Well, that was a bit of a weird deadline. It wasn’t a bad one, although I’m not sure it will rank all that highly among the best of the best. It had some decent names, and at least one surprise that we’ll get to down below. It also had plenty of names that we were told to watch out for who didn’t end up going anywhere.
If you missed it over the week, you can get caught up here: Trade grades for all the big deals, the classic winners and losers and grades for each team.
In theory, a deadline week’s worth of player movement should cause some churn in the rankings. In reality, the deadline was a reasonably quiet one. How does that all play out? We’ll find out in a bit, but first, let’s lay the deadline to rest with a few final thoughts.
Bonus five: Final thoughts from a weird trade deadline
5. The timing was odd — By Tuesday, we were wondering where all the deals were. We were largely still wondering well into Friday afternoon, with only a handful of trades done. We did eventually get that final-hour surge we’re used to by now, and I’m not sure we can really learn anything here other than that the Olympic freeze didn’t seem to help and maybe hurt. But man, it was quiet, right up until it wasn’t.
4. The dumbest story of the deadline — … had to be GMs being surprised by the CBA, right? I mean, I knew about the changes to double-retention and playoff caps. I’m guessing you did, too. But the 32 GMs, whose whole job is to know this stuff? Apparently at least a few of them were caught off guard.
3. We miss hockey trades — Were there even any? We don’t expect to see a ton at this time of year, but you’d think at least a few teams might find the rental market lacking and decide to try an old-fashioned player-for-player swap. I guess you could put the Bobby Brink/David Jircek deal into this category, but that’s about it.
2. GMs are getting comfortable with trading for term — That was a big theme of this year’s approach, with guys such as Nazem Kadri, MacKenzie Weegar and Brayden Schenn all moving with multiple years left on contracts that may not age well. We’re not used to seeing that at deadline time, which is usually more about rentals. That never made a ton of sense — after all, term isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it was weird to see the same GMs who hand out max-length deals to their own guys like candy suddenly be worried about everyone else’s. Maybe they’re finally figuring it out.
1. As always, the teams that sit out may be the biggest stories — I’m especially thinking about the Hurricanes, who always go big-game hunting but couldn’t find a worthy target. The Canadiens were apparently trying to do something big, but couldn’t make it happen. The Devils were quiet, and now you wonder if Tom Fitzgerald even gets another chance in the summer. The Senators’ approach made sense, but you wonder how it looks in hindsight if they miss the postseason by a point or two. And I’m still not sure I’m ready to live in a world in which the Vegas Golden Knights take it easy at deadline time.
On to this week’s rankings.
Road to the Cup
The five teams with the best chances of winning the Stanley Cup.
Important post-deadline news: The Corey Perry trade means Artemi Panarin no longer has to pretend to be friends with a mascot.
5. Minnesota Wild (37-16-11, +30 true goals differential*) — Their deadline was fine, especially given the big-game hunting they’d already pulled off. But it’s starting to look inevitable that they’ll get the Dallas Stars in Round 1, and probably as a road team. That’s rough, no matter how good your lineup looks.
4. Tampa Bay Lightning (39-19-4, +49) — I don’t think we’ll get any arguments about the game of the weekend. Or the week. Heck, maybe the season. Yesterday’s Lightning/Sabres game absolutely ruled. It had a ton of offense, plenty of bad blood and one of the best atmospheres I can remember for a March game. The Sabres’ playoff run is going to kick so much behind.
As for the Lightning, they’ve been cold coming out of the break, with just two wins in seven. Worse, both of those wins came against the Maple Leafs, meaning Tampa is 0-and-5 against teams whose players aren’t blinking “I quit” in Morse code throughout every shift. All of which makes you wonder: Is it time to drop the Lightning off the list entirely, and swap in the Sabres? My answer: Maybe! It’s absolutely on the table. I’d like one more week to mull it over, but I’m starting to think the Sabres may not give us much of a choice.
3. Carolina Hurricanes (40-17-6, +40) — Somewhat quietly, they became just the second team to get to the 40-win mark with Friday’s victory in Edmonton.
2. Dallas Stars (39-14-10, +47) — The big news of the weekend is they lost a game. Kind of. Friday’s loss to the Avalanche came in a shootout, so it only sort of counts. Still, it was an opportunity to plant some doubt about who’s really in charge in the Central, and that opportunity was missed.
1. Colorado Avalanche (43-10-9, +85) — I absolutely love the Kadri addition. It’s a good move by both teams, a great move for the player himself and a fantastic one for all of us fans who missed the Kadri playoff experience.
Oh, right, they also beat the Wild and Stars on the same weekend, which was a nice flex even if both wins were shootouts. Those points probably put an end to any thought of the Central’s top seed being back in play.
*Goals differential without counting shootout decisions like the NHL does for some reason.
Not ranked: Edmonton Oilers — So that’s that. In the end, Stan Bowman’s trade deadline was a mixed bag, one that saw him pay seller’s prices to bring in added depth. Connor Murphy, Jason Dickinson and Colton Dach should all help to varying degrees. The prices were high, but flags fly forever.
The question is whether we expect any flags in Edmonton after this season, given how things have gone so far. In a sense, Bowman was in a no-win situation — tight to the salary ceiling and without a ton of future capital to work with, with a team that had plenty of needs and a clock ticking loudly. Did he do enough? Too much? Somehow thread the needle and find the sweet spot?
The fun part is we don’t have to answer now, because the Oilers have always been a Cup-or-bust team. That makes this easy. We just wait a few months, and then retcon Bowman’s deadline however we need to.
