The Utah Hockey Club is proving that they mean business in just their first weeks of official existence. The club acquired defenseman Mikhail Sergachev from the Tampa Bay Lightning during Round 2 of the NHL Draft on Saturday, per Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman.
Sergachev has been a key piece of the Bolts since being acquired from the Montreal Canadiens in 2017; he won two Stanley Cup championships with the team in 2020 and 2021. In return, Tampa is receiving Conor Geekie, JJ Moser and two draft picks, one a 2025 second-round pick and the other the 199th pick in Saturday's draft.
The Lightning will not retain any salary in the deal, which means that all of the Russian's $8.5 million cap hit will be absorbed by Utah. That opens up more cap space for a Victor Hedman extension, and also raises eyebrows that Steven Stamkos hitting the open market on July 1 may no longer be happening.
It's the first big trade of the NHL Draft after a couple of relatively quiet deals on Friday night. It's one of a flurry of trades that occured on Saturday, joining Kevin Hayes going to the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tanner Jeannot headed to the Los Angeles Kings (more on that in a second).
And Utah HC wasn't done on the blue line after acquiring Sergachev, also bringing over New Jersey Devils defenseman John Marino mere minutes later.
Mikhail Sergachev, John Marino both headed to Salt Lake City
In one fell swoop, Utah general manager Bill Armstrong transformed his blue line, adding two established NHL D-men in Sergachev and Marino. The latter cost Utah the 49th overall pick and the Edmonton Oilers' second-round pick in 2025.
The Lightning also weren't done after trading Sergachev, also shipping out Jeannot and his $2.6 million cap hit on Saturday. Those two deals open up a ton of space in Tampa Bay, and certainly means there could be an extension coming for both Hedman and Stamkos on July 1.
For Utah, they improve drastically ahead of next season, with a blue line that will now feature Sergachev, Marino, and presumably Sean Durzi and Juuso Valimaki if the latter two defensemen re-sign in Utah; both are RFA's on July 1. If they are extended, it'll be a solid set of top-four D-men heading into training camp later this year.
As it stands, both the Lightning and Utah HC were able to achieve some key objectives here, and at first glance, both general managers look to be winning as the draft continues on Saturday.
It will be interesting to see if — after making two moves each in just minutes — the Lightning or Utah have anything else up their sleeves ahead of free agent frenzy on Monday.