Tampa Bay Lightning 2024 Draft Review – Part 2

After running out of draft picks early at pick #57, the Tampa Bay Lightning gave up on trying to add more picks and pivoted to more future-focused trades. The first thing on the list was to address the goalie situation. The acquisition of Primeau had the crease loaded with Thatcher Demko, Adin Hill, Charlie Lindgren, and Cayden Primeau all competing for two spots. To address this, Adin Hill was sent to Chicago for prospect Nico Myatovic, last season’s 33rd overall pick.

A few days later the Hill trade was followed up with a cap dump. The Ottawa Senators sent Tyler Johnson along with a 2025 4th round pick for a 2025 7th round pick in order to dump his $5M salary. Johnson is expected to slot into a top 9 forward role for the rebuilding Lightning and is one of the few C’s on the team.

As the draft ticked down toward the end, Tampa finally pulled the trigger on their biggest trade chip, dealing the injury plagued but talented Kirby Dach alongside prospect Cameron Allen, a kindred spirit to Dach who also shares his injury issues, to the Montreal Canadiens for breakout prospect Easton Cowan and Montreal’s 2025 3rd round pick. Rumors swirled leading up to this trade and reports were that at least four RHL teams had strong offers in for Dach, each offering a good package of picks and prospects.

In the end, the package with the OHL’s leading scorer Easton Cowan proved too tempting to turn down. This trade will have the side benefit of uniting the London Knights dynamic duo of Easton Cowan and Denver Barkey, taken 86th overall by Tampa in last year’s RHL draft.

After the draft, a media availability was held and GM austin757 shared some final insights on the state of the franchise and the team’s performance in the draft:
“It was a bit more of a quiet draft season than I’m used to personally, but that being said we still managed to pull off six fairly impactful trades and ended up taking four prospects, all in the top two rounds of the draft. We are adding some blue-chip prospect talent here in Parekh, Cowan, Myatovic, Sahlin Wallenius, Eriksson, and Kleber.”

“In terms of projections, I see Parekh as superstar OFD with above average risk in that projection (9.5C-). Cowan looks like a top six forward with quite low risk (8.0B+). Myatovic looks like a top nine complementary forward with average risk (7.5C). Sahlin Wallenius projects as a top four pick mover (7.5C), Linus Eriksson as a top nine two-way forward (7.5C), and Kleber as top four shutdown defenseman (7.5C).”

“The only downside from this draft is that our lack of later draft picks prevented us from adding much prospect depth. That is something we hope to rectify next season; The Lightning will be much more active in the trade market throughout the 24-25 season and plan to have at least 10 draft picks.”

“I expect another rebuilding year ahead before we turn the corner and try to contend for 2025-26. When I took over 1 year ago this team didn’t have any blue-chip prospects to speak of. Now, we have Michkov, Simashev, Dvorsky, Parekh, Cowan, and David Edstrom, as well as a good wave of B+ prospects like Lund, Barkey, Clara, Myatovic, Volokhin, Conmy, and more! Rome wasn’t built in a day, but I think the results speak for themselves – This team is on the right track.”

-Tampa Bay Times,
July 23, 2024

Editor’s note: Tampa also acquired Paul Cotter for a 2025 4th round pick and prospect Gabriel Szturc during UFA period.