Winners and Losers from the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline
Every year we get all kinds of heated up for the NHL trade deadline and it's always a mystery as to how it'll play out and whether it's going to be hectic. If anything, we should start calling it trade deadline week so we can appreciate all the moves that happen leading up to the end of the trade window.
But this year's deadline, while not totally overflowing with moves on the final day, still had some doozies, and that's both a compliment and a put-down.
Like all trade deadlines, we're going to take a hard look at the winners and losers of the annual transaction party and, luckily for us, those who came out on top and those who stepped on a multitude of rakes were rather apparent.
After all, this is the last time teams who want to better position themselves for the postseason or make that final push to get in the playoffs have to address any and all perceived and very real weaknesses. Winners, losers, we've got it all sorted out in the aftermath of yet another deadline to remember.
Winner: Stunners at the Buzzer
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Vegas Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon and owner Bill Foley have never met a transaction they couldn't make and a salary cap they couldn't make look even fuzzier.
The Golden Knights headed into deadline day having already made two big splashes, adding forward Anthony Mantha from Washington and defenseman Noah Hanifin from Calgary. But they saved the biggest blockbuster for deadline day when they acquired Tomáš Hertl and a pair of third-round picks from the San Jose Sharks for 2023 first-round pick David Edstrom and Vegas' 2025 first-round pick just as the 3 p.m. ET deadline struck.
With closers like that, you'll get a lifetime residency at any showplace on the Strip. What else would expect from a team based in Las Vegas? It's all about entertainment, and Vegas will stop at nothing to make sure it is a winner by using up every cent of LTIR spending as well as any and all prospects and picks to win now.
In a league where we always hear GMs talk about how hard it is to make a deal, Vegas makes it seem like child's play. The salary cap doesn't affect the Golden Knights, and they don't hug their picks and prospects without letting go.
Just win, baby...or else.
Loser: New Jersey Devils
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The Devils' season was supposed to be about challenging for the Stanley Cup, but it turned into a huge disappointment that led to dealing a scorer and addressing a position that needed to be fixed up before they got too far out of the playoff hunt.
New Jersey dealt Tyler Toffoli to Winnipeg for a 2024 third-round pick and a 2025 second-rounder. Toffoli is a free agent in the summer and was likely going to walk, so that's at least a good bit of business. They also sent defenseman Colin Miller to the Jets in a separate deal.
The Devils also made two trades to change up their goaltending. They acquired Jake Allen from the Montréal Canadiens for a conditional pick in 2025 and Kaapo Kähkönen from San Jose for Vitek Vanecek and a 2025 seventh-round pick. Clearly the Devils' idea here was that anyone different must be someone better than what they've gone with.
Allen and Kähkönen are veteran goalies, and while Kähkönen is set to be a UFA this summer, Allen has one year left on his contract. They can handle whatever is thrown at them workload-wise and that's fine, but the likelihood one or both of them can somehow get them back into the playoff race with fewer than 20 games to play is murky at best as they trail the second wild-card spot by six points.
If this goaltending "Hail Mary" pays off and Dougie Hamilton returns from injury, things could get interesting, but GM Tom Fitzgerald really needed to make moves much sooner than this.
Winner: Carolina Hurricanes
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It seems like the past few years we've been waiting for the Carolina Hurricanes to make a big move or two at the deadline to give them a boost heading into the playoffs. After a couple of slip-ups in a row, GM Don Waddell was apparently tired of it.
The Hurricanes added arguably the best player available at the deadline in Pittsburgh's Jake Guentzel. The kind of game Guentzel plays is seemingly tailored to fit Carolina, and slotting him in next to Sebastian Aho seems like a no-brainer to give the 'Canes a major offensive boost and a proven playoff scorer. Even more importantly, they didn't have to give up the farm to get him, although that's much in due to the fact that the UFA-to-be didn't want to talk about a contract extension. Another problem for another time and ideally after they're celebrating the Stanley Cup.
Or maybe they can put Guentzel next to Evgeny Kuznetsov who they, quite surprisingly, acquired from the Washington Capitals. Kuznetsov's time with the Caps was done, especially after they waived him and sent him to Hershey. But the Capitals are eating 50 percent of the money, which takes him from a $7.8 million cap hit to a far more palatable $3.9 million.
With Kuznetsov coming out of the NHL Players' Assistance Program and an opportunity to reset himself after a tumultuous end to his Caps career, he could be a sneaky good addition.
Carolina will never have a better opportunity (or roster) to go all the way than right now.
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Loser: Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs
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We're calling the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs deadline losers because they're probably going to have to deal with each other in the first round of the playoffs and didn't make a notable splash move to try to overtly improve their rosters.
The Leafs saw weaknesses with their forward and defensive depth and attacked those by adding forward Connor Dewar from Minnesota as well as defensemen Ilya Lyubushkin a week ago and Joel Edmundson from Washington. They also lost defenseman William Lagesson on waivers to Anaheim.
