Trade deadline winners and losers

Well that was fun.

After a busy deadline day that saw 16 deals involving 31 players, it’s going to take some time to sort it all out. [Takes a few minutes to sort it all out.] Yep, that’ll do it, let’s get to the winners and losers.

Winner: Deadline day anticipation

For years, we watched as NHL GMs got their dealing done early, finalizing their biggest moves in the days and even weeks leading up to deadline day. And whenever it happened, we’d all shake our heads and mumble about saving some of the action for the big day.

This year, that’s what the GMs did. Apart from Derick Brassard and Rick Nash, all of the biggest names were still available heading into this morning. Heck, they were all still available with an hour to go. If you wanted to see the drama go down to the wire like it did in the old days, today was your day.

Loser: Deadline day reality

No Erik Karlsson trade. No Max Pacioretty. No Mike Green. No Jack Johnson. No big-name surprises, unless you count Paul Stastny. It wasn’t a bad deadline day, but given how it was shaping up by mid-afternoon, it was starting to feel like a letdown. Luckily, two teams stepped up to save the day…

Winners: The Lightning and Rangers

They kept us waiting, not just until the deadline but well past it as we waited for the details of their blockbuster to leak out. But the wait was worth it.

Steve Yzerman went out and got his big-time defenseman, but it turned out not be Karlsson after all. Instead, he lands McDonagh and J.T. Miller for Vladislav Namestnikov, picks and prospects. That potentially reunites McDonagh with Dan Girardi, gives the Lightning one of the best 1-2 blue line punches in the league, and cements their status as the clear-cut Stanley Cup favourite. And he did it without giving up a key young piece like Mikhail Sergachev or Brayden Point. Yzerman is not playing around.

As for the Rangers, they told us what they were going to do and then they did it. Jeff Gorton got a nice haul for Nash, and he loads up on futures in this deal. Did he get enough for McDonagh, who still has a year left on a very team-friendly deal? It’s a decent return, but not an eye-popping one. But sometimes when you decide to rebuild, you have to be willing to make a clean break, if only to avoid that mushy middle so many teams are stuck in.

This deal, along with the Nash trade, certainly does that.

These are two teams headed purposefully and aggressively in opposite directions. There were no half-measures here. And their late-day bomb seemed to suck some of the air out of the rest of deadline day, leaving a few teams largely on the sidelines. Such as…

Loser: Ottawa

Just Ottawa. Not the front office. Not the team. Not the city. The whole thing. All of it.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Weekend wrap: Deadline day edition

They made us wait for it. But with the clock ticking down to today’s 3 p.m. ET trade deadline, NHL GMs finally got serious over the weekend, making a handful of meaningful deals. There’s plenty left on the market for today, but let’s get caught up on what the last few days has meant.

The Senators and Penguins kicked things off on Friday, with a little help from the Golden Knights. The Derick Brassard deal was complicated in its execution, but relatively simple in principle. The contending Penguins get even better down the middle, with Brassard instantly becoming just about the best third-line centre in the league.

The rebuilding Senators get some nice future assets, while also saving money. It makes sense for both teams, especially the Penguins. (As for the Golden Knights, we’re still trying to figure out what they get out of the deal beyond spending millions of dollars on a mid-round pick and an enforcer. Maybe it was about keeping Brassard out of the West, but it’s rare that you see one Cup contender volunteer to facilitate another’s improvement, let along write a check to do it.)

After a minor deal saw the Oilers send Brandon Davidson to the Islanders for a third, word of the next big trade dropped on Saturday night, although we had to wait until Sunday morning for it to become official. Boston gives up a ransom to get Rick Nash out of New York in a deal that signals that Don Sweeney and the Bruins are going for it all this year. But the price was high here; there’s a case to be made that going from Ryan Spooner to Nash isn’t all that much of an upgrade, let alone one worth spending a first-round pick on. (As far as first impressions go, Spooner had two points last night.)

From there, the Canadian teams took back the spotlight, with the Leafs and Canadiens hooking up on a rare deal. That one sent Tomas Plekanec to the Leafs for a second-round pick and two quasi-prospects. That’s not a bad haul for Montreal, especially since they can always re-sign Plekanec in the off-season. Meanwhile, the Leafs get some depth, and still have cap room to make another deal or two today. That move was followed by another Oilers deal, this one sending Mark Letestu to Columbus via Nashville. Edmonton gets Pontus Aberg, fulfilling Peter Chiarelli’s preference to get players who can help now over draft picks.

All in all, not a bad weekend. But there are still plenty of names left on the market, including the big one. Erik Karlsson is still a Senator as of this morning, but his odds of making it to the end of the day that way seem to be getting slimmer.

The Lightning still look like the favourites here, although the Predators, Sharks, and any number of late-emerging contender are lurking. There’s also Max Pacioretty, Evander Kane, Mike Green and Thomas Vanek, as well as slightly longer shots like Mike Hoffman and Ryan McDonagh. We spent the last few years telling NHL GMs “save it for deadline day”. These year they did, so get ready for what could be a long day.

We’ll be back this afternoon with a full rundown of all the winners and losers from the 2018 deadline. But as we settle in and wait for today’s action to kick off, let’s double-down on this week’s power rankings. We’ll use the regular versions to get caught up on the actual games played this weekend, then mix in some bonus lists to get set for today’s intrigue.

Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they’re headed towards Stanley Cup favorite status.

5. Boston Bruins (37-15-8, +44 true goals differential*) – Two weekend losses, including Saturday’s controversial finish in Toronto, weren’t even close to the most interesting thing to happen to the Bruins, who also traded for Nash, signed Brian Gionta and got the scare of watching Patrice Bergeron leave the ACC in a walking boot. (He was back in the lineup last night.)

4. Vegas Golden Knights (41-16-4, +49) – The Vegas Flu outbreak continues with no cure in sight, as the Knights wrapped up their latest homestand with five wins in seven.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Which NHL stars will end their careers as members of the one-franchise club?

You hear the term “franchise player” thrown around a lot these days, typically as a slightly fancier way of saying a player is very good. But actually playing out your entire career with one NHL franchise isn’t easy. Mario Lemieux managed to do it, but Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe didn’t. Nicklas Lidstrom did, but not Bobby Orr or Ray Bourque. Rocket Richard, Joe Sakic and Steve Yzerman made it, but not Mark Messier, Phil Esposito or Marcel Dionne.

And so far, it’s been an especially rough summer for modern-day players looking to join the club. Among the active leaders in games played with one team, as many as four players could have new homes in October. Patrick Marleau has already said goodbye to San Jose after 20 years. Shane Doan has been told that his services won’t be required in Arizona after 22 years with the organization, while Chris Neil got the same message from the Senators after 16. And as of right now, Andrei Markov’s 17-year tenure with the Canadiens appears to be in serious jeopardy.

Some of those players might still get to claim one-franchise status — Markov could re-sign in Montreal, and Doan and Neil could retire rather than sign elsewhere. But this summer has made it clear that playing out a decade or more with one organization doesn’t guarantee anything, and you never know when a player or team will decide that it’s time to sever a long-term relationship.

So today, let’s take a look at the 10 players with the most games played for a single team that they’re still on the roster of, and try to figure out which ones have the best odds of ending their career as a member of the one-franchise club.

Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Canucks

The tenure: 1,248 games for Henrik and 1,225 for Daniel, dating back to 2000

Why they’ll make it: Both sides in this one have been clear: The Sedins will finish their career in Vancouver. The twins have gone on the record to say they don’t want to leave. And the Canucks seem happy to hold onto them, resisting calls to think about moving their two veteran stars to help kickstart a rebuild.

On top of that, there’s another issue in play here: It’s just not easy to take on a pair of high salaries in the same deal. Assuming the twins will want to stay together wherever they play, there just aren’t many teams out there that could add that sort of cap hit. Sticking it out in Vancouver and then retiring as Canucks isn’t just the sentimental choice, it’s the practical one.

Why they won’t: The brothers have just one year left on their contracts, and the Canucks are expected to be a bad team this year and probably a few after that. Trading them today would be all but impossible, but getting a retained-salary deal done at the deadline might be realistic. And even assuming they finish the season as Canucks, the Sedins could head into unrestricted free agency next summer. Maybe they’d want to take a swing at a Stanley Cup somewhere before calling it quits.

Chance of making the one-franchise club: 75%. This will seem low to Canucks fans, many of whom seem to assume that the Sedins playing out their career in Vancouver is a sure thing. Maybe it is. But if Doan and the Coyotes taught us anything, it’s that loyalty has its limits, especially when a rebuilding team wants to go young. Is it really that hard to imagine the twins at least thinking about a discount deal with a contender next summer?

Henrik Zetterberg, Red Wings

The tenure: 1,000 games on the nose, dating back to 2002

Why they’ll make it: A lot of what we just wrote about the Sedins would apply here, too. It’s a veteran player on a rebuilding team that probably won’t have a shot at a Stanley Cup anytime soon.

But there are two key differences. First, Zetterberg already has a Cup ring. And second (and more importantly), he’s signed for four more years at a cap hit north of $6 million. Free agency isn’t on the radar, and even if the Red Wings wanted to trade him, they’d have trouble finding anyone willing to take on that deal.

On top of that, this is the Red Wings; no team holds onto its stars like Detroit. They made sure to do it for everyone from Yzerman to Lidstrom to Alex Delvecchio to Pavel Datsyuk. Well, kind of.

Why they won’t: Datsyuk never played anywhere else, but the Red Wings did trade his rights. That was a unique situation, of course, but it shows that Ken Holland is willing to get creative when it comes to dumping bad contracts. Zetterberg’s deal isn’t awful yet, but it’s headed there fast, and dumping it on a floor team down the line could be the sort of painful decision the rebuilding Wings have no choice but to make.

Chance of making the one-franchise club: 90%. In today’s NHL, I’m not sure you ever go higher than 90 until the player is actually making their way to the podium to announce their retirement. But of everyone on our list, Zetterberg is the most likely to retire with his team.

Dustin Brown, Kings

The tenure: 964 games dating back to 2003

Why they’ll make it: He’s been a warrior for the franchise, lifting two Stanley Cups as their captain. But let’s face it, the real reason Brown will retire as a King is his contract. With five years left at a nearly $6-million cap hit, and given Brown’s recent performance, it’s one of the worst contracts in the league. Even if the Kings wanted to trade him, no other team is going anywhere near that deal.

Why they won’t: The contract may be untradeable, but that doesn’t mean the Kings are stuck with it. Brown’s deal isn’t weighted down with bonuses, making it relatively straightforward to buy out. New management will no doubt give him a chance to find his game again before going that route, but this team already stripped him of his captaincy. The writing is on the wall here.

Chance of making the one-franchise club: 30%. Brown is a buyout waiting to happen.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet