Ondrej Palat made a last minute attempt to stay with the Lightning, but they refused
In a salary cup era the Tampa Bay Lightning have been without a doubt one of the best teams, if not the absolute best. Say what you want about them and their salary cap trickery, Lightning's General Manager, Julien BriseBois put together a very good team that almost won three years in a row.
The Lightning now have had to make some tough salary cap related moves. This includes losing Ryan McDonagh in a trade to simply save cap space.
Palat who scored a lot of important goals during the Lightning's run asked if they could offer him a deal similar to Nick Paul, which would allow him to stay. Nick Paul signed a 7-year deal with a cap hit of $3,150,000 per year.
The Lightning's answer to Palat's request, simply, no.
Palat would ultimately sign a five year $30 million dollar deal with the New Jersey Devils, that has an annual salary of $6 million dollars. It proves some players aren't all about the money he was going to sign for almost half of what he got from the Devils.
Palat who was drafted by the Lightning in 2011 played 628 for them scoring 143 goals 280 assists, with a plus 147 rating.
