A Kraken team desperate for more offense Friday traded veteran left winger Tomas Tatar from Colorado for a fifth-round pick in next summer's draft.
The move for the 33-year-old Tatar, who has scored 20 goals six times in his NHL career – most recently last season for New Jersey – comes as the team is coming off a nearly three-week stretch in which it 1.6 goals scored per game on average. Things picked up a bit with 11 goals in two home wins this week, but general manager Ron Francis, struggling with salary cap constraints, had to get creative in bolstering his roster.
“This is a guy who has shown he can score in the league and play at a high level,” Francis said after the deal, adding that he can see Tatar somewhere on the first two forward lines. “We are pleased to sign him and give him this opportunity.”
Tatar, a native of Slovakia, had just one goal and eight assists in 27 games with the Avalanche after signing this summer on a one-year, $1.5 million deal.
To clear a spot on the roster, the Kraken sent forward Marian Studenic back to the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the AHL.
Tatar has scored 212 goals and contributed 252 assists in 810 career games for Detroit, Montreal, Vegas, New Jersey and the Avalanche. He appeared in two games of the 2018 Stanley Cup Final for the Golden Knights before being sent to Montreal, where he reached the Cup final again in 2021 but was a solid seed in all playoff competitions after the opening round.
He scored 20 goals and added 28 assists in all 82 games for the Devils last season. He then scored another goal in 12 playoff contests before New Jersey was eliminated in the second round by Carolina.
He is a good puck player and can often take down opposing defensemen in the open ice.
Tatar has a remaining cap hit of $973,000, according to the CapFriendly website, which the team partially offset by placing forward Jaden Schwartz on the Long Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) list, meaning his full Salary is no longer counted towards the cap. Players participating in LTIR can expect to miss at least 10 games and 24 days.
The Kraken also recalled center Shane Wright from Coachella Valley on Friday and reassigned forward Tye Kartye to that AHL affiliate. Both moves appear to be only on paper, as teams always try to get as close to the cap as possible before placing a player on LTIR.
That's because the amount of cap space they gain is the difference between the injured player's salary and the amount of cap space remaining before the team hits the $83.5 million cap. Since Wright has a cap hit of around $59,000 more than Kartye's, he would push the Kraken closer and closer to his cap, giving him even more cap space once Schwartz goes on LTIR.
Once that's done, the Kraken could bring Kartye back to the Kraken as early as Saturday morning – neither player appears to have physically flown anywhere yet – and Wright back to the Coachella Valley. Both players are best suited for such moves because they are young enough to still be exempt and can be transported between the AHL and NHL without the risk of another team claiming them.
Francis said the moves should give him additional leeway if further potential acquisitions materialize. But with Schwartz due back from injury next month, the Kraken also needs to save space for his return.
“There's always a lot of conversation, a lot of talk, but that's the challenge for a lot of teams right now, where the cap is,” Francis said of making deals despite caps. “You get creative and try to find a way. But this one was easy for us and it made sense. That’s why we pushed it forward.”