Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
The Lightning are right up against the cap.
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Yeah...no I get that, but half of the league has less than $2 million in cap space. IMO, you make room for someone like Stamkos and move some lesser pieces to do so.
Right off the bat, you have Ben Bishop making 5.95 million and two capable goalies waiting to move up the depth chart in the organization (Vasilevsky, Gudlevskis). They're still paying 1.6 million of Gagner's salary (retained) that comes off the books next year. That's about 6.6 million you could save next year alone assuming you give Gudlevskis a modest raise to about 900K.
Ohlund's contract finally comes off the books, but he was LTIR, so it only affected their ability to make moves in the off-season. Braydon Coburn's 4.5 million comes off the books this year, and I doubt they'll look to re-sign him.
Their issues stem from having a glut of RFAs that are all performing well. Namestnikov, Kucherov, Killorn, Brown, Paquette, all due for a raise...some more significant than others. Are any of those names more desirable than Stamkos though? No, not IMO.
So I guess it comes down to whether you want to try to win without a superstar, but several lesser star players, or do you try to keep your big name assets and fill in the gaps like the Blackhawks have done? I think the Hawks method makes much more sense to me since you can always keep drafting and developing the lesser star players, but those big name stars only come around after having horrendous seasons.