At trade deadline time, no shortage of anxiety
The NHL trade deadline is 3 p.m. ET Wednesday, yet player agent Steve Bartlett won’t sound the “all clear” to his clients until an hour later.
“I don’t look at the strike of 3 as being out of the woods,” Bartlett told USA TODAY Sports. “You have to make sure all the trade calls to central registry are completed and you aren’t going to get that last-minute whammy.”
The trade deadline has evolved into a hockey holiday. Canadian television and the NHL Network provide all-day coverage. It’s like Christmas Day for fans because everyone receives gifts. Contenders get veterans to help with playoff preparation, and teams low in the standings reload with draft picks and prospects.
But deadline day, and the days leading up to it, can be emotional for players.
Arizona Coyotes captain Shane Doan, who is close with Martin Hanzal, expressed frustration with his team’s situation after Hanzal and Ryan White were traded to the Minnesota Wild on Sunday.
“It’s really hard,” Doan told Fox Sports. “Obviously (Hanzal) was a huge part of our team and someone you get to play with for 10 years, you appreciate and you understand how valuable and how you can’t really replace him. ... It’s hard to understand, exactly. You understand people’s hands are tied. (But) you just don’t get it.”
We’ve seen as many as 31 trades involving 55 players (2010) on deadline day. Last season, there were 19 trades involving 37 players. With key rental forwards Patrick Eaves and Hanzal, plus defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk and goalie Ben Bishop moving over the past few days, the expectation is about 15 deals Wednesday.
With playoff races tight, there’s a shortage of sellers. The Detroit Red Wings, Coyotes, Tampa Bay Lightning, Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars are the primary sellers, although the Buffalo Sabres also might move a player or two.
The St. Louis Blues traded Shattenkirk, a prized puck-moving defenseman, to the Washington Capitals. The Blues are a playoff team, but they didn’t relish losing Shattenkirk to free agency this summer without getting something in return. He fetched the team a first-round pick, a prospect and a conditional second-round pick.
The most intriguing rental forward remaining might be Detroit’s Thomas Vanek, who is represented by Bartlett.
“You try not to think about it, but everybody does,” Vanek said. “It’s hard not to.”
The last-place Red Wings have qualified for the playoffs for 25 consecutive seasons, meaning they are usually buyers. Tuesday, they traded defenseman Brendan Smith to the New York Rangers for a 2018 second-round pick and a 2019 third-round pick. Vanek, forward Steve Ott and center Riley Sheahan also could move by Wednesday afternoon.
Bartlett said he has seen the emotional extremes when it comes to deadline deals.
“Some guys are excited about the opportunity and other guys are crushed,” he said. “But the beauty of hockey is that when you go to a new team and enter a dressing room, you end up with new friends pretty quickly. It’s the culture of the sport — the reception a traded player receives from his new team is always exceptional.”
New York Islanders interim coach Doug Weight, who was traded four times in his career, says players use gallows humor to relieve the tension. When a player is linked to trade rumors, his teammates will remind him to pack extra suits if the team will be on the road for deadline day.
“It’s not a great time of year for players,” Weight said. “But right now we have other things to focus on.”
In 2006, Weight was dealt by the Blues to the Carolina Hurricanes a few weeks before the trade deadline.
“He was stunned at the time,” said Bartlett, who represented Weight. “But he ended up getting a Stanley Cup out of it. That one had a happy ending. But there are other situations where it hasn’t worked out.”
Former NHL player and agent Tom Laidlaw said ego issues add to the family and logistical concerns for a traded player.
It happened to him years ago when the Rangers traded Bobby Carpenter and him to the Los Angeles Kings for Marcel Dionne.
“You don’t want to feel like the team just wanted to get rid of you,” Laidlaw said. “To me, it was important who they got in return. Today, I would say I was traded for Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne.”
But that’s not how he felt when he first heard about the deal. Dionne was 36 and near the end of his career. “I remember thinking, ‘I just got traded for a 90-yearold guy,’ ” Laidlaw said, laughing.