Hall finds new home in Boston
Most teams opt for depth on NHL trade deadline day
General managers worked into the wee hours ahead of the NHL’s trade deadline.
Deals started flying left and right — six in all — after 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, and didn’t stop until well after midnight.
The teams involved in that flurry of activity were no doubt pleased with the results, but it certainly made for a quiet Monday.
The 17 trades consummated before the 1 p.m. cutoff were the fewest since the league’s lockout shortened 2012-13 campaign, while the 23 players changing teams were the fewest since 2000.
The NHL’s pandemic deadline day largely featured depth moves as teams manoeuvred around a variety of challenges unique to 2021, including a flat salary cap, a condensed schedule, drastically reduced revenues, quarantines and an expansion draft looming just over the horizon.
“It seemed like a lot of the top teams this year that think they have a chance to win their divisions were adding players,” Vancouver Canucks GM Jim Benning said. “What we’ve seen in past years is teams that were playing for playoff spots were trying to add, too, for that push to make the playoffs. I don’t think we’ve necessarily seen that this year ... It was a buyer’s market.”
There was, however, a flurry of activity before Monday’s trade trickle.
The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired veteran winger Nick Foligno from the Columbus Blue Jackets in a three-team swap to get things going Sunday evening before the Boston Bruins wrapped up the deluge by announcing they’d secured the services of 2018 Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall in a deal with the Buffalo Sabres.
In between, the Bruins also got defenceman Mike Reilly from the Ottawa Senators, the Leafs nabbed goaltender David Rittich from the Calgary Flames, Ottawa shipped blue-liner Braydon Coburn to the New York Islanders, and the Pittsburgh Penguins added centre and two-time Stanley Cup champion Jeff Carter from the Los Angeles Kings.
The trade for Hall, who was dealt along with winger Curtis Lazar to Boston for forward
Anders Bjork and a 2021 secondround pick, was officially announced at 8 a.m. ET, but widely reported late Sunday and early Monday. Viewed as the top rental asset on the market, the Sabres agreed to retain half of Hall’s remaining one-year, US$8 million salary.
The Leafs, Winnipeg Jets, Edmonton Oilers and Montreal Canadiens, who all sit comfortably in playoff positions in the Canadian-based North Division, then secured depth moves later in the day with an eye toward shoring up their rosters with the knowledge any player acquired from a U.S.-based club would have to quarantine seven days.
After making the biggest splash among teams from Canada by acquiring Foligno and centre Riley Nash from Columbus in separate deals, and Rittich from Calgary in the days before the deadline, the Leafs added defenceman Ben Hutton from the Anaheim Ducks for a 2022 fifth-round pick.
Toronto, which leads the North, also shipped winger Alexander Barabanov to the San Jose Sharks for minor-league centre Antti Suomela.
“I felt that the group of players and coaches had deserved every effort on our end, on management, to bolster the team and try to give us as great a chance as possible down the stretch in our division and into the playoffs,” Leafs GM Kyle Dubas said.