This year's NHL trade deadline was literally like no other

The NHL trade deadline is officially over and it’s time to start looking ahead to the playoffs. As we do that, here are some thoughts on trade season in a special edition of 10 Insights and Observations.

An NHL trade deadline like no other... literally

The trade deadline this year felt like all of the keeners in school were leading it: finishing the work well in advance of the due date. There were 43 trades made in the 14 days before deadline day. Over the 10 years before this one, the average was 18 trades in those 14 days.

One thing I did wonder about that I can’t really prove one way or the other is that this trade deadline was on a Friday. Over the past 10 years, the deadline was traditionally on a Monday, and if not Monday, then it was on a Wednesday. This was the first Friday deadline and much like the rest of us, it appears NHL general managers also don’t like working much at the end of the week.

One thing to look for in the coming years is whether this trend of getting trades done early holds. From the acquiring team’s perspective, the approach makes sense because they are getting a player into their lineup weeks in advance, meaning they have extra time to adjust to their new surroundings. From the seller’s side, the question will be whether that’s the way to squeeze out the most value. If you set a price and get it, so be it. But if you wait and the bidding war comes down to the wire, does that cause a panic move and help your net return?

It’s high-stakes poker. Not every year is a buyer’s market full of options like this season.

A draft pick for your troubles

The star of the deadline this season might have been double salary cap retention. It’s crazy to think that the ability to retain salary was only implemented in the 2013 CBA. While a number of teams have retained on cap hits to facilitate trades, the use of a third-party broker really took off this season.

From 2013 to the start of this season, there were only eight trades that involved double retention. This year, there were four (the Ryan O’Reilly trade, the Dmitry Orlov trade, the Nick Bonino trade and the Patrick Kane trade).

A large part of this is likely due to the salary cap barely rising. CapFriendly currently lists 21 teams that have under $1 million in cap space. Every dollar matters and teams have had to get creative to facilitate trades. To act as a broker, teams received a third-round pick (Kane), fourth-rounder (O'Reilly), and two fifth-rounders (Orlov and Bonino). It’s not a huge price to pay but now that we’ve seen a number of these trades take place, we have an idea for the market moving forward. If you need a third-party broker to make a trade work, it’s likely costing you between a 3rd and a 5th.

Wild walking a fine line

During the trade deadline, teams are usually buyers or sellers. Where things get interesting is when teams try a balancing act.

The Minnesota Wild felt like one of those teams. As the Jets free fall, the Wild are firmly in a playoff spot now but they used their cap space to act as a third-party broker twice instead of trying to add as much value as possible to load up their team. They traded away Jordan Greenway, who has struggled this season but is strong defensively and does play to their identity. In part, they wanted to clear his cap hit for the seasons to come, which is understandable.

At the same time, they added Oskar Sundqvist, Marcus Johansson, John Klingberg and Gustav Nyquist. They hold all of their first- and second-round draft picks moving forward, plus have a second from Vegas as part of the Greenway trade. The Wild would surely view it as doing a bit of everything, clearing the deck moving forward, adding for now and taking some free lottery tickets along the way as a third-party broker.

They didn’t trade away pending UFA Matt Dumba, either. After the deadline, general manager Bill Guerin said, “We’re serious about winning.” They should be. How he balanced the deadline and his cap space might be something we look back on favourably.

Avalanche take different approach this year

There are two things we know about any team defending their Stanley Cup championship: they take serious pride in it, and they are confident in their core. When you win it once, you want to keep the good times rolling. Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Chicago and LA have all won multiple Cups over the past decade and change.

Which brings us to the Colorado Avalanche, who were quiet at the deadline. They made one trade, acquiring Lars Eller for a second-round pick. In fairness, he has a strong playoff pedigree and makes them reasonably deeper at centre, which is noteworthy. Earlier in the season, they also added Matt Nieto, a reasonable role player. If Gabriel Landeskog can return and find his form, it’s as big an add that any team will have made.

But a year after going for it at the deadline, adding Artturi Lehkonen, Josh Manson and Andrew Cogliano, they made much smaller moves. That's to say nothing of losing Nazem Kadri and Andre Burakovsky from last year’s run. The West is wide open and the Avalanche are certainly right in the mix to win it. They took a much different approach to this year’s deadline, though, and now we wait to see how their Cup defense goes.

No mighty roar for Panthers

There was one team that did not make any trades at all over the past month: the Florida Panthers. It’s possible they were simply stuck. Their only pending UFAs are Eric and Marc Staal, Radko Gudas, goalie Alex Lyon and the injured Patric Hornqvist. You wouldn’t exactly get much for any of them, save maybe Gudas, who is the type of player any playoff team would like to have on their roster in some capacity.

The Panthers also don’t exactly have draft picks to play with. They don’t have a first-round pick in each of the next three drafts. They don’t have a third this season or a second next season, either. They are going to have to leapfrog a number of teams in the standings to make the postseason. That is a tall, tall task.

They didn’t get any help from the outside, though they did recently get Anthony Duclair back for the first time this season. They just seem stuck, and all the while Montreal watches from the sideline, holding the Panthers' first-round pick this year.