Elliotte Friedman writes at Sportsnet that the Tampa Bay Lightning are reportedly working with former Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh to “see if there’s another team he’d consider a trade to.”
McDonagh, 33, has four seasons left on his contract with a cap hit of $6.75 million and a full no-trade clause.
Moving McDonagh might allow Tampa to keep Ondrej Palat and/or Nick Paul.
Adam Rotter: It’s interesting, because while McDonagh is still a huge part of the Lightning, his style of play and how much he gets banged up definitely will impact his game going forward. That is one of the reasons why the Rangers moved McDonagh when they did and also part of the reason why Ryan Callahan was traded in 2014. Callahan wanted protection and the Rangers wanted flexibility to move him at some point. Callahan signed a six-year deal with Tampa after the trade and then started breaking down a few years into the deal.
McDonagh hasn’t broken down to that degree, but Tampa needs cap space and they figure it’s better to move him now before his game does drop. The Lightning were in win now mode when they made the McDonagh trade and signing him to a seven-year deal already paid off with two Stanley Cups and a trip to a third. It was worth it and because they won it has to be easier to go to him and try to find a solution.
It probably would have been the same with McDonagh had the Rangers held on to him and re-signed him to be the Captain during the rebuild. The Rangers avoided that situation by moving him.