Who does Seattle end up with from Tampa?

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

Def won't keep us out of the playoffs, but the grit/hustle/tenacity of those 3 players, two of which were being underpaid, were a major factor in us going from being swept in the 1st round to multiple Cups.

It's going to be extremely difficult to replicate that.

Well, as I said a few days ago, focusing on the sweep in 2019 really undersells how much playoff success they had in previous seasons. Between 2015-'19, they won 36 playoff games. Hadn't been able to get 16 of them to come in any one year, unfortunately, but that was three times winning two rounds and one time winning three rounds. That was pre-Coleman and Goodrow. Those moves helped push them over the top ultimately, yes, but 2019 was the anomaly during that stretch, not the norm. And if we look at 2015, '16, '18, '20, and '21, you could probably make a strong argument that the two years we had the "easiest" road were the two years they managed to win. That definitely was the case last year. 2015 saw us having to face the previous Eastern champion and then a 2x recent champion. 2016 saw us have to face a soon-to-be 2x champion. 2018 also saw us lose to an eventual champion after beating a 112-point team in the previous round. Who did we face who was on those levels these past two years? 2020 Bruins are the only one I would nominate. No, the Islanders of the last two years were not as good as those Blackhawks/Penguins/Capitals teams were, not even close.

 

[JTBF81]

Mac is playing up to, and beyond, his cap hit. His contract isn't the problem, there are a couple of other players who aren't playing up to their salary who need to go.

If we left Mac exposed it would have been a signal we're closing our own window.

Disagree 100% on the window closing by losing McD. Having him taken and trading Palat and TJ would've allowed the team to keep Gourde, at least o e of Coleman/Goodrow, Savard(or equivalent priced RD), and a 3LD in the 1.5-2 million range. The window would hardly be closed, and there would still have still been better depth among the F lines and better balance between L.amd R D.

 

[Steazy Doo]

Haven’t been following along much on Twitter, but there’s no chance we were involved in a side deal to protect Killorn/Palat, right?

 

[JTBF81]

Haven’t been following along much on Twitter, but there’s no chance we were involved in a side deal to protect Killorn/Palat, right?

As of 9 am this morning, no side deal had been made according to reports, and soon after 10 most of the sources were saying Gourde is their likely pick.

 

[DMB06]

Disagree 100% on the window closing by losing McD. Having him taken and trading Palat and TJ would've allowed the team to keep Gourde, at least o e of Coleman/Goodrow, Savard(or equivalent priced RD), and a 3LD in the 1.5-2 million range. The window would hardly be closed, and there would still have still been better depth among the F lines and better balance between L.amd R D.

What I meant was we'd be looking to ice a competitive roster but would be looking more towards the future than attempting a 3-peat. If your primary goal is to 3-peat, you keep McDonagh, if it's not you allow him to leave.

 

[theimmortal1]

Haven’t been following along much on Twitter, but there’s no chance we were involved in a side deal to protect Killorn/Palat, right?

No, not to give up Gourde.

If anything we said 'Seattle, if you are willing to take Johnson who would you prefer out of Gourde/Palat/Killorn/McD" and then we made that person available.

 

[TheDaysOf 04]

Yeah but this was always going to happen. We still have the #1 goalie, #1 defenseman and #1 winger in the game on the team. Sprinkle in some Point, McD and Stamkos and that’s still one hell of a team - just not the juggernaut we are used to.

I agree with you on the strength of our core, but I wouldn't even judge us yet since we don't even know what the team will look like when the season starts. I'm just gonna let the rest of the offseason progress and see how things shake out in the preseason.

 

[Rschmitz]

I agree with you on the strength of our core, but I wouldn't even judge us yet since we don't even know what the team will look like when the season starts. I'm just gonna let the rest of the offseason progress and see how things shake out in the preseason.

Am I the only one eager to see Katchouk and some of the other prospects? Katchouk is the next great Lightning forward that comes out of nowhere and dominates

 

[DMB06]

Am I the only one eager to see Katchouk and some of the other prospects? Katchouk is the next great Lightning forward that comes out of nowhere and dominates

I'm ready to see it in the regular season, can't say I'm thrilled to possibly have to rely on it during the playoffs.

 

[JTBF81]

What I meant was we'd be looking to ice a competitive roster but would be looking more towards the future than attempting a 3-peat. If your primary goal is to 3-peat, you keep McDonagh, if it's not you allow him to leave.

Again, I guess we agree to disagree on the 3peat with/without McD. Keeping more of a b2b F corp while also still having a defense in front of Vasi of Hedman, Serg, Cernak, Savard(or similarly priced equivalent), Rutta, Schenn and (just my personal preference) Kulikov or a similar type at 3LD would not have ruined any 3peat chance while providing much more flexibility cap wise in the medium to long term. They could've kept Gourde, Goodrow(or Coleman perhaps), and a top 4 RD. There are a lot of unknown variables at play as to what the bottom 6 will look like, but one could, without too much difficulty, present an argument that the chances of a 3 peat are nowhere near as strong losing all of the 3rd line+one of Palat/Killorn/Johnson, nor is the cap situation looking as good for the future, by taking the route of keeping McD.

 

[DMB06]

Again, I guess we agree to disagree on the 3peat with/without McD. Keeping more of a b2b F corp while also still having a defense in front of Vasi of Hedman, Serg, Cernak, Savard(or similarly priced equivalent), Rutta, Schenn and (just my personal preference) Kulikov or a similar type at 3LD would not have ruined any 3peat chance while providing much more flexibility cap wise in the medium to long term. They could've kept Gourde, Goodrow(or Coleman perhaps), and a top 4 RD. There are a lot of unknown variables at play as to what the bottom 6 will look like, but one could, without too much difficulty, present an argument that the chances of a 3 peat are nowhere near as strong losing all of the 3rd line+one of Palat/Killorn/Johnson, nor is the cap situation looking as good for the future, by taking the route of keeping McD.

The difference between giving them Mac vs Gourde is only a savings of 1.58m. Goodrow alone would have taken up all of that plus nearly 2m more. I'm not sure how you work Savard or any of our forwards back onto the roster in that scenario. We still would've had to get rid of one of our forwards just to get under the cap, a second to be able to ice a full roster with a worse defense now that Mac would be gone. I honestly don't see how Mac instead of Gourde would've solved anything, it seems like it would have made things clearly worse.

 

[JTBF81]

The difference between giving them Mac vs Gourde is only a savings of 1.58m. Goodrow alone would have taken up all of that plus nearly 2m more. I'm not sure how you work Savard or any of our forwards back onto the roster in that scenario. We still would've had to get rid of one of our forwards just to get under the cap, a second to be able to ice a full roster with a worse defense now that Mac would be gone. I honestly don't see how Mac instead of Gourde would've solved anything, it seems like it would have made things clearly worse.

Yes, knowing how much Goodrow was asking for obviously changed things re:keeping him on a deal Tampa could afford. I was off by about ~2 million, but a 21 player roster could be iced if Coleman and Savard were interested in taking a discount. Even if Savard walked, there are other RD and LD that would likely be interested in playing for Tampa.

One option I've talked with some about and could be a possibility would be to make a trade for Manson at 50%. Enticing a 3LD here for 1.5 should also.not be that difficult. I personally would target Kulikov, but there are others. Overall, it wouldn't have been easy, but possible.

Tampa could've had more evenly balanced F lines, while still having a d corp(in this example) of Hedman, Sergachev, Kulikov, Manson, Cernak, Rutta, Foote, Schenn, Thomas and Claesson as possibilities. Yes, the defense would be a little weaker perhaps, but not by much, while the offense would be considerably better than what we are looking at now.

Hopefully some moves can still be made, but for now, the offense is very pedestrian outside the top two lines without knowing if Katchouk, Raddysh or ABB can be effective depth for the team. I'm done arguing over it, as there's no point. JBB made his choice, and I don't necessarily agree it was the correct move. There were other options that did not make the team "clearly worse" and still provided the team a good chance this year as well as the future. It would be great to 3peat of course, but keeping the team a Cup contender for at least 4 or 5 more years is more important imo than just moving all in for something that hasn't been accomplished in 39 years. Tampa can still do it with the way things are shaping up, but only if the superstars don't disappear at all come crunch time.