State of the Lightning ahead of the trade deadline: GM Julien BriseBois looking to improve despite cap constraints

Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois opened his annual midseason address Friday by delivering a 10-minute analysis of where the Cup champs stand.

There is obviously a lot to like. His team is leading the league in points percentage, ranks in the top three in goals for and against, and is in the top five in both special teams units. The underlying numbers the Lightning track, from how they manage the game physically to scoring chances allowed, have been consistent.

BriseBois used words like mature, talented and resilient to describe the group.

“I see no signs of complacency for winning a championship,” BriseBois said. “I see steely resolve. I see humble confidence. And hunger for more.”

That sounds good, but it also sounds like there’s not much outside help expected to come for their run at a repeat.

BriseBois, who has transformed the Lightning with his bold February trades, said it’s “realistically unlikely” they’ll add a player by this season’s April 12 trade deadline. It’s not necessarily because they don’t want to, nor does it mean they won’t try.

“We have literally zero cap space,” he said.

BriseBois entered the season believing his biggest deadline addition would be Hart Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov, who is “right on track” in his recovery from December hip surgery and should be ready for the playoffs. No team in the NHL will add as significant a player in the next month. But the only reason Tampa Bay has been cap compliant for the season was that Kucherov was put on long-term injured reserve, meaning that it could exceed the cap by an amount equal to his contract’s $9.5 million annual average value.

That’s where the small and big picture intersect. The salary-cap hell the Lightning were in last season is expected to be an annual challenge, with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman saying the cap will likely remain flat at $81.5 million the next three to four seasons. Next season’s Tampa Bay team will look much different than this one, with pending UFAs like Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman probably pricing themselves out of town. And they won’t be the only ones.

The Lightning will lose another player to Seattle in the expansion draft, and even beyond that, they may have to move another core player or two. They’re already $3.5 million over next season’s cap, with just 15 players signed, according to CapFriendly.

“It’s a challenge for tomorrow,” BriseBois said.

A general manager always has to balance the present and future, and those guiding championship teams are in an especially tricky spot. The Lightning’s window is far from closing, with a nucleus that includes Kucherov (27), Brayden Point (24), Victor Hedman (30), Andrei Vasilevskiy (26), plus the next wave of their core in Mikhail Sergachev (22), Anthony Cirelli (23) and Erik Cernak (23).

But in a cap world, the Lightning are unlikely to have as talented a team as they’ve had this season and last. That’s why BriseBois dealt two first-round picks and top prospect Nolan Foote to the Devils to land Coleman and Goodrow last season, knowing he’d have two playoff runs with both. It’s why he’ll likely do everything in his power to add another piece if he can make the money work.

“We have a mature group. We have a group that’s chasing a championship,” BriseBois said. “Every decision that we have made up to this point and every decision we will make in coming weeks is geared toward providing us the best odds possible to go on another magical run in the postseason.”

BriseBois said this season has been especially challenging for many reasons, from the COVID-19 protocols and shortened camp to the divisional schedule format. It’s hard to know how you match up against top teams in different divisions if you don’t play against them.

But the bigger hurdle is that even if the Lightning want to add, every trade has to be dollar in, dollar out. And if they want to continue to deal futures, they already have no second-round picks in the next two drafts. Some of their top trade chips are prospects, whether it’s Mathieu Joseph or Alex Volkov, both of whom have been on the roster all season. Then there’s Alex Barre-Boulet and Ross Colton, who made their debuts this season. “Their time to become regulars on our team is probably coming in the not too distant future,” BriseBois said.

If the Lightning are able to find a trade fit that matches cap hits, they’ll likely be dealing some of the young and cheaper players that they’d need to fill their lineup after cap-cutting moves.

“The salary cap is designed for parity,” said Oilers general manager Kenny Holland, who won four Cups with the Red Wings. “You can be a good team when you’ve got the nucleus like Tampa Bay has got. You can be an elite team for a long time. But the salary cap takes away all your depth.

“You can still have the core of your team, but you can’t be as deep as you once were. You’re more susceptible if you have injuries.”

The biggest injury the Lightning have dealt with is Kucherov, who started skating this past week and is itching to get back. So far, it appears he’s in line to be back for the playoffs in mid-May.

“He’s following the schedule very methodically and following the protocol and working hard with our therapist to get his range of motion back and his strength back,” BriseBois said. “Now he’s skating, so it’s getting those muscles to start firing up again, and it is a process. It’s a long rehab. … As of now, everything indicates that he is right on track and he will make a full recovery.”

There could be more concern about keeping the defense healthy. Cernak has suffered multiple injuries this season, from taking a shot off the top of his foot to taking a hit to the head this past week against the Red Wings. Both have been short-term, but if there’s a long-term injury, it’d really challenge Tampa Bay, which is thin on the right side.

BriseBois said he’s been encouraged by the development of rookie Cal Foote, who is averaging 11:01 of ice time per game. He said Foote put a lot of time during the pause into getting stronger and that it has shown in his game. Left-shot Andreas Borgman, who played 48 games with the Leafs in the 2017-18 season, made his Lightning debut this week in Detroit. Luke Schenn has been a solid depth defenseman but mostly a healthy scratch lately.

If there’s an area Tampa Bay can improve at the deadline, you would think it would be the blue line, with a David Savard-type pending UFA. The Lightning used nine defensemen in the playoff run last season, and they lost some experience with Kevin Shattenkirk and Zach Bogosian leaving in free agency.

“I’m comfortable with what we have now,” BriseBois said. “Borgman played the other game and looked fine, considering how little he played in the last year. He can skate and move the puck. He was poised and didn’t look overwhelmed when playing against a very good Chicago team. That gives us eight right now around the team that we feel we can throw out into a game.”

BriseBois said areas the team can improve are giving up fewer rush chances and taking fewer penalties, both of which have put increased pressure on their goaltenders. Vasilevskiy, the former Vezina Trophy winner, is playing at an MVP level — among the league leaders in goals saved above expected. He’s also started 20 of the team’s 26 games this season, a kind of workload that’ll be tough to replicate during this stretch of condensed games coming up.

Backup Curtis McElhinney is 2-2 with a 3.20 goals-against average and an .894 save percentage in five starts. Those aren’t ideal numbers, though they are a bit inflated due to the play in front of him in two of his losses, against the Red Wings on Thursday and against Florida on Feb. 15, when he gave up a combined 11 goals. McElhinney could get more starts in the next couple of months, knowing Vasilevskiy — who started every playoff game in the Cup run last season — will likely carry a large load this summer.

The Lightning’s deadline moves this season could very well be limited to getting Kucherov back, and BriseBois reiterated that last season’s acquisitions, Coleman and Goodrow, were brought in partly because they’d be under contract this season, too. BriseBois said Coleman and Goodrow are “the type of players who help you win championships” and the team would like to bring them back next season, as well, though, with the cap constraints, those types of negotiations will be put off until the summer.

“It’s a significant challenge, in terms of being able to keep all our good players together,” BriseBois said. “That was going to be a challenge even under the best of circumstances, when we expected the cap to be at $84 million. We’re at $81.5 million, and it’ll remain for the foreseeable future. It’s a challenge for tomorrow. Now we’re focused on what kind of decisions we can make to increase the odds of today’s team having a magical run.”

Again, BriseBois said it’s “unlikely” they’ll add a player by the deadline — he didn’t say it was impossible. He added “your guess is as good as mine” when it comes to how the next month will go around the league. There will be many teams in the Lightning’s situation of having no cap space, with every addition needing a subtraction to work. With each divisional game offering a four-point swing, it’ll be hard to know which bubble teams will be sellers.

“It’ll be interesting to find out,” BriseBois said.

This could be either a fascinating or boring few weeks for the Lightning. They’ve got a championship-caliber team, one that has won together, that is deep and determined. But I’ll always remember when BriseBois said in the offseason that he didn’t know if he would have lived it down if he hadn’t given his group the absolute best shot to win the Cup with his deadline moves.

It’s something every championship GM goes through, with Holland and Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman describing the eventual “reckoning” that comes for every club due to the cap. “Eventually, the cap wins,” Holland said. “It’s undefeated.”

But both Bowman and Holland said it’s a lot easier to rebuild after putting multiple Cup banners up in the rafters, something the Lightning are trying to do.

“That’s why you give up futures when you’ve got a chance to win — because it’s so hard to win,” Holland said. “It’s incredible for your fans, for your players, for your organization, for your business. When you’ve got a chance, you’ve got to pay the price.”

I think BriseBois would pay the price — if he could make the numbers work.

(Photo: Andy Devlin / Getty Images)