With the Seattle expansion draft right on the horizon, the Tampa Bay Lightning have submitted their protection list. Rather than go with the 7F-3D-1G protection crop, the Bolts elected to go 4F-4D-1G in an effort to keep their blue line together. The complete list is below:

Tampa Bay #Lightning Protection List
8FD-1G

F: Kucherov
F: Stamkos
F: Point
F: Cirelli

D: Hedman
D: McDonagh
D: Sergachev
D: Cernak

G: Vasilevskiyhttps://t.co/DP5mKUfZ26

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) July 18, 2021

Thanks to his leadership in guiding this franchise to back-to-back Stanley Cups, GM Julien BriseBois has earned at least some benefit of the doubt. Still, at first glance, this list leaves more question marks than answers. More specifically, without a side deal, this list sets the Lightning up to lose Yanni Gourde at the cost of protecting Ryan McDonagh.

As good as McDonagh has been at times during his tenure for the Lightning, a blue line with Victor Hedman, Mikhail Sergachev, and Erik Cernak as its big three is still more than strong enough to put this team in contention. Losing the entire line of Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, and Yanni Gourde in one offseason makes contending a whole lot more difficult. In fact, if you’re weighing the marginal defensive benefit of having Yanni Gourde up front vs. having a fourth strong blue-liner, the benefit of Gourde probably carries the day. He’s been that important for the Lightning.

The other thing worth considering is that – without more LTIR magic – losing Gourde alone probably isn’t enough to fix the team’s cap issues. Another forward, like an Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, or Alex Killorn, is probably going to have to go. A Tampa Bay forward group without the entire “third line” and another one of those names looks very different, and a whole lot less dangerous, than the one that just lifted the Cup. There likely isn’t enough depth either on the NHL roster or in the system to make up for that kind of devastating change.

The bottom line here is that this protection list sets up the Tampa Bay Lightning to look *very* different than they did last season. We’ll need to wait and see whether they can make it work.

As always, thanks for reading.

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