Everyone knows Tampa wants to keep both. Of course they do, both are core players and young. But Tampa doesn't have a lot of options. Tampa controls very few options this off-season. Tampa conceded control to most of their players giving them full NTCs.
The entire point of this discussion is that other teams don't think Tampa will be able to match another team's offer sheet on one or both if the OS is significantly above what Tampa will want to bridge them for.
The only realistic and Tampa controlled trades Tampa can make this off-season are Cernak and Killorn (unless they'd trade someone like Kucherov). If they trade those two for futures or guys on ELCs, it doesn't free up all that much cap space. All it does is free up about $3.6MM on Killorn and you don't need to give a raise to Cernak.
If Tampa offers Cirelli a 2 year deal at $3.75MM and the Avs offer him a 3 year deal at $6.3MM, he and his agent will debate how much money he'd leave on the table to remain in Tampa. And if Tampa goes up to $4.2MM, the Avs can go up the same amount too. Maybe Cirelli does leave $5MM on the table over two years, but given he's coming off an ELC under $1MM per year, it is worth tempting him with a big offer well beyond where Tampa will pencil him in at.
Tampa has a lot of confident fans that believe it's more likely to get a guy like Gourde to waive a full NTC and leave Tampa to a much worse situation and making less money than it would be for a Cirelli to say, "yes, I'd like to get paid a few million more per year and would be happy doing so on "that" team. You and I both know that is the overly convenient and wishful thinking of children. In real life, dollars do talk in professional sports and guys with full NTCs put them into their contracts with a specific purpose.
Cirelli or Serg considering offer sheets where they make significantly more money to play NHL hockey is a far more likely scenario than someone like Tyler Johnson waives his full NTC. Maybe the NHL throws teams a lifeline and does a compliance buyout option and if so, Tampa probably buys out Gourde and spreads his money over Cirelli and Serg and keeps both. Otherwise, Tampa could be at least $+5MM short of cap space to compete with some of the offer sheets their two stud RFAs are likely to be offered this off-season. And if the Avs hit Cirelli with a OS at $6.6MM AAV for 3 years... what does Tampa do? If the Habs or Winnipeg hit Serg with an OS at $6.9MM AAV, what does Tampa do? Beyond begging current players with NTCs to get the F off a cup contender roster and agree to go to a crappier team in the middle of covid-19, they don't have many good options. Trading the RFA rights to Serg is an option. So is trading the rights to Cirelli. Those may be the most realistic in terms of giving Tampa a package good enough to avoid losing them to offer sheets.
I hope you see the flaw in your rhetoric saying Johnson or whoever would never waive their NTC to leave the sunny cup contender Tampa but Sergachev will gladly go to Winnipeg the minute he gets an offer when he's going fishing and boating and partying and working out beachside with his good pals Kuch and Vasi
while playing for said sunny cup contender.
Tampa has a track record of RFAs taking a conservative bridge deal after the team has freed up cap room accordingly. The one recent offer sheet to one of our RFAs that went public was to Point, who declined in heartbeat praising the Lightning org, the team, the city and its community. Tampa also has a track record of players taking less compared to market value in order to stay (Hedman, Stamkos, Kucherov - to name just the big fishes). Every season people like you proclaim that we'll lose a big name player or an up and rising youngster due to our cap situation and the Lightning have always made it work. They even added more pieces later in each season to further improve the team. I know it makes for good drama and all but you're probably going to get disappointed.
The list of GMs willing to put up an OS big enough to maybe entice Serg or Cirelli is short, even more so after COVID-19. It's not really well received among the league, success rates aren't exactly high, the price on the other hand is really high and in the end it all depends on the sought after player to actually agree. And whether that happens is even more unpredictable: On himself, his partner, his family, their friends and relationship to teammates, the organization, the city and its community, their hobbies, properties, affilition and preferences (wheather, life style...)...
I get that the situation is tricky. To make it work for Serg, Cirelli, (Cernak) a lot of pieces have to be moved around, agreements with other players and teams have to be reached and I wouldn't want to switch places with Brisebois for sure. But I'm confident our management will explore all options, do their best and in the end we'll have one, likely two, maybe even all three of them on the team again next season. At what cost we will find out soon enough.