Prolonged success in the salary cap era often forces analysts and fans alike to reach for the easiest, lowest-common denominator. One of the common themes of this year’s trade deadline is that smart, contending teams understand that their window to win a Stanley Cup is finite, draft picks don’t matter nearly as much when you’re pursuit of a championship, which should make it easier to facilitate deals with rebuilding teams that need draft capital and prospects, opening a pathway to future contention. And there are two teams benefiting from a clear misnomer, emerging as the winners of the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline.
Although both teams have won Stanley Cups and have shaped the past decade of league history, there’s been a tendency to reduce the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning’s success, both during the postseason and at the deadline, as a function of Florida’s no personal income tax law. It’s almost more dishonest to chalk up their powerhouse statues to sunshine and good weather, too. These are certainly incentives when negotiating contracts and finding ways to get under the cap, but it also discredits the negotiating power that Panthers GM Bill Zito, AGM Brett Peterson and Lightning GM Julien BriseBois have wielded, while trying to extend and exert their influence over the league for as long as possible.
Florida acquired Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday, a towering, puck-moving defenceman that was miscast in a No. 1 role. While Jones’ $9.5 million cap hit, which amounts to a $7 million in real value after the Blackhawks elected to retain $2.5 million in salary, may have provided some sticker shock to some teams, the Panthers wisely assessed that he could be the best No. 4 defenceman in the league, while playing in the NHL’s best defensive system. It’s an aggressive move, by an intelligent team that is looking to represent the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup Final for the third consecutive season. They weren’t done, and on Thursday, the Panthers acquired Nico Sturm from the San Jose Sharks, an underrated player who is winning 62.7 percent of his faceoffs this season, for virtually nothing.
This was all preamble to the most shocking move of the deadline, as the Panthers pulled off the unthinkable, acquiring Brad Marchand from the Boston Bruins in exchange for a conditional 2027 second-round pick. Boston also retained 50 percent of Marchand’s salary, allowing Florida to slot him at a reasonable $3.06 million cap hit, and the reigning champs still hold $1 million in cap space. It’s about the best possible insurance policy for Matthew Tkachuk’s injury, although there’s an unspoken expectation — you can’t outright circumnavigate the provisions of LTIR, after all — that he will return for the playoffs, giving the Panthers the best top-nine group in the league.
Marchand is slated to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, and that’s perhaps where the relaxed tax laws help the Floridian teams, but it took real strategy, execution and bold thinking to pull this trade off. A mundane tax code doesn’t make that happen, it takes real work. Marchand and the Panthers are prohibitive favourites to repeat now, and another Cup ring could convince the 36-year-old to remain with his former rival. In the span one of one trade — two, if you count the Maple Leafs’ acquisition of Brandon Carlo — the Bruins effectively signalled to the league that their contention window is over.
Condition details:
To #FlaPanthers:
Brad MarchandTo #NHLBruins:
Cond. 2027 2nd Round Pick*
* If Marchand plays in 25% or more of Florida’s games over first two rounds of playoffs, pick becomes 2028 1st Round Pick.– Per GM Don Sweeney
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) March 7, 2025
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Tampa Bay traded its 2026 and 2027 first-round picks, Toronto’s 2025 second-round pick and Mikey Eyssimont to the Seattle Kraken in exchange for Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand on Wednesday. It already appears to be paying off for the Lightning, as Bjorkstrand notched the game-winning goal in Thursday’s 6-5 comeback victory over the Buffalo Sabres. As for BriseBois, he’s already taking a well-earned victory lap over the rest of the league’s commitment to forced conservatism, as the Lightning are chasing down their third Stanley Cup with Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy (who looks like the best goaltender of his generation again!) and Brayden Point looking to cement their Hall of Fame cases. There’s a finite window, and it’s a reward for a Lightning team that ranks third with 224 goals scored, along with a plus-59 goal differential, the third-best mark in the league, as well.
“All first-round picks aren’t created equal,” BriseBois said at his media availability Thursday, via Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times. “Like the first pick in the draft is not the same as the 32nd pick in the draft. There’s a huge discrepancy in the value of those two picks. At the end of the day, what guides us, what drives us is trying to win a championship and that’s really hard. And in order to do that, you need a lot of good players. You can never have too many good players. So, what I’m trying to do is use my draft picks to acquire as many good players as possible to have the best team possible.”
It sounds so simple, but BriseBois fundamentally understands the primary principle of being an NHL general manager. He understands that a late first-round pick isn’t nearly as tantalizing as a top-end pick, and he already has a superstar core in place.
Winners: contending teams that take risks to maximize their windows and aren’t precious about draft picks, rebuilding teams accruing capital for the future.
Losers: Contenders that believe their window is forever and didn’t take any risks at all, me for endlessly scrolling.
— Arun Srinivasan (@Arunthings) March 7, 2025
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Relaxed income tax laws perhaps provide a minor advantage for the Floridian teams, along with the Dallas Stars, who acquired Mikko Rantanen and signed the winger to a eight-year extension worth $12 million annually. It also takes execution, a bold strategy and a willingness to take on salary in a league that is often governed by paranoia when it comes to the salary cap. There’s a tendency among hockey analysts to dive into half-hearted economic analysis in lieu of what’s really at play. No, it’s not Bill Zito and Julien BriseBois at work, you rube, it’s a statute in a tax code that we both haven’t read yet that makes it possible! In an increasingly technocratic society, the Panthers and Lightning won the trade deadline because of their bravado and intelligence, and they’ll be in prime shape to capitalize on their opponents’ ignorance if you take their execution for granted.