You’re dead wrong.
Yzeman himself said that Drouin was a cap casualty and he was looking for a young D-man who didn’t require protection in the expansion draft. Tampa Bay were already a top team and their window was wide open. They just needed someone who didn’t require protection.
Also, they were not sure if he was going to be NHL ready the next year. He took a chance on Sergachev and it paid out.
Also, in 2016, one year before the trade, Tampa Bay were one game (two goals) away from a SCF appearance. They were a pretty good team when they traded Drouin (14 pts in 17 games).
"There's a lot of things we liked that suited us in making a deal for Mikhail Sergachev," Yzerman said Thursday evening on a conference call with reporters. "The biggest reason was we were getting a young defenseman that's going to have an impact in the NHL for a long time.
Whether that's this year or two years from now, time will tell, but I think he's going to be a good player in the league for a long time."
"Had we acquired a D-man that needed to be protected, it would have required us…reacting in some way to protect the players we wanted to," Yzerman said. "That did have some more appeal to us in making this trade."
Lightning acquire standout defenseman in Mikhail Sergachev
