SAINT PAUL, MN: Matt Dumba of the Arizona Coyotes laughs during a break in the game against the … [+] Minnesota Wild at the Xcel Energy Center on January 13, 2024 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images)
The deals the Tampa Bay Lightning made at the trade deadline were not of the buzz-generating variety. Certainly not what, say, adding defenseman Noah Hanifin might have resulted in. Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois, though, did not need to make large ripples in the bay. Rather, a team clinging to a playoff spot addressed a couple of areas that needed attention.
A defense that too often has sprung leaks, and in February lost the services of Mikhail Sergachev to a broken left tibia and fibula, added Matt Dumba from Arizona. A group of forwards in need of scoring depth was bolstered by the acquisition of Anthony Duclair from San Jose.
Both players were acquired without shedding personnel from the current roster and with the help of Sergachev ($8.5 million cap hit after signing eight-year, $68-million deal in July 2022), who could return if the Lightning have a lengthy playoff run, on long-term injured reserve. Dumba has a $3.9 million cap hit and Duclair $3 million. Both can be unrestricted free agents after this season.
“We got two players that don’t mortgage our future, make us better right now, help us for this playoff push and hopefully a nice playoff run,” said BriseBois, who at last year’s deadline surrendered defenseman Adam Foote and five draft picks to Nashville for Tanner Jeannot, who has since played only 62 games.
Dumba, who signed a one-year deal with the Coyotes last summer, and Duclair, who was in the final season of a three-year pact he signed with Florida in 2021, could remain in Tampa for a while. BriseBois has often acquired players he feels can provide help beyond the immediate horizon. For now, the acquisitions were about improving a team that has shown the effects of salary cap constraints resulting in the loss of key Stanley Cup-run contributors including, but certainly not limited to, Alex Killorn last off-season and Ondrej Palat and Ryan McDonagh in 2022.
The 29-year-old Dumba, acquired along with a seventh-round pick in 2025 for a fifth-round selection in that draft, does not possess the lefty shot the defense corps could have benefitted from in Sergachev’s absence. However, the former seventh overall pick of Minnesota in 2012 provides much-needed grit.
“Matt Dumba brings competitiveness, tenacity,” BriseBois said Friday. “He’s a big-time gamer. You can’t have too many of those guys.”
That is especially the case for a team that embarrassed itself in a 6-3 loss to visiting Calgary on Thursday. Dumba has a resume full of the characteristics BriseBois highlighted. Indeed, this season he has already established a career high for hits (150) and will likely approach his high for blocked shots, which are the 116 he got in front of last season.
The 28-year-old Duclair, who is with his eighth NHL team, was acquired along with a 2025 seventh-round selection in exchange for defenseman Jack Thompson and a third-round pick in this year’s draft. Thompson was Tampa Bay’s third-round selection in 2020 and made his NHL debut with the team this season. He has 32 points in 46 games with Syracuse of the AHL.
Duclair, who has 16 goals this season, is two years removed from his lone 30-goal campaign. His 31-27-58 with the Panthers in 2021-22 represent career highs across the board. While Tampa Bay has marquee goal scorers in Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point, scoring depth has been an issue.
“He just adds more secondary scoring, more speed, more offense to our forward group,” said Brisebois, noting Duclair’s playoff experience includes a run to the Cup final with the Panthers last year. “We played him in the playoffs a few times and he scored some big goals against us. We’re happy to have him in our jersey moving forward.”
Though Tampa Bay, which does not have a selection in the first four rounds of this year’s draft, did not make a splash at the trade deadline, it is safe to say the deals made the Lightning a better team than the one that skated off the Amalie Arena ice Thursday evening.
