I don't know why. We should go into 2019 offseason with plenty of capspace unless we make a big splash this year. As of today we have 44million spent into 2019. Figure a cap of 83 or so (and that's a very conservative estimate), so we have 39 million to fill out the roster.
Say 9.5 to Kucherov, Point will either be bridged at around 5 or given a long contract at 7, so we'll call it 16.5. That leaves 22.5 for the last 8 spots. Gourde gets 3? Stralman gets 3.5-4? Cal Foote makes the team on an ELC, Cernak maybe is on the team on a two-way deal. We have young guys like Katchouk, Raddysh, Cirelli, Stephens, and Joseph who will be fighting for bottom 9 spots on ELCs while letting some of the chaff go. We'll have one year left of Callahan's 5.8 which we can buy out or trade.
For like the millionth time in the past 5 seasons, rumors of Tampa Bay's cap crunch are vastly overstated. We keep bringing in great ELC talent that gives us a ton of flexibility, and other than Callahan we don't really have any *bad* contracts (some are less than ideal, but mainly due to their length - not the production of the player).
I don't think we'll make a move for Carlson. Only way I can see us being in cap hell is if Yzerman decides to swing for Karlsson - but some of the pieces going the other way will likely offset that somewhat.