois even said [https://www.nhl.com/news/tanner-jeannot-traded-to-tampa-bay-lightning-by-nashville-predators/c-341564272] there’s an overpayment here. The Lightning now have dealt away their first, second, third, fourth and fifth-rounders this summer, and they no longer have their first-rounder in any of the next three drafts, according to CapFriendly [https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/lightning]. Considering the lack of draft capital, you see the beginnings of the end of Tampa Bay’s dominance. Sooner or later, trading away their future will catch up to the Lightning, and there will be trade deadlines down the road when they don’t have the prospects, cap space or draft picks to go out and make this kind of deal again. As a matter of fact, we could be looking at the 2023 post-season as the setting where things start to come unglued for the Bolts. Despite adding Jeannot, who will be situated on the third line to begin his stint in Tampa, the Lightning are now in a position where an injury to a key player cannot be padded over with a trade or two. The Lightning now have just $769,967 in cap space, and they’re not going to be able to add quality depth with that amount of money. That could be a problem for the Lightning, particularly if they suffer an injury to a player on defense. Star goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy can’t carry the Bolts’ entire defensive duties on his own, and veteran superstar Victor Hedman is now 32 years old, meaning his prime years are probably now behind him. You can make the case that BriseBois would have been better served by going out and trading for a defenseman. They’re 12th in the NHL in goals-against per game, which isn’t awful but is more significant once the non-playoff teams are removed from the conversation. However, the price would likely have been just as significant, and Tampa probably couldn’t outbid other teams for the services of an experienced D-man. This means if the Lightning have an Achilles heel, it’s on the back end. And there’s no cavalry on the horizon to help them out in that area. The defense corps they have now will almost assuredly be the one they have on March 4. That may be insufficient to get them out of the first round, let alone the semifinal or the Eastern Conference final. As we noted above, you bet against BriseBois at your own peril. He’s done about as well as any GM in the cap era. The fact the Lightning will lock up either the second or third spot in the Atlantic Division this year is a credit to his acumen. But he’s not a magician. He can’t rejuvenate his aging core with some magical elixir. At some point, Father Time is going to step in and put the hammer down on this collection of players. We don’t see Jeannot as a difference-maker this year, but we also didn’t see forward Nick Paul as the difference-maker he was for the Lightning last season. But we have a hunch that this is the year when it starts to go sideways for Tampa Bay. All it will take is an injury or two, and the Bolts’ comparative lack of depth will be glaring. That will be the issue that sinks the Lightning and causes Tampa to begin considering future challenges rather than focusing on the immediacy of the present. The Lightning may not be there this season – BriseBois may underscore his talents as a team builder yet again – but nobody should be surprised if Tampa suffers disappointment at some key moment and faces a future where acquisitions like Jeannot won’t be anywhere as notable as now. The clock is ticking on the Bolts, and time is eventually cruel to all of us. This could be the year big deadline moves don’t work out for them, and that’s just the circle of life in hockey’s ultimate league.
