Does adding Ryan McDonagh make sense for the Lightning?

Yesterday, the Tampa Bay Lightning re-acquired Ryan McDonagh from the Nashville Predators in exchange for draft picks. McDonagh helped the Lightning win back-to-back Stanley Cup championships before being dealt out to Nashville.

Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen discuss the trade and what it entails for the Lightning.

Tyler Yaremchuk: From Tampa Bay’s perspective, you got to sign Steven Stamkos this summer, I’m not sure if adding a big defenseman in his mid-to-late 30s at a $6.5 million cap hit is the right move to keep this window open when I thought they should be trying to get younger and cheaper, not older and more expensive.

Colby Cohen: I’m going to go the opposite on this one because I love this move. I love it because of what Tampa thinks of themselves, they think they can win a Stanley Cup in the next year or two. You look at the market right now and Frank has talked about this, Zadorov is looking for $6 million a year and he is a third-pairing defenseman. A top-pair defenseman, a guy who is out there in the last minutes of the game, a proven leader is back on your team. Now look at Tampa’s backend, they got Hedman, Sergachev, Cernak and now McDonagh back. You can run that out with cheaper guys like Perbix and Raddysh.

Colby Cohen: They are going to have to move on from Anthony Cirelli, he makes $6 million plus and has seven more years on his contract and I just think they made a decision that they got a two-year window to get another cup and McDoanght helps them get to that cup more so than Cirelli. Cirelli who in the last couple of years only has 11 goals and 20 goals and then you got Brandon Hagel who has basically turned into a 30-goal scorer and can rely on him. Think about this, two more years for another Cup and then a massive rebuild. Does Cirelli really help you through a rebuild, no. SO i don’t mind moving the 26-year-old if you can bring McDonagh back. They got the goaltending, they got the D-core now, and you could argue it’s once again one of the deepest in the league.