Tampa Bay Lightning: Tyler Johnson should waive his no-move clause

Tyler Johnson should at least hear what trades the Tampa Bay Lightning can scrounge up.

When news broke that the Tampa Bay Lightning had extended 22-year-old defenseman Mikhail Sergachev to a three-year, $14.4 million contract, it felt like a borderline no-brainer.

Even with the team fully committed to Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh both financially and on the ice moving forward, the idea of letting a 22-year-old left-hander become a casualty of a flat salary cap was simply unthinkable. Even if it meant going over the cap, which this signing did do by roughly $1.9 million according to CapFriendly, the Lightning was going to do everything in their power to keep Sergachev under contract moving forward.

But by making said move, especially with second-line center Anthony Cirelli still a restricted free agent, the Lightning are going to have to get creative to keep their roster one of the best in the NHL in this their first chance to field a title defense since 2004.

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Buckle up Tampa Bay Lightning fans; this might get interesting.

Now right from the jump, the most obvious player the Lightning would surely like to wipe off their books is Tyler Johnson, the 30-year-old forward the team signed to a seven-year, $35 million contract back in 2017. Though he surpassed 20 goals and 45 points in both 2017-18 and 2018-19, Johnson had a down year in 2019-20 and may benefit from a change of scenery to potentially recapture some of his former glory.

After passing through waivers unclaimed back in October, the Lightning could conceivably stash Johnson in the monitors to free up $1.25 million in cap space, but as our friends over at Rotowire pointed out, it may be a better idea to try to convince the Spokane, Washington native to waive his no-move clause in order to free up more potential moves.

Is that an ideal situation for Johnson? No, I imagine he’d like to run it back with the Bolts and try to go for the two-peat, but after finally winning it all in his eighth professional season, Johnson may now be more willing to accept a move in order to keep playing hockey at a high-level, as opposed to being buried on the team that initially signed the 5-foot-8 forward after going undrafted in 2011.

Even with hockey players like Joe Thornton playing well into their 40s, Johnson’s prime appears to be coming to a close, if it’s not already downright over. Even if he can play out the remaining four years of his contract at a relatively high-level, it’s pretty safe to say Johnson won’t be signing another eight-figure contract with an NHL team this century, unless, of course, it’s like a four-year deal worth an average of $2.6 AAV.

If Johnson wants to further cement his legacy as one of the better undrafted free agent success stories in the NHL this side of the millennium, he may be better off accepting a trade to a team like the Arizona Coyotes who could use a scoring threat on their first line than waiting it out on the bench or worse; getting bought out of his contract for an insane $11.8 million over the next eight years and becoming the most hated Bolts player this decade.

I know change can be hard, but sometimes it’s necessary.

When news of the Mikhail Sergachev extension broke, it left many a Tampa Bay Lightning fan scouring the internet looking for ways to get Tyler Johnson off the team to free up cap space. As it turns out, the best, easiest, and most efficient way for that to happen would be via trade. Though we don’t quite know which teams are on Johnson’s trade-list, according to TSN’s Darren Dreger, the list features ‘several teams to work with’. If one of those teams is willing to get a deal done, then great, but if not, maybe Johnson should at least consider expanding his options out to all 30 other NHL teams, as it’s better to finish out his contract playing meaningful hockey than in the NHL or buried on the bench.