NHL Trade Deadline: Massive Losers from Hockey's Shopping Season

At a time when teams are supposed to be bettering themselves, a few teams came out and laid a giant pile of fail. They made themselves no better now, or for the future, and they are worse off because of it. 

Let's take a look at which teams blew it and why. 

Toronto Maple Leafs 

The Leafs' "big move" was to swap  defenseman Keith Aulie for Tampa Bay's forward Carter Ashton. That is a fine move, but it was far short of what they should have accomplished. 

Toronto is currently in 10th place in the Eastern Conference. They needed to decide if they were going to be buyers or sellers, and they ended up being neither. 

If they were going to be buyers, this team needed to find upgrades at center and goalie. If they were going to be sellers, they had to ditch some of their talent for prospects, draft picks and future potential. 

They did neither, and now, they are mired in the same mediocrity as they were before the trade deadline. 

Vancouver Canucks

The Vancouver Canucks landed Sami Pahlsson from the Columbus Blue Jackets. That was a decent pickup, but it won't make the impact they needed to push them over the hump. 

They also negated any gains with this deal by sending forward Cody Hodgson and defenseman Alexander Sulzer to Buffalo for forward Zack Kassian and defenseman Marc-Andre Gragnani. 

It is hard to find the wisdom in this deal. Hodgson is a promising player. He has the ability to add scoring punch, and that is something the Canucks are going to need come playoff time. 

Kassian is not going to provide this offense with any punch. He has just seven points on the season.

Vancouver made moves that, at best, will be lateral. Instead, this team needed to find some way to boost their club to push them over the top in their quest to claim the Stanley Cup.

The Canucks' future is now, and they chose to tread water.

Columbus Blue Jackets

The Blue Jackets were an absolute disaster this trading season. 

They sent Jeff Carter to the Los Angeles Kings, and in return, got Jack Johnson and a first-round pick.

They lost a fine goal scorer in Carter and did not get a value in return. With Johnson, they added nothing but redundancy. They already have an offensive-minded defenseman with James Wisniewski. The draft pick does not bring enough value to make this trade worth it. 

That trade also signaled that the Blue Jackets were obviously sellers. And in light of that, it is where their biggest failure becomes evident. 

This team dangled Rick Nash in front of the hockey world, and they received plenty of interest. Yet instead of picking the best trade and chance to bolster their future, they kept their demands too high and held onto him. 

In the process, they alienated Nash, who has been one of their leaders. That is never good policy.