For now, Allan gives him a B for his work, which sounds fair enough for the moves that were made. The big story may end up being the one that wasn’t, as Bowman stood pat on his goaltending. I made the case against that approach last week and still stand by it. It was the team’s biggest question mark heading into the season, and so far Bowman’s lone move of turning Stuart Skinner into Tristan Jarry has made it worse. If the Oilers make an early playoff exit because Jarry (or whoever replaces him) gets lit up, the postmortems will write themselves. Of course, if Jarry flips the script and ends up being the answer, he and Bowman might both get statues in Edmonton someday.
That’s the beauty of this kind of all-or-nothing decision. For now, while we wait for hindsight to give us 20/20 vision, the Oilers still need to lock that playoff spot down. That’s no sure thing yet, although it’s hard to imagine the sort of late collapse that would cause them to miss. This week will present a good test of where they stand among the Western heavyweights. They’ll follow last night’s win in Vegas with trips to Colorado tomorrow and Dallas on Thursday.
The bottom five
The five teams headed toward dead last, the best lottery odds for the top pick in this year’s draft and a shot at Gavin McKenna or Ivar Stenberg.
Come on, Bo Horvat, you know better than that. You can’t just go around booping a guy’s snoot and not expect the Department of Player Safety to let it slide.
5. New York Rangers (24-30-8, -32) — This piece nails it: Chris Drury is rolling the dice by holding Vincent Trocheck. He has term left, so in theory, there was no rush, and the team can revisit a move in the summer or beyond. It wasn’t a take-whatever-you-can-get scenario for Drury. But it also feels like Trocheck’s value will never be higher than it was coming off an impressive Olympic showing, making it tough to imagine his price going up. (For what it’s worth, Trocheck sounds thrilled to stay.)
4. St. Louis Blues (25-29-9, 44) — We named them the deadline’s most interesting team in last week’s newsletter, and they lived up to it both in terms of the deals they made and the ones they didn’t. Or both, in the case of Colton Parayko to Buffalo. No blockbusters for Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou or Jordan Binnington. But Doug Armstrong did well on Justin Faulk and got a nice haul for Brayden Schenn, thanks in part to the Islanders staying in the same hotel, giving Patrick Roy the chance to take him hostage talk him into it.
Also, Parayko’s new nickname is The Elephant In The Room. We’re working on an expedited session of Nickname Court to hammer that one through.
3. Calgary Flames (25-30-7, -33) — The teardown is the easy part. But it still has to be done right, and Craig Conroy has done some impressive work piling up draft capital.
2. Chicago Blackhawks (23-29-11, -34) — Essentially giving Nick Foligno to the Wild so he can chase a Cup with his brother was a nice move. But the bigger issue in Chicago is one Laz nails in a column: How much longer are the Hawks planning to be perennial sellers?
And of course: RIP Troy Murray.
1. Vancouver Canucks (19-36-8, -73) — I would have liked to have seen them move Elias Pettersson, although that was obviously always going to be a lot easier to do from a couch than in real life.
Not ranked: Washington Capitals — It’s not often we get a genuine “I can’t believe that guy got traded” moment at a deadline, but the John Carlson trade provided one.
From a distance, maybe it shouldn’t have. After all, you have a veteran having a good season on a so-so team, and he’s on an expiring contract. That’s a classic rental scenario, the kind that often produces a move. Standard stuff, really.
Except in this case, the veteran was a franchise icon who’d spent his entire 17-season NHL career in Washington. And even in the middle of a disappointing season for this team, Carlson didn’t seem to want to go and chase a Cup somewhere else. (He had no-trade protection, but it didn’t include the Ducks.) This wasn’t a feel-good story of a team doing right by a veteran leader, as the Hawks did for Nick Foligno. This was a front office making a hard decision, one it knows won’t be popular with a big chunk of the fan base, but doing it anyway because they think it’s the right move for the franchise going forward.
There’s a certain admirable courage in that, and I’ve done the timid GM schtick for long enough that I’m not going to slam Chris Patrick here. But the trade is a fascinating one, not least because it seems to suggest that the Caps are throwing in the towel on a playoff race that the standings page says they’re still very much in.
By the end of deadline day, the Capitals were four points back of the wild-card Bruins, who had two games in hand, and six back of the Islanders, with equal games played. That’s tough, but not insurmountable, and our playoff projections had the Caps at 36 percent. It’s rare, bordering on unheard of, for teams to sell in that situation. It probably shouldn’t be, because history has seen plenty of teams pass up on opportunities in favor of selling false hope. Patrick didn’t do that here, instead making a bold move for a solid return that could pay off in a big way down the road.
It’s the short term that’s the more interesting variable, at least for now. The Alex Ovechkin factor looms large here, with the captain calling it “probably the toughest day in my career.” Hurt feelings come and go in this league, but that’s a situation worth watching, if only to make sure it doesn’t spiral into something ugly.
For now, the Capitals have a season to finish. They did get some minor additions in David Kämpf and Timothy Liljegren, so it’s not like the white flag is waving quite yet. But Saturday’s regulation loss to the Bruins was a massive missed opportunity, and may spell the end. And assuming they miss the playoffs, the offseason becomes another interesting inflection point. They’ll probably have the Ducks’ first-round pick, which transfers automatically unless Anaheim implodes and misses the playoffs. Do they use it to build toward a post-Carlson (and post-Ovechkin) era? Or is it ammo for the sort of trade that would put them back in the Metro conversation next year?
Time will tell. But one thing we can say with some certainty now: Don’t assume Patrick will take the easy way out. Apparently, the Capitals aren’t scared of making hard decisions.