Trade-deadline day is a whirlwind for everyone, from general managers with overheating phones to fans following every minute of the action.
Of course, that also includes media members sorting through all the moves, and sometimes — like a deal that doesn’t quite come together before the final buzzer — you run out of time and space to get to everything on your list.
On Friday, we posted our winners and losers from trade-deadline season and, it must be noted, successes are usually easy to find on the day of.
From teams that loaded up to sellers who extracted a good price for their wares, you can usually spot the smiles without much trouble.
Not all fans are high-fiving, though. After having a few days to let things breathe, we wanted to highlight a few more teams where — after a deadline day that was, at least on its face, disappointing — the heat is only going up from here.
It’s been a miserable year in Jersey and the mood certainly didn’t improve on Friday. The Devils’ relationship to the trade market this season has essentially gone like this:
• Hoping they can get Quinn Hughes, only to see him dealt to Minnesota.
• Trying, without success, to move Dougie Hamilton while his relationship with the organization becomes more strained by the day.
• Letting it be known they’d deal 2022 second-overall pick Simon Nemec, then being unable to swing a trade that would have returned a big-time forward for the right-shot defenceman.
In the case of Nemec — and this is true for any number of names that will appear on this list — it’s hard to criticize a team for what it didn’t do because it’s impossible to know what was being offered. But when you look at the totality of what GM Tom Fitzgerald did not get done, it’s easy to see why the Devils are awash in disappointment this year.
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While Artemi Panarin was always driving the bus thanks to his trade protection, it’s fair to say nobody was blown away by the return of (intriguing) prospect Liam Greentree plus third- and fourth-round picks from L.A.
More than that, the process felt rushed as Chris Drury tried to hammer it out before the Olympic break. Would that deal from the Kings not have been there two days or two hours before the deadline? Could something else have fit for Panarin?
Conversely, despite several teams being hot after Vincent Trochek — who’s clearly ready to move on from New York for the right place — Drury couldn’t find his coveted centre a new home and will carry that subplot into the off-season.
For all we know, Trocheck won’t be the only veteran dealt from the Blueshirts and, boy oh boy, does Drury need to nail those deals.
Where is this going?
The Flyers are almost certainly going to miss the playoffs for the sixth straight season, but they haven’t built the cache of high-end prospects you’d expect with that kind of bad stretch. Sure, some of that’s lottery luck, but it’s largely because the team starts decently enough, only to fade down the stretch. When it all works out in the wash this season, Philly could miss the playoffs and draft somewhere in the 12 to 15 range, well after you call the name of surefire stars.
Daniel Briere has been on the job three years now and, if you’re a Flyers fan, it’s hard to put your feet up and say better days are just around the corner.
Would a Rasmus Ristolainen move have changed all that? Probably not, but at least you’d have a couple more young assets to put your arms around.
Few teams factored more in trade talk for the first four months of the season than Nashville. Then came the left turns of the team performing better and GM Barry Trotz announcing he was moving out of his role as soon as the team can find a suitable replacement.
Trying to secure a playoff spot in a wide-open Western Conference rather than move heaven and earth to trade veterans is a defensible approach. But, really, this team has just kicked the can on some big decisions. Whoever takes over from Trotz is jumping right into the fire.
The Canadiens are last here because they’re certainly in a much different spot than the other clubs listed.
But the Habs had their honeymoon period last season and some were surprised to see GM Kent Hughes not find a right-shot D-man who could balance the blue line in a year where the Habs — with plenty of assets to spend — are in prime position to make the playoffs.
Hughes noted at his deadline-day press conference that he was working on something sizeable that never came together — and, man alive, did Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos have a thought on what that might have been — indicating it could be revisited in the summer.
Maybe that’s true and, to be fair, Hughes will definitely still be in his chair when it’s time to pick conversations back up in the off-season.
Sadly, that might not be true for every GM on this list.
