Trade action heats up at draft ahead of free agency

Two Stanley Cup-winning players got traded, a few others got new contracts and almost 200 prospects got to — virtually — live out their dreams by having their names called on the second day of the NHL draft.

It took over seven hours to complete rounds 2-7 on Wednesday at the draft held online from 31 teams’ draft rooms to the league’s central registry and a TV studio in New Jersey. The draft dragged on with no need for general managers, scouts and coaches to catch a flight home, but that didn’t tamper the excitement of young players finding out where they’re going or stop the movement of established NHL players with free agency looming Friday.

Some creativity was needed to manage the flat $81.5 million salary cap, which is becoming the theme of the 2020 offseason.

“Making a trade as you can see is pretty easy: There’s a lot of them, a lot of jockeying up and down for position in each round and people trading up for maybe a guy they like,” said New York Rangers general manager Jeff Gorton, who traded 2017 seventh overall pick Lias Andersson to Los Angeles for a second-rounder. “If you’re looking at some of the deals that are happening, money is almost a part of every deal here. You’re not seeing too many hockey deals straight up.”

Trade action started early with the Pittsburgh Penguins dealing goaltender Matt Murray to the Ottawa Senators and the Nashville Predators continuing to shed salary by sending center Nick Bonino to the Minnesota Wild.

“You just know on days like these if you get a phone call from your GM, it’s usually a trade,” Bonino said. “We got a spam call that woke me up around 7 a.m. and it obviously wasn’t (Predators general manager) David Poile. My wife slept through it luckily and then we were up at 9:30 a.m. and got the call from David and knew right away. It’s weird how it works out.”

Murray and Bonino became the third and fourth members of Pittsburgh’s 2016 and 2017 back-to-back championship teams to be traded in the past few weeks. The Penguins previously traded winger Patric Hornqvist to Florida, and Chicago traded defenseman Olli Maatta to Los Angeles.