Grading The Contract
It is no secret that the Tampa Bay Lightning are in salary cap hell, not helped by the flat cap of $81.5 million, and they will have to sacrifice some pieces further down the road.
However, despite boasting a loaded blueline that features the likes of Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh, there was no way that General Manager Julien BriseBois was going to let Mikhail Sergachev become a cap casualty.
He’s simply far too valuable to this franchise and he has the skills, the intangibles and the potential to morph into one of the best defensemen in the entire National Hockey League eventually.
He’s that good.
Therefore, the Tampa Bay front office were always going to do everything within their power to re-sign Sergachev, and the end result is a pretty good outcome for all parties.
Signing Sergachev to a three-year, $14.4 million contract, a deal that is backloaded with $7.2 million due in the final year of the deal in 2022-23, is essentially a bridge deal.
By making it a three-year contract, Sergachev will again be an RFA once this contract expires at the end of the 2022-23 season, while the structure of this deal gives Tampa a lower cap hit.
That is essential because, according to CapFriendly, the Lightning are now over the flat cap of $81.5 million by $1.9 million with a roster of 19 (12 F, 5 D, 2 G), although teams are allowed to go over the cap by 10 percent during the offseason.
However, they still have two pending projected roster RFA’s to deal with in forward Anthony Cirelli and defenseman Erik Cernak, while they have three pending RFA’s that aren’t projected to be on the roster in forwards Mathieu Joseph and Alexander Volkov and defenseman Dominik Masin.
So, the front office still have a boatload of work ahead of them and they will need to crunch some serious numbers in order to resolve the futures of their five pending RFA’s, while ensuring that they are cap compliant by the opening day of Training Camp.
It will be far from easy and there will be some tough decisions, including trying to continue to offload the albatross of a contract that belongs to forward Tyler Johnson, who has four years remaining with a cap hit of $5 million.
Not great.
Despite being $1.9M over the ceiling in projected cap space, the #Lightning do still have $5M in off-season cap space at the moment to work with.
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) November 25, 2020
However, they will need to be cap complaint by 5:00pm ET on the last day of training camp. https://t.co/SPsZNodbOz pic.twitter.com/jq0yojaERn
However, no matter how difficult the road ahead may be, one of the main priorities for the Tampa Bay Lightning this offseason was to keep as much of their Stanley Cup winning core intact as possible, and Mikhail Sergachev was a huge piece of that puzzle.
As already mentioned, he’s evolved into a stud defenseman for this team and he seems to be on a path that will see him become one of the best at his position in the entire league in a few years.
Therefore, the Lightning couldn’t afford to not sign Sergachev as they try to chase another championship and another ring, and $4.8 million per year for a player of both his caliber and potential is a pretty fair deal.
Overall, the Tampa Bay Lightning have a key piece of their blueline back for at least the next three years and, if Sergachev becomes the player we think he will be, the franchise will worry about the next big payday when they have to.
For now, they have given themselves the best possible chance of repeating as Stanley Cup Champions and Mikhail Sergachev will be instrumental to any future success they have.