The cap is there to create parity. But the structure the Lightning front office creates in building its contracts and the trust it forms with its players to know their payday will come are key to fielding the best roster while staying under the cap.
There are certainly hard decisions along the way. The Lightning had to say goodbye to longtime fixture Ondrej Palat as free agency opened, and earlier this month traded away a veteran leader and top defender in Ryan McDonagh to create cap space.
But that allowed the team to keep their top 25-and-under core players — Sergachev, center Anthony Cirelli and defenseman Erik Cernak — in Lightning uniforms into the next decade as the team invested a total of nearly $160 million into eight-year extensions for all three players.
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The three were scheduled to become restricted free agents after next season, but instead they will be signed through 2030-31.
The Lightning’s formula of keeping their star players long term through their prime years involves signing club-friendly three-year bridge deals with the understanding that they will cash in during their next negotiation.
Before this cycle that will pay Sergachev $68 million (on a $8.5 million average annual value that will make him the team’s highest-paid defenseman), Cirelli $50 million (a $6.25 million AAV) and Cernak $41.6 million (a $5.2 million AAV), the trio saw several of their veteran teammates go through the same process.
“The other guys have gone through it,” Cirelli said. “So I think it’s a process and it was nice to get to this point.”
Whether it was Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman or Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy or most recently Brayden Point (who signed an eight-year, $76 million extension last offseason that kicks in this coming season), they were all rewarded with hefty eight-year extensions following the bridge contracts.