Tampa Bay Lightning needs depth
Anthony Di Marco of The Daily Faceoff joined TSN Radio in Montreal on Monday and was asked what the needs are for the Tampa Bay Lightning at the trade deadline.
NHLRumors.com Transcripts
Host: I was just wondering. You’re looking at this Tampa Bay team, Anthony. (Victor) Hedman goes missing for a while. (Andrei) Vasilevskiy is missing for a while. They’ll miss (Brayden) Point for a while. Now (Anthony) Cirelli steps out. Jon Cooper has done a great job here, and they are not a young team either. For example, do you expect them to be active between now and the deadline? Just try to find somewhere else where they might be able to get a little help.
Anthony Di Marco: “Yeah, I would imagine that. So Julien BriseBois team always seems to be active. I believe it was last year when he made the trade with the Seattle Kraken to bring back Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand. And if you look at that team now, obviously you have some injuries with Brayden Point, and like you said, Anthony Cirelli.”
And I think maybe you can just add some depth to that lineup, maybe as a depth centerman, so you can maybe move Nick Paul to the wing, higher up in the lineup. I guess just a center man in general. But hey, you need centermen all over the league these days.
And then, just like maybe a defender at the back, you can never use too much defense in depth. But then you look historically at some of the players that the Lightning brought in and won the Cup with. I mean, David Savard or Zach Bogosian or whatever. I think that would be right up Julien BriseBois’ alley.
NHL Rumors.com Note: When I spoke to several people during the Stadium Series, the belief was that the Tampa Bay Lightning want to go after a center who can win faceoffs and make an offensive impact. Now they could go the route of just getting a faceoff guy similar to what the Pittsburgh Penguins had with Matt Cullen, but the Lightning would prefer to get a player with some offensive upside. As BriseBois told Sirius XM NHL Network Radio this weekend, he wants to do something that will help the team now and for the future.
Later, during the same segment on TSN Radio in Montreal, Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco was asked about Artemi Panarin and where he could be traded to, and he mentions the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Di Marco: “We were talking about the Tampa Bay Lightning. The way that would happen, that’s exactly the type of team that, in my opinion, you could see Artemi Panarin trying to go to. Like the first thought that came to mind was the Florida Panthers, but I just feel like Tampa is more in a position, organizationally and maybe even asset-wise, to make that move. And I just think they need an Artemi Panarin probably more than any team at the top of the standings in the NHL.
As we have now seen, this is the second or third time that Lightning has been mentioned or thought about. We’ve seen the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning make trades before. Cam Robinson also threw out the idea and analyzed what the trade would look like.
Just pulling on a loose thread, but I wonder if Tampa is the silent frontrunner for Panarin.
Bjorkstrand’s $5.4 million goes back, a 2028 1st, a couple of 2nds, maybe a guy like Goncalves… the framework is there.
Sunshine stands. Playoff bound. Russian stars. They check all the boxes.
— Cam Robinson (@Hockey_Robinson) February 3, 2026
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