Ottawa, Tampa bolting in opposite directions

Sometimes it really is hard to believe the Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning were born at the same time.

They are absolutely nothing alike now.

While the Senators are shopping their top player because he wouldn’t accept what’s believed to be a lowball extension offer a year before he is eligible to become an unrestricted free agent, the Lightning opened the vault to lock up one of theirs — 12 months before they were only required to give him a 10 per cent raise to keep his rights as a restricted free agent.

Now, does the eight-year, US$76-million extension Nikita Kucherov inked with the Bolts on Tuesday take them out of the running for Erik Karlsson? Theoretically, no. Tampa is still $3.446 million under the projected cap, the same as it was at the start of the week when tabbed the frontrunner in the Karlsson sweepstakes. Kucherov’s new deal with the $9.5-million average annual value doesn’t kick in until the 2019-20 season.

General manager Steve Yzerman always needed to create some space to acquire Karlsson, who has a $6.5-million cap hit next season. If he goes up to the $11-million salary Drew Doughty will make with the Los Angeles Kings, the Bolts will have to rearrange the furniture before October 2019.

However. helping them shed weight next summer will be the expiration of the contracts owned by veteran defencemen Anton Stralman ($4.5-million cap hit), Braydon Coburn ($3.7 million) and Dan Girardi ($3 million). And with Karlsson and Victor Hedman, would they need anybody else to play on the blueline anyway?

Yzerman was playing coy when asked on Tuesday if he could bring in another long-term, bigmoney player.

“I don’t think it’s impossible,” he said, per Joe Smith of The Athletic. “But if you look at our commitments, if we were to bring on a significant contract, we would have to make the money work, so to speak.”

Yzerman also said no trade is close or imminent, although he’s still exploring possibilities.

“But despite what you may have read or even reported,” he said. “It’s very inaccurate.”

What do you expect? Would he confirm rumours and the names of players who have been mentioned as bait if they were accurate? Of course not.

At the same time, even before the Kucherov signing was announced, Larry Brooks of the New York Post reported that the Dallas Stars had re-emerged as the front-runners for Karlsson.

And I’m saying the way things are going, Tampa, Vegas and who knows what other team could take turns in that position over the next two months.

Back to the original point, the 26-year old Lightning and 26-year old Senators couldn’t look any more different.

The Lightning have made it to the Stanley Cup final twice, winning in 2004. They’ve also been to the conference final five times, including three of the last four seasons. Under deep-pocketed owner Jeffrey Vinik, they are keeping their stars and building for more championships.

The still Cup-less Senators have been to the league final once and conference final three times. After a lengthy run of post-season appearances, they have missed the playoffs in five of the last 10 years. Under Eugene Melnyk, they are chasing away the best player in franchise history.

And they are rebuilding, whether anyone with the organization wants to use that term or not.