The Tampa Bay Lightning made a minor move this afternoon, as they swapped a conditional 2016 seventh round pick to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for forwards Carter Ashton and David Broll.
For the Bolts, it’s abundantly clear that this move wasn’t made with any NHL considerations in mind. Without Jonathan Marchessault and Mike Blunden, who are out with injuries, the Syracuse Crunch are in desperate need of assistance. That was likely (read: undoubtedly) the motive behind this move.
Both Ashton, who was a Lightning first round draft pick back in 2009, and Broll will bring an element of size to the Crunch. Per the team’s press release, Ashton stands at 6-foot-3, 215 pounds, while Broll measures up at 6-foot-2, 216 pounds. Neither one will be pushed around in the American Hockey League.
As players like Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, and Nikita Kucherov, among others have made the jump from the AHL to the NHL over the course of the past few seasons, the Lightning’s farm affiliate has lost a significant amount of depth. This small deal helps to rectify the situation. Further, and per Erik Erlendsson, it does little to hurt the team’s flexibility heading into the trade deadline; Erlendsson notes that the team now has 48 contracts on the books, including Evgeni Nabokov’s. Steve Yzerman has room to go out and acquire defensive help for his NHL squad.
From the Leafs perspective, this deal was a simple ‘addition by subtraction’ transaction. Dave Nonis and Brendan Shanahan want flexibility with their roster as they look to retool it, so they wanted to move bodies out. The conditional seventh round pick they got in exchange essentially means that they did it for nothing. In order for the Leafs to receive that pick, Ashton will need to play in at least 15 games for the Bolts next season. It’s quite likely that they just wanted to create space in their system.
In closing, I’ll just note that you shouldn’t expect to see either Ashton or Broll make an impact with the Lightning any time soon. As mentioned, this is a move that should help Syracuse. Here’s hoping it does exactly that.
As always, thanks for reading.