Five teams entered the regular season with three goaltenders on their opening roster. In most cases, this was because many teams are trying to wait out Tampa Bay as they search for reliable goaltending in the absence of Andrei Vasilevskiy.
"There are still clubs who want to prevent them from taking a goalie off waivers, so they're trying to wait Tampa out," said one NHL hockey operations executive. "The end game? They want [Julien] BriseBois to blink first and offer a trade."
So far, at least, Tampa has held firm: the trading prices are inflated and they aren't pining for most of the "blocked off" goalies to go on waivers, anyway. Even when Martin Jones, seemingly a serviceable fit, went on waivers, before the season, Tampa didn't bite.
"They say they're OK with [Jonas] Johansson and [Matt] Tomkins, so we will see," the source said.
So far in Tampa's four games (1-2-1), the goaltending has not particularly been a strong point. Johansson has started three of the games and Tomkins the other one. Neither guy has looked like someone who could take the reigns for any prolonged stretch.
What would you do if you were BriseBois?