In terms of trade speculation over the last two years, no other Atlantic Division team has been more frequently linked to the Buffalo Sabres than the Tampa Bay Lightning. With a cap-crunch of sorts on the horizon this offseason, Julien BriseBois will have to move some salary. As a team with some short-term space, and a need for established scoring, the Sabres could be a very viable partner in the coming months.

As perhaps the most complete roster in the NHL, Tampa Bay has some flexibility here. They don’t necessarily need to replace current roster players with immediate NHL contributors. While they do have a few big names with expiring contracts, most of them (the most impactful, anyway) are restricted free-agents who are due significant raises.

Between Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergachev, Erik Cernak, Carter Verhaeghe, and Mitchell Stephens, the combined RFA salary demands will eclipse $18 million, according to Evolving Hockey. The only problem is, the Lightning have roughly $12.7 million in cap space to make it happen. Even if they just re-sign Cirelli, Cernak, and Sergachev, that’s nearly $14 million in anticipated salary.

Let’s take a look at some veterans BriseBois may try to float to Buffalo to provide him some much-needed cap relief.

Lightning Offseason Outlook

2020-21 Projected Cap Space (via Cap Friendly): $12.70 million

Key Restricted Free Agents: Mitchell Stephens, Anthony Cirelli, Carter Verhaeghe (arbitration-eligible), Erik Cernak, Mikhail Sergachev

Key Unrestricted Free Agents: Patrick Maroon, Jan Rutta, Luke Schenn, Kevin Shattenkirk, Zach Bogosian

Projected Needs: Cap Space, Defensive Depth

1. Ondrej Palat | LW | Two-Years, $5.3 million AAV

We’ll kick things off with perhaps the most moveable (and palatable for Tampa Bay to potentially lose) veteran asset in the 29-year-old Palat. Coming off a strong base statistical campaign, registering 41 points in 69 games, he is far from a typical “salary dump” asset. The fact that he only has two years remaining on his current deal also makes him a very tradeable asset, despite the semi-inflated salary.

Looking at his underlying numbers, he’s a solid player, but maybe not to the extent his past point totals might indicate. On what has been a perennially strong Lightning team, he has shown the ability to play up and down the lineup, while providing positive defensive metrics to go along with his offensive ability.

It’s worth mentioning that his consistently strong defensive metrics have matriculated amid what has been a routinely high OZS rate, year-over-year. Conversely, his lack of shot-concentration offensively might indicate that a more even zone-deployment ratio could actually optimize his skill set to a fuller extent.

Palat’s overall xG rate of 55.34-percent ranked fourth among Lightning forwards in 2019-20. That mark was the second-best of his career to date (59.37-percent in 2014-15). After what was a pretty mediocre year by his standards in 2018-19, his value has probably seen an increase as a result of this year’s performance.

As far as special teams go, Palat’s career penalty-kill numbers have been quite strong. When he’s been on the ice, opposing power-plays have seen a five-percent drop in xGF rate, on average. It’s important to note however that a lot of his time on the PK has been with the second-unit, and historically, they have a better prevention rate as a result of playing against less threatening offensive competition.

2. Tyler Johnson | C | Four-Years, $5 million AAV

While Johnson might be a “bigger name” than Palat, he is probably not as enticing an option. His status as a centerman (somewhat inconsistently, but still) is a plus, but his underlying impacts are not nearly as attractive. His base scoring totals also saw a dip this year, falling below a half-point-per game rate for the first time in his NHL career.

Since emerging onto the scene with a big offensive campaign in 2014-15, Johnson has always displayed defensive shortcomings. Early on in his career, his offensive prowess helped mitigate the impact delta in his metrics. Up until a much better shot-differential n 2019-20, it appeared that he was on a trajectory for a continued collapse in that area.

Interestingly enough, despite registering the second-highest xGA/60 rate among Tampa Bay forwards this year at 2.19, his performance in that area was markedly better than the year prior where he allowed a staggering, career-high rate of 2.52. Part of that change likely has to do with the amount of time he spent with Cirelli (255:21 at five-on-five, to be exact), a notoriously excellent defensive forward.

At the end of the day, the kicker here is the fact that he’s signed until he turns 34 years old. At best, he’ll remain the same in terms of production, and the Sabres don’t currently have a Cirelli type to help mitigate his defensive shortcomings. At this point in his career, he’s a complementary player, and at $5 million, the Sabres would be better suited to pursue a more well-rounded option for the top-six.

3. Yanni Gourde | C | Five-Years, $5.17 million AAV

This is where things get a little tricky. Before a very strong and noticeable playoff performance (which is currently ongoing), Gourde seemed like more of a trade possibility this offseason. In a league where lesser players than Palat and Johnson are dealt with a degree of regularity, a scenario where BriseBois would have to unload Gourde seems unlikely.

The one saving grace when it comes to the possibility of a deal here is the fact that Gourde’s point totals saw a marked reduction this year. After posting 64 in 82 games two years ago, his total dropped by 16 in 2018-19, and another 18 this season (his 30 points in 2019-20 came in 70 games played).

On the surface, it could look like Gourde has slowed down as he reached his late-20’s, but the metrics tell a different story. Over the last three seasons, he has been a very well-rounded presence for Tampa Bay, particularly on defense. Even after playing less frequently down the middle this year and last, his metrics have remained very consistent.

Of the roster regulars, Gourde had the third-lowest offensive-zone face-off rate this season at 44.96-percent. His overall xG rate in that deployment setup was 54.58-percent, his highest mark since the 2016-17 season.

If the Sabres are looking to add a defensively competent stopgap at second-line center, Gourde is a viable option. The key here is what Tampa Bay would expect in return. The contract isn’t all that attractive, and he’s coming off a down year statistically, so perhaps the cost wouldn’t be too great. Even still, they’ll probably be more keen to move one of Johnson or Palat before Gourde.

4. Carter Verhaeghe | C/LW | RFA

If the Sabres are looking for a “Moneyball” add to help bolster their bottom-six, Verhaeghe is a low-key excellent option to pursue. As an over-ager rookie at 25 years old this season, he posted fantastic metrics in 52 games played.

As part of a very stacked Lightning forward group, he ranked eighth among his contemporaries with an xGAR of 5.8. That number was just a shade lower than Palat, and actually higher than Gourde and Johnson.

Unlike Gourde and Palat, Verhaeghe’s best impacts came on offense this season. Only Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point posted better xGF rates than his mark of 2.62. As far as linemates go, he spent the majority of his time flanking Mitchell Stephens, who’s on-ice xGF-percentage was 59.51 with Verhaeghe, and 34.90 without him. That’s quite the WOWY impact.

In this situation, Tampa Bay really doesn’t really have a reason to deal Verhaeghe. His next contract is anticipated to carry a $1.22 million AAV according to EH, a very modest raise from his current salary. If anything, he’d likely be part of a larger deal, rather than a one-for-one type of agreement.

5. Anthony Cirelli | C | RFA

At first, I was going to leave Cirelli off this list since the prospect of him leaving Tampa Bay seems pretty infinitesimal. Sabres fans have been talking about him for the better part of a year now, so to avoid being lambasted for his exclusion, I decided to make note of him here.

In a vacuum, Cirelli is the ideal second-line center target for the Sabres. He’s young, talented, and has outstanding metrics at both ends of the ice. At 23 years old, he’s essentially a young Ryan O’Reilly in the making, who could end up collecting more than one Selke Trophy in his future.

In just his second season of NHL action, he ranked 24^th among all forwards in all-situation xGAR, and his xGA/60 rate of 2.01 at even-strength was the best mark among his Lightning contemporaries. Only Stephens had a better goal-differential score with a lesser OZS rate (in a much smaller sample, mind you), which again, speaks toward his defensive prowess.

It probably isn’t a stretch to say that Tampa Bay would be better suited to try and trade Steven Stamkos than they would Cirelli. That statement will come as a shock to some. Obviously, that won’t happen, but players who are immediately competent at both ends of the ice to start their NHL careers are an extreme rarity. Given Stamkos’ age and perennial injury concerns, Cirelli is the more valuable player at this point.

In terms of cost in a fantasy land scenario where BriesBois would consider dealing him to a division rival like the Sabres, the asking price would start with the eighth-overall pick. Buffalo would almost certainly have to add, and/or take some bad salary back as well.

xG and Zone-Start Charts courtesy of Charting Hockey

RAPM and xGAR Charts courtesy of Evolving Hockey

Shot Heatmaps courtesy of Hockeyviz

xG, OZS, and Teammate TOI Metrics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick

Photo Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports