7 Teams at Serious Risk of Blowing the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline
We're but a few days away from the NHL trade deadline, and we've started to see some deals come through as contenders and wannabes try to take care of business before the intensity of the deadline gets too high and time gets too short.
We watched the Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild and Florida Panthers already step into the fray to get what they're looking for, while the Nashville Predators, New York Rangers and Chicago Blackhawks have been selling.
Those teams are making moves as opposed to staying quiet, and at this is the time of year, silence can upend a season or future seasons to come. No one wants to be left holding the bag after 3 p.m. ET on March 7, and there are a few teams whose silence has been notable and worrisome.
We've picked out seven teams that have a lot of questions left to answer at the deadline and we're wondering if they're going to make a move at all. Action beats inaction and, sure, sometimes the best trade is the one you don't make, but for these teams, they can't afford to fumble away their opportunity to improve or cash in on other teams' desperation.
Pittsburgh Penguins
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The Penguins are more than likely not going to the Stanley Cup Playoffs again this season. They're 15th out of 16 teams in the Eastern Conference and as of right now, eight points back of Detroit for the second wild-card spot with 19 games to play.
Pittsburgh has been fighting against time for the past few seasons and last made the playoffs in 2022. They haven't been beyond the first round of the playoffs since 2018, and the uphill battles they've had in trying to get to the postseason have only been exacerbated by the increasing age of superstars Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson.
The Pens are stuck in limbo. Their impending UFAs won't bring a big return, they have a roster in a dire need of both a shakeup and vast improvement, and they have limited options available to them to make it happen now...but GM Kyle Dubas has to do something here to get it started.
We know lots of fans outside of Pittsburgh would love to see Crosby traded to a contender, but that feels unlikely. If eating money on a trade is something they're comfortable doing, then maybe trading Karlsson is a possibility? It's a bad place to be in and there aren't any easy or comfortable options to do something. Standing pat at the deadline is as close to waving a white flag as there can be.
Buffalo Sabres
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Like the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Sabres are most likely not going to be in the playoffs this season. Unfortunately, this will be the 14th straight season Buffalo won't see the postseason, and the angst from fans to have the team's management do something—anything—to change things up is as high as it's ever been.
Sabres GM Kevyn Adams has never had a quiet season since he took over in 2020 and it's no different now. Even though the Sabres are playing better hockey over the past month, they've made up no ground in the standings and now face the prospect of potentially losing solid veteran forwards Jason Zucker and Jordan Greenway after the season if they can't get them signed to extensions.
The problem Adams faces there is either he can't get extensions done or the players don't want to sign right now, trading them to ensure getting something back for them would normally be the right thing to do. But the Sabres don't need more draft picks or prospects, they need solid veteran NHL players like Zucker and Greenway if they're going to end their playoff drought in 2025-2026.
Buffalo's record means they could have a high lottery pick in June if they don't go on a hot run that vaults them out of the basement in the East but even having that pick won't invigorate the fan base because they've seen that show a few times already.
Adams has a lot on his plate and a lot of hard decisions to make and even though he won't be bullied into making a trade, something has to happen to encourage everyone that things are headed in an upward direction as opposed to stagnancy.
Vancouver Canucks
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It might always be sunny in Philadelphia, but it's also always dramatic in Vancouver.
Unlike some of the other teams we'll discuss, the Canucks have made deals this season and big ones, too. J.T. Miller, Danton Heinen and Vincent Desharnais are gone, and Filip Chytil, Drew O'Connor and Marcus Pettersson are in. They've also dealt with injuries to Quinn Hughes and Thatcher Demko, Elias Pettersson's offense has vanished recently, and beloved forward Brock Boeser is set to be a UFA this summer. All the while, the Canucks are in a fight with Calgary, St. Louis, Utah and Anaheim for the second wild-card spot in the West.
You'd think with all of that drama that Vancouver would be buried in the standings, but they're not, and yet what happens with Boeser looms large. The high-scoring winger is having an OK season with 18 goals and 18 assists, but he would be a huge addition for a team looking for that one last player to put them over the top for the Cup.
But Boeser loves Vancouver. The city loves him back. Trading him now while the Canucks are well into the fight for the playoffs and still within striking distance of Los Angeles for third in the Pacific Division (five points) would be crushing and would take one of their best scorers off the roster.
Vancouver needs to add if it's going to go for the playoffs. But the Canucks still face the challenge of deciding what to do with Boeser.
New York Islanders
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Of the many maddening teams in the NHL, the way the Islanders put their fans through the wringer is some kind of special.
They're another hot streak away from being right there with all of the teams duking it out for a wild card spot and a cold streak away from fending off the Penguins and Sabres at the bottom of the east. That kind of roller coaster doesn't help GM Lou Lamoriello out a whole lot either when it comes to UFAs-to-be Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri.
Both Nelson and Palmieri would be among the better players available for contenders to try and acquire by March 7 if the Isles wanted to cash out, but they're also players Lamoriello may want to sign to extensions to run it back for the years to come.
Essentially, the Islanders are in purgatory but depending on how Lamoriello wants to attack the deadline (if he does at all, that is) it'll go a long way to figuring out if we can take the team seriously when they rattle off a few wins in a row at a time or if we just wait until they hit another losing streak to take them back down again.
They have a chance to help solve some organizational weaknesses if they sell by obtaining picks or younger players, but doing so would virtually stunt their ability to stay in the wild card fight. The choices aren't very ideal, but at some point, they'll have to put their heads down and go hard for the choice they really do want.
Edmonton Oilers
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It's been a little while since we've had some hard fretting to do about Oilers goaltending, but the play of starter Stuart Skinner should have fans in Edmonton feeling a bit frightful.
After owning the net for the past two seasons, Skinner has struggled a little bit more this season. His .898 save percentage is down from .905 last season and .913 two years ago. Watching the Oilers drop seven of their last 10 games (3-6-1) and allowing 3.9 goals per game during that stretch does not allow for much confidence in goaltending.
Skinner is better than he's shown this season, but the Oilers must think about addressing goaltending with seriousness. Anaheim's John Gibson has been mentioned as a player of interest to do just that, but his recent battle with an injury that's of the day-to-day variety is enough to give anyone looking to add him pause.
Gibson, when healthy, is a dynamite goalie and adding him to the Oilers roster would be a huge addition. With Lukáš Dostál seizing control of the Ducks net, the opportunity is there to make a move for Gibson.
Whether it's Gibson or another No. 1 capable goalie, the Oilers can't look past it and hope that their offense will continue to carry them forth and through the playoffs. When you consider how close the Oilers came to winning the Stanley Cup, sweating out any position is something they shouldn't tolerate.
If the Oilers believe in Skinner to let him play through it, it's the kind of confidence boost that could lift him and the team. Then again, if you're in GM Stan Bowman's shoes, he's got fresher eyes on the situation and no previous attachment to their players to make him feel like he has to hang on to prove something.
Holding steady and letting a Cup Finalist team try to win it all based on past performances and gut feelings might help the guys in the room feel good about the situation, but it's so rare when those kinds of moves pay off in the end with a Stanley Cup.
Carolina Hurricanes
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When the Hurricanes made a monster splash to acquire high-scoring forward Mikko Rantanen from Colorado for Martin Necas, it was the kind of juicy trade that gets us giddy. Carolina added one of the top scorers in the NHL and the only problem in doing so was his impending UFA status this summer.
Easy problem to solve, right? Yeah, about that.
The Hurricanes and Rantanen haven't been able to negotiate a long-term extension and if they still have Rantanen on the team beyond the trade deadline, they'll be the one team that can offer him an eight-year extension while everyone else can only go as far as seven.
In 11 games with Carolina, however, Rantanen has two goals and four assists and numbers like that aren't going to help Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky to reach as deep as he can into owner Tom Dundon's bank account to keep him in Raleigh for years to come.
Waddell and company have to make an obscenely difficult decision if Rantanen wants to test free agency in which they'd want to trade him elsewhere just a short time after dealing their former leading scorer, Martin Necas, for him. Trading Rantanen now would certainly make it harder for teams to want to cough up the price the Hurricanes would surely want from any suitors.
Carolina is in a somewhat helpless position because as much as they may want to keep Rantanen, it's Rantanen that gets the final say.
Boston Bruins
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They're not really going to trade Brad Marchand, are they?
Love him or hate him, no player has embodied what it means to be a Bruin more than Marchand. His ability to get under opponents' skin is what gets noticed, but it's his tenaciousness all over the ice that's made him such a good player.
The Bruins are in a bad position right now. They're fighting with a handful of teams for a wild card spot in the East and they're low on marketable assets to trade to get more of the help they need.
If the Bruins decided to move Marchand, it would make what's already been an angst-filled season that much more dramatic and difficult because what he does so well is what other players hate to go up against It would also be a clear signal that more changes will be coming in Boston whether it's at the deadline or summertime.
However, if the Bruins are busy on or in before the deadline, they instantly become a team to watch during break in the summer.
