{"id":492147,"date":"2026-06-20T08:05:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=492147"},"modified":"2026-06-19T22:05:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T02:05:33","slug":"raddysh-trade-tampa-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/06\/20\/raddysh-trade-tampa-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Darren Raddysh Trade to Toronto Impact On Tampa Bay’s 2026-27 Defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> have acquired a fifth-round pick in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft from the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> in exchange for defenceman Darren Raddysh<\/a>, vice president and general manager Julien BriseBois<\/a> announced Friday. Raddysh, 30, played in 73 games for Tampa Bay this season and established a franchise record for goals in a single season by a defenceman with 22. The 6-foot-1, 202-pound blueliner led Lightning defencemen in goals, assists (48), points (70), power-play goals (10), power-play points (26) and game-winning goals (six) in 2025-26. Raddysh has played in 249 career NHL games, all with Tampa Bay, and has recorded 35 goals and 143 points.<\/p>\n

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Credit Image: \u00a9 Andrew J. Kramer\/Cal Sport Media<\/span><\/p>\n

Bolts Need a Regroup After <\/strong>Darren Raddysh Trade to Toronto\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Raddysh was originally undrafted and signed as a free agent by the Chicago Blackhawks on May 21, 2018. Yesterday’s move came as part of a sign-and-trade, with Raddysh signing an eight-year contract with an average annual value of $8.5 million with Toronto rather than testing unrestricted free agency on July 1. The total value of the deal comes to $68 million. It’s a staggering payday for a player who, as recently as two seasons ago, was a complementary piece on Tampa Bay’s blue line rather than its centrepiece.<\/p>\n

What the Lightning Lose<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The numbers alone undersell how disruptive this Raddysh trade is to Tampa. Moreover, he wasn’t just productive, he was the engine of Tampa Bay’s second unit and arguably its most dangerous weapon from the right point. He tallied 26 points on the power play, operating alongside Nikita Kucherov<\/a> and Jake Guentzel<\/a>, using a booming one-timer from the point to score 10 power play goals this past season. That shot was a legitimate weapon, not simply a complement to the Lightning’s top unit. It was a second strike threat that forced opposing penalty kills to defend the entire ice surface instead of collapsing on Kucherov.<\/p>\n

Defensively, losing a 22:42-per-game, plus-21 defenceman who logged 73 games is not a depth-chart tweak. It’s a structural hole. Tampa will need to redistribute those minutes across the right side, and Tampa Bay’s options are not obvious. The Lightning’s blue line was already leaning heavily on Victor Hedman<\/a> to anchor the left side and absorb top matchups; without Raddysh, the right side loses its only proven point-production threat and a defenceman who’d grown into a legitimately reliable two-way piece, not just a power-play specialist.<\/p>\n

Raddysh Trade to the Leafs and Tampa Replacing the Production<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The most pressing question is the second power-play unit. Tampa Bay doesn’t have an obvious in-house replacement with a shot profile like Raddysh’s. He’s a low, hard, accurate release from the right circle that consistently found lanes through traffic. If no internal candidate steps up in training camp, expect the Bolts to be active in the trade and free-agent markets for a right-shot offensive defenceman, even on a short-term or value deal, simply to stabilize special teams.<\/p>\n

Five-on-five is a separate problem. Raddysh’s puck-moving ability let Tampa Bay exit its own zone cleanly and join the rush, which took pressure off the forward group to do all the heavy lifting through the neutral zone. Whoever absorbs the minutes of the Raddysh exit to the Leafs, whether that’s a returning depth piece, a free-agent addition, or an internal promotion from the system, will be graded against a player who just set a franchise record. That’s an unforgiving bar.<\/p>\n

The Bigger Picture<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This trade also reflects something larger happening across the NHL. That being the rise in defencemen with a shot and offensive instincts are getting paid like top-line forwards. An eight-year, $8.5 million average annual value deal for a player who didn’t crack a $1 million salary before this season is a massive bet by Toronto. It’s also a signal that Tampa Bay either couldn’t or wouldn’t match that term and dollar figure for a 30-year-old coming off a career year, a defensible position given the long-term risk of paying for one outlier season.<\/p>\n

For BriseBois, the return is modest on paper. A fifth-round pick. But the real return is cap flexibility and the avoidance of an albatross contract on the back nine of Raddysh’s career. The cost for the Raddysh exit to the Leafs is real, though: Tampa Bay’s blueline just got noticeably thinner on paper, and how the front office fills that gap before training camp will say a lot about whether this was a shrewd financial move or a competitive setback heading into next season.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Lightning have acquired a fifth-round pick in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for defenceman Darren Raddysh, vice president and general manager Julien BriseBois announced Friday. Raddysh, 30, played in 73 games for Tampa Bay this season and established a franchise record for goals in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5453,"featured_media":446953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4547,34,4548,18],"tags":[7817,5951],"class_list":["post-492147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lightning","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-leafs","tag-darren-raddysh","tag-toronto-maple-leafs-news"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492147"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":492215,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492147\/revisions\/492215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}