Lightning GM: Salary cap concerns played role in Bishop trade

He may have traded Ben Bishop Sunday night, but Tampa Bay Lightning Steve Yzerman is not putting up the white flag and surrendering this season.

Despite sitting seven points out of a wild card spot and eight points behind the third slot in the Atlantic Division with 22 games to go, Yzerman is still thinking playoffs and confident in his new goaltending tandem of Andrei Vasilevskiy and Peter Budaj.

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Yzerman had tried to move Bishop since last summer, but no deals could be consummated. He began speaking with Los Angeles Kings GM Dean Lombardi a few weeks ago as Jonathan Quick was preparing to return, and on Sunday night they finalized a trade that the Lightning GM felt he needed to make now.

“The biggest reason to make the move now, ultimately, is we’re concerned with the salary cap for next year,” Yzerman told reporters on Monday. “I could wait until the end of the season and do it; we know we’re going to lose one of them (in the expansion draft). Obviously we made the decision on which one we’re going to keep, which one we’re going to move.

“With what we have in some performance bonuses for our younger players we’re going to be squeezed next year with the cap — we don’t even know what the cap is going to be. But we do know Victor’s new contract is kicking in next year, we do know we’re going to try and sign our other players, so we felt the need to do this right now to give ourselves as much cap space for next year. It had to be done now instead of waiting until the end of the season.”

Yzerman had an eye on the off-season with this move. Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Jonathan Drouin and Andrej Sustr are set to become restricted free agents on July 1, with Johnson, Palat and Sustr holding arbitration rights, per CapFriendly. Those pending raises will force the Lightning to make some moves this summer to get their cap picture in order. This trade was just the start of his summer planning.

Bishop’s contract held a modified no-trade clause that listed eight teams that Yzerman could not make a deal with. The Lightning GM said the Kings made the most sense because it was the only option he had for such a trade. He wasn’t going to ride out the rest of this season and then try and trade the goalie’s rights for a late-round pick or lose him to unrestricted free agency with nothing to show for it.

This might not be the last we hear of Yzerman being active before Wednesday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline. Brian Boyle is scheduled to become a UFA this summer and his name had been bandied about in rumors (UPDATE: He gone). The GM said he is open to making more moves if they fit into the long-term picture he has for the franchise. Any such short-term options to fuel a playoff push would force him to weigh the offer with what he’d send the other way.

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It’s now the Andrei Vasilevskiy show in Tampa, the cheaper option that will help Yzerman in trying to keep this Lightning team contending in the future.

“We’ve got two really good goaltenders,” said Yzerman, “and we felt like getting the young guy that can do the job at a lower number affords us the ability to go and allocate the funds to other parts of our lineup.”

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Sean Leahy is the associate editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Sean_Leahy

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