Still some moves to make
As trade deadline nears, teams ponder what deals work best
The NHL’s top contenders did not wait until the last minute to do their shopping before the trade deadline.
The league-leading Bruins got bigger and tougher by adding Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway. The Maple Leafs got defensive by trading for Ryan O’Reilly. The Rangers answered their New York-rival Islanders’ move for Bo Horvat by acquiring Vladimir Tarasenko — and they’re not done yet.
A handful of big moves already have been made around the league, including a few Sunday, and many more are expected before the trade deadline Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern. Patrick Kane going from the Blackhawks to the Rangers is the most predictable deal on the docket, and yet plenty of uncertainty remains about what else will shake out.
“I’m not going to predict where the market goes next,” Bruins GM Don Sweeney said last week after making what could be his first big trade or his only big one. “That’s for all teams, all 32 teams, to continue to discuss.”
Discussions led the Sharks to trade winger Timo Meier to the Devils, according to reports Sunday. Other talks culminated with the Blues sending forward Ivan Barbashev to the Golden Knights for 20-year-old prospect Zach Dean and the Stars getting 20-goalscorer Evgenii Dadnov from the Canadiens for Denis Gurianov.
More are ongoing around Kane, the Sharks’ Erik Karlsson, Coyotes’ Jakob Chychrun, Flyers’ James van Riemsdyk and the Capitals’ handful of pending free agents after the perennial contenders went from buyers to sellers.
Prices have been high on a lot of players, most notably Meier and Chychrun, who are the top players expected to change places by the deadline.
What already has happened
The Islanders made their splash in late January, getting Horvat, a 30-goal scorer, from the Canucks and signing him to an eight-year extension. The Rangers, after the All-Star break in early February, got Tarasenko and big defenseman Niko Mikkola from the Blues to start loading up to try to repeat or improve on their trip to the Eastern Conference final.
“You want to win, and you want to be a part of good hockey teams who can win,” Mikkola said. “The whole team is good, and we can go deep. We all know that.”
The Leafs want to go deep, but they haven’t won a playoff series since 2004 — before the NHL had a salary cap. Acquiring O’Reilly, a playoff MVP in 2019 when the Blues won the Stanley Cup, and tough depth forward Noel Acciari sets them up better for that pursuit, if their goaltending holds up.
What’s about to happen
The worst-kept secret in the sport is Kane’s connection to the Rangers.
After the Rangers got Tarasenko, thinking the price for Meier or Kane would be too high, Kane said: “If things were going to happen ... that was a team that I was definitely looking at.”
Not much of a poker face, but Kane has a full no-movement clause, meaning the three-time Cup champion who was league MVP in 2015-16 can choose where he wants to go. Rangers GM Chris Drury took care of his end of the money aspect Saturday by trading Vitali Kravtsov to the Canucks and waiving Jake Leschyshyn.
And while Kane’s name isn’t being uttered around the Rangers, there’s an uneasiness around them as the buzz seeps into the locker room.
“It always does at this time of the year,” coach Gerard Gallant said. “It’s tough on some players. But at the end of the day, you’re trying to make your team better.”
What may or may not happen
Sellers also are buying while still selling — mass hysteria. Well, not quite hysteria, but it’s not as simple as the haves and the havenots at this deadline.
The Blues, even after trading Tarasenko, Mikkola, O’Reilly, Acciari and Barbashev, could also be in the market for Chychrun or other players signed beyond this season. Same goes for the Capitals, who won the Cup in 2018 and have made the playoffs every year since 2014 but have been beset by injuries and other events that could end the streak.
The Caps sent Orlov and Hathaway to the Bruins and still could trade forwards Lars Eller, Conor Sheary and Marcus Johansson and defenseman Nick Jensen, Trevor van Riemsdyk and Erik Gustafsson, all of whom are pending free agents.
With Alex Ovechkin in pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s career goals record, the Capitals aren’t going into a rebuild any time soon, and GM Brian MacLellan already has foreshadowed taking the picks acquired and flipping them to win again as soon as next year.