The Leafs lost John Klingberg for the season earlier this year, and Mark Giordano is out with a head injury. They've also been without Conor Timmins, who has had mono. Still, Edmundson and Lyubushkin aren't speed merchants, and even though Lyubushkin was in Toronto previously, the choices are curious. At the very least, they're prepared for a physical series, but beyond that is questionable.
Boston, meanwhile, added defenseman Andrew Peeke from Columbus and three-time Cup winner Patrick Maroon from Minnesota. Although Maroon is out with a back issue, he'll return before the end of the season. You couldn't dream up a player more ideal to put in the Bruins lineup than him, as he's very likely to get under Toronto's (and everyone else's) skin. As if Boston needed help doing that.
Still, these teams are relatively even-up (well, maybe not in goal), and with the aim being to go deep and win it all, both teams opted to tweak things instead. With Florida, the Rangers and Carolina all making sizable improvements, it sticks out in a big way.
Winners: Watchers of the Western Conference Playoffs
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If anything made this year's trade deadline pop, it was how virtually every Western Conference contender tried to raise the stakes like a poker game. On top of everything that Vegas did, all of the other contenders in the West went off.
Colorado added Casey Mittelstadt from Buffalo for Bo Byram, defenseman Sean Walker from Philadelphia for Ryan Johansen, and rugged forwards Brandon Duhaime from Minnesota and Yakov Trenin out of Nashville. Although giving up Byram to get Mittelstadt was the classic "hockey trade," acquiring Walker—who is having a marvelous year—was an ideal way to replace him.
The Stars' biggest moves came ahead of deadline day when they pulled Chris Tanev out of Calgary and called up rookie Logan Stankoven from the AHL. Why make trades when the best addition was just waiting for a phone call, right?
The Jets kicked off the trade furor when they grabbed Sean Monahan from the Canadiens and capped it off on Friday bringing in Tyler Toffoli and Colin Miller from New Jersey.
A few weeks ago, there was question about whether the Predators could make the playoffs. Now that they're on a 9-0-1 run and virtually set to make the playoffs, they loaded up with Jason Zucker from Arizona, Anthony Beauvillier from Chicago and Wade Allison from Philly.
The Oilers got in the action adding Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick from Anaheim while the Canucks...well, they got Elias Lindholm back at the end of January! Who needs more than that...right?
It's going to be a slugfest in the West and it's absolutely going to rule to watch it all unfold.
Loser: Western Conference
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...Then again, if you're a competing team in the Western Conference, you must feel exhausted and overwhelmed watching everyone else do their part to make their teams better to go all the way.
Winning the Western Conference earns that team the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl that they'll definitely not touch when it's awarded to them, but you might as well give them a medal for enduring the gauntlet that they'll have gone through.
Look at how the Western playoffs could set up. Pick two of the three out of Dallas, Colorado and Winnipeg and they could face each other in the first round. Edmonton, Los Angeles and Vegas will fight each other to try to stay out of the wild card to avoid playing one of those Central Division teams or Vancouver in the opening round, but then they'll also be battling Nashville to avoid the top seed in the conference.
And then if a team is lucky enough to win in the first round, they'll have one of the other winners to deal with after that and so on. What a nightmare!
Think of the teams that made the biggest moves at the deadline and then think about the discussions that will unfold if they lose in the first round. Sure, everyone will probably be rooting against Vegas, but Dallas was in the Western final last year and they could just as easily go out early, too.
We love the discourse, but unless teams totally mail it in in defeat, some really good teams are going to get bounced and will have a long summer to be mad about it.
Loser: Pittsburgh Penguins
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I feel really bad about picking on Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas because I like him, but he had a deeply unenviable task at the deadline, and when you're up against it, sometimes it's hard to make the best deal.
The return the Penguins got for Jake Guentzel wasn't what a lot of fans were hoping for.
Michael Bunting, who spent two years with Dubas in Toronto, softens the blow of losing Guentzel a little bit, but not enough to make anyone feel better about it. Prospects Vasily Ponomarev, Cruz Lucius and Ville Koivunen were not among the top prospects in the Hurricanes' system. The only way the Penguins will get a first-round pick in the 2024 draft from Carolina is if the Hurricanes make the Stanley Cup Final, otherwise it's a second-round pick.
With Guentzel set to become a free agent this summer and unwilling to negotiate an extension with Carolina, Dubas was stuck without much leverage.
Sending Chad Ruhwedel to the Rangers to help their defensive depth while Alex Nylander is suddenly scoring goals in Columbus is an added kick in the pants.
The Pens are eight points out of the second wild-card spot and dealing with one of the oldest rosters in the NHL—if not the oldest—and unable to dig into a rebuild because they've got Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang. Dubas said they have to get younger, and they will eventually, but it's looking like it'll be a painful road ahead to meet that goal.
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