"And we're trying to win," Yzerman told the Lightning Morning Skate Show. "If I could do something that helped our team make a trade that identified a need for us -- not just for this year, but going forward -- I would do that, and haven't been able to do that to this point, and that's been going on, really, since the [NHL Draft] last year."
The Lightning on Jan. 26 traded defenseman Nikita Nesterov to the Montreal Canadiens for defenseman Jonathan Racine and a sixth-round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft. The 2017 NHL Trade Deadline is March 1.
"It's relatively quiet around the League for a lot of reasons," Yzerman said. "One is simply the [NHL salary cap]. A lot of teams don't have the cap space. And another is, everybody is kind of in the fight. There's very few teams that would consider today and say, 'We're out of it … We're just going to start moving our assets.' And those teams need partners, and the teams at the top don't have the cap space and don't have the urgency to do anything, so it'll get closer to the deadline for us, or in the middle a little bit."
Tampa Bay (22-24-6) is 1-4-2 in its past seven games. The Lightning lost to the Bruins 4-3 on Tuesday to open a four-game homestand.