Tampa Bay Lightning: BriseBois sticks to agenda at NHL Trade deadline

Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois has stuck to an apparent agenda this season after his team had a short playoff run last year. Here’s how he did so.

Following his team’s inexcusably short playoff exit, Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois made the moves he felt necessary in order to bring back familiar faces and bring new faces aboard.

One thing in common with a majority of the additions he made to the roster was that each guy played a physically inclined game. Patrick Maroon, Luke Schenn, and Luke Witkowski were those physical guys, even though only one of them has been a consistent mainstay on the NHL roster. He also added some skill to the roster with the cheap signing of Kevin Shattenkirk to go along with the inclusion of Carter Verhaeghe and, eventually, Mitchell Stephens.

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BriseBois made it very clear that the team he threw out onto the ice for a full 82-game season plus playoffs would not stand to get pushed around and bullied by anyone. After all, that’s what arguably got them swept by the Blue Jackets.

BriseBois didn’t stand pat and let his team get steamrolled again. He went out and addressed a big need, while also maintaining their main core of Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, and Andrei Vasilevskiy.

It took quite a while for the team to gel, as evidenced by their slow start. But once they got on a roll, they haven’t looked back. So it came as no surprise that some fans didn’t want the team to make any more moves to risk messing with the newly-established team chemistry. BriseBois didn’t sit and watch rival teams like the Bruins make moves at the deadline, especially since that tactic didn’t work well at all the season prior.

His first move as we approached the deadline was reeling in Blake Coleman from the New Jersey Devils. Initially, this wasn’t a great move in my eyes. However, as I looked further into it, Coleman is the player that can very easily replace Alex Killorn when he is very likely to be the odd-man-out this off-season, as he is one of the few players on Tampa with an “expensive” contract that doesn’t have a full No-Trade Clause (NTC).

In the long run, the Lightning save $2.65 million to use on their upcoming free agents. Ultimately, BriseBois acquired cap space and an effective roster player in exchange for a prospect who is a few years away from being NHL-ready and a 2020 conditional first, which is usually hit-or-miss, especially the later the pick is in that first round.

Coleman fits the agenda that BriseBois had initially established, as he has racked up 200+ hits over the last two years and being well on his way this season to that mark, while also having a career-year from a production stand-point, recording his second 20+ goal season at the age of 28.

He also addresses another need – the penalty-killing unit. The Lightning have recently been struggling when short-handed, and the addition of Coleman helps bolster that. We have yet to see his impact in that area to this point, but he’s just two games into his Lightning tenure, and it’s impossible to establish a connection with any linemates in that short of a time.

Then the injury bug happened. Ryan McDonagh and Jan Rutta were both playing crucial minutes for the Lightning before they went down, and have been out for an extended period of time. The Lightning were already short-stocked with right-handed defensemen, deploying new acquisitions Schenn and Shattenkirk along with Erik Cernak and Jan Rutta on that side.

Losing Rutta, who had been playing extremely well alongside Hedman for some time was a big loss, and it forced Cooper to shuffle up the lines. The back-breaker was the injury to Cernak, though it was just a minor injury. But to their fortune, a right-handed defenseman was made available at the same time.

Zach Bogosian was sent through waivers by the Buffalo Sabres, then refused to report to their AHL squad. Due to his refusal to play in the AHL, Bogosian’s contract was terminated, and he became a free agent. He fit the agenda that BriseBois has established because he plays a heavy game and he has great size (6’3, 221 pounds).

Just last year, Bogosian was a minute-muncher, playing over 21 minutes per game. He has had a falling-out with Buffalo this season, but it’s less a fact of the player being terrible than it is Buffalo mishandling their assets.

He’s a low-risk, high-reward acquisition, and BriseBois pulled the trigger. He’s only signed until the end of this season, making him purely a rental. Not to mention, though it may be looked at as a bit much, he’s signed for only $1.3 million in this deal. He fills a need with his style of play and with the injuries that the Lightning needed to navigate through.

Finally, BriseBois put an exclamation point on his search for a tougher team by going out and scooping up Barclay Goodrow from the San Jose Sharks. They gave up a first-round pick in 2020, along with a career-AHL player in Anthony Greco to get him, along with a 2020 third-round pick. Essentially, the Lightning move back roughly 45 draft spots to get Goodrow.

Granted, Goodrow isn’t necessarily a great player, as he was used primarily as a bottom-6 forward in San Jose until this season, where he has established himself as more of a middle-6 guy. He, again, fits the agenda for BriseBois, as he has racked up over 100 hits last season and already this season, with the potential to surpass 200 hits.

He’s also been clutch in the playoffs for the Sharks in the past, scoring the overtime winning goal in that infamous game 7 against the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2019 playoffs. Not to mention, his contract also extends into next season, and his cap hit is below $1 million.

Goodrow essentially opens up the door to move Paquette without needing to find a replacement in the off-season, which saves them around $700,000 on top of the money they could potentially save thanks to the Coleman move.

To sum it all up, Julien BriseBois stuck by the script he angrily scribbled down after his team got ripped out of the 2019 post-season when he brought in these three new faces. Sure, he paid handsomely in the form of two 2020 first-round picks and top-prospect Nolan Foote, as well as being forced to send Mitchell Stephens down to Syracuse.

But he brought in three faces that could greatly impact how the Lightning perform in the 2020 NHL playoffs, while potentially saving roughly $3 million moving forward in order to re-sign key free agents to widen their Stanley Cup window.

‘Besides, the Lightning have a history of struggling to find impact prospects in the first round since 2010, with Vasilevskiy being the only first-round pick still standing with this team, with Cal Foote waiting patiently for his chance to join him. Point and Kucherov were taken in the second and third round, respectively, and the Lightning still have their second-rounder this year, plus two third-rounders.

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If the Lightning doesn’t win the Cup this year or next, then all these seemingly genius transactions on BriseBois’s behalf would be all for not. But it is no longer in his hands this year. It comes down to his stars and these three deadline additions to make BriseBois vision become a reality.

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