There may be no bigger late-season swing than the trade-deadline goalie swap.
To alter course in such a foundational way, that late in the game, seems to say something particular about what an organization believes its roster is capable of — that it’s strong enough to potentially make some real noise in the playoffs, but flawed enough to need major surgery just months before the post-season begins.
Timing-wise, it’s an odd gamble. Look across the league at the moment, and the majority of the most impactful changes in net came in the off-season. In June, the Washington Capitals acquired netminder Logan Thompson from the Vegas Golden Knights for a pair of picks, kickstarting their resurgent campaign. The New Jersey Devils brought in veteran Jacob Markstrom for defender Kevin Bahl and a pick, stabilizing their situation in the cage. The Los Angeles Kings shipped out centreman Pierre-Luc Dubois to bring back Darcy Kuemper, while the Ottawa Senators landed a new starter in Linus Ullmark, sending a package highlighted by Joonas Korpisalo back to Boston.
It’s rare that a club looks to bring about that type of shake-up mid-season — rewind back through the past half-decade of deadline deals, and there have only been a handful of instances where teams have made moves to bring in a marquee goaltender in the lead-up to the deadline. And even then, it’s rarely been to take over the No. 1 job.
Last year’s deadline saw the Devils aim to address their goaltending issues mid-season, bringing in Jake Allen from Montreal in exchange for a third-round pick. The veteran started the majority of Jersey’s games for the rest of the campaign, winning six of 13 appearances and posting a .900 save percentage as the club fell short of earning a ticket to the post-season. Beside him, the Devils had brought in Kaapo Kahkonen at the deadline too, sending Vitek Vanacek to San Jose. On the other side of that deal, the move was hardly a game-changer for the Sharks, given the club’s position in the standings and the fact that Vanacek was out with an injury that kept him sidelined for the rest of the season.
Ultimately, both the Devils and Sharks wound up swinging bigger to shore up their goaltending down the line, the Devils trading for Markstrom in the off-season, and the Sharks acquiring Yaroslav Askarov five months after Vanacek, and Alexandar Georgiev a few months after that (more on that later).
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The 2023 trade deadline brought some more notable goalie drama, with the Los Angeles Kings trading franchise legend Jonathan Quick to Columbus, only to see the Blue Jackets turn around and flip him to Vegas — the Kings’ division rival — a day later. The veteran helped the Golden Knights survive a rash of injuries and make it to the post-season as the West’s best. While he was pushed to the press box in the post-season as Vegas’s top options regained their health, the move still netted Quick a third Stanley Cup ring.
Marc-Andre Fleury’s been at the centre of a few instances of deadline drama. In 2022, Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin went out and swung a deal to bring in his former Pittsburgh Penguins teammate, acquiring Fleury from Chicago for a second-round pick. Upon arriving, the veteran strung together a solid run to close out the regular season, winning the starting job over previous No. 1 Cam Talbot by the time the playoffs arrived, and eventually re-signing with the club. Still, the move didn’t wind up being the true game-changer for the Wild’s plans in net — that arguably came a few months later, in the off-season, when the team acquired Filip Gustavsson from Ottawa in exchange for Talbot, the young Swede soon taking over the starting role in Minnesota himself.
The 2021 deadline saw only marginal goaltending deals — Toronto brought in David Rittich, Colorado acquired Devan Dubnyk and Jonas Johansson, and none of the three got significant time in the net over the rest of the season. But a year before that, the 2020 deadline saw Fleury on the other end of a situation similar to the one that later played out in Minnesota, when the Golden Knights landed Robin Lehner from Chicago. Lehner wound up usurping Fleury — then the Golden Knights starter — when the post-season arrived, the Swede going on to backstop Vegas to the Conference Finals.
It should come as little surprise that a mid-season deal for a starting netminder brings only a rare shot at truly moving the needle, given how much success at that position is tied to a goaltender’s comfort — with their own game, with the defence in front of them, with their new club’s environment in general.
It’s for that reason that one of the biggest moves in the cage already happened earlier this season, when the Avalanche traded for Mackenzie Blackwood in December, sending Georgiev to San Jose in a massive seven-piece blockbuster.
In the 24 games since arriving, Blackwood’s put up a .922 save percentage and a pair of shutouts, earning 15 wins for the Avs as they hold on to a wild-card spot. Speaking with NHL.com’s Kevin Woodley last month, the 28-year-old highlighted the fact that the trade came early in the season as a key reason he’s been able to settle in well with his new club. Whereas a change of scenery only months before the playoffs begin, he said, seems a daunting ask for any netminder.
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“I feel that’s definitely more of a challenge,” Blackwood told Woodley. “Especially because you’re at the end of the year and everyone is fighting for playoff spots. You get put into a situation that’s very tense and stuff like that and you’re having to deal with moving. … If you’re going to get moved, I feel this was a bit of an easier time to do it. It gives you more time.”
Still, even if it is a gamble, even if the circumstances won’t be ideal, there’s a fair chance we’ll see at least one well-known netminder changing jerseys by the time the March 7 trade deadline arrives. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few names who could be available:
John Gibson, Anaheim Ducks
It’s not the first time the Anaheim Ducks stalwart has seen his name in the rumour mill, but the noteworthy difference this time around is the strong campaign Gibson’s been stitching together. Despite playing behind the perennially struggling Ducks, the veteran’s put forth his best season in half a decade so far, looking more like the goaltender who earned praise as one of the game’s best early in his career. A new upper-body injury complicates things, but the day-to-day ailment doesn’t look likely to keep Gibson out for long. And with the Ducks acquiring netminder Ville