As sports fans, we are always guilty of wanting to have our cake and eat it too. We want our team to come out on top each and every year yet we hesitate with our team taking necessary risks in order to make that happen.
Tampa Bay Lightning General Manager Steve Yzerman, like every Bolts' fan out there, wants to see his team hoist up the Stanley Cup in 2018. However, it is hard to imagine it happening if he does not make some risky moves this summer.
Risky moves mean difficult and possibly unpopular decisions about what to do with this current roster. In a perfect world, the Lightning would be able to retain all of their valuable assets at reasonable prices, get rid of the undesirable contracts, and hit the open market with money to spend. However, we are not dealing with a perfect world here.
The Bolts have three key members of their franchise set to become restricted free-agents this summer in Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, and Jonathan Drouin. The chances of Yzerman being able to re-sign all three of them to reasonable contracts are slim in my opinion. Johnson and Palat's price tag should not be too hard to swallow but the verdict is still out on what Drouin will demand. I think he has his sights set on a big payday and knows he will get it somewhere.
Of course, things brings up the tough decision about what to do with Drouin. Do you offer him that big contract knowing that it will put the team in quite the financial bind for the next few years? Do you put his name out there on the open market and try to work a trade that sends improvements on the blueline to Tampa Bay? Trading Drouin could turn out to be a very unpopular move that the Lightning live to regret but it might be a risk they have to take.
The forgetful 2016-17 season made it apparent that the Lightning need some upgrades on the blueline and this issue can no longer be ignored. With very little money to spend in free agency, the Bolts are going to have to look to acquire a defenseman via trade. Drouin has finally been showing his unbelievable potential which makes him both a valuable member of the franchise and Tampa's most appealing trade chip. There is no doubt that trading Drouin would get the Lightning a top-notch defenseman. Still, it would hurt to seem him go elsewhere and become one of the top players in the NHL.
Now the fan in all of us will create different scenarios so the Lightning are able to keep Drouin. We will convince ourselves that putting Johnson in a package will give the Bolts a similar return to what they will get for Drouin. The truth is that that is not the case. If the Lightning want a defenseman that is going to bring this team to the next level, they need to part ways with their budding star.
Now I've been spending a lot of time talking about the Jonathan Drouin situation but there is a bigger point I am attempting to make. In order to be rewarded, you need to be will to take big risks. With the Lightning's window for winning a championship being right now, we should all expect Yzerman to make some bold moves this summer in the hopes of bringing another Stanley Cup to Tampa Bay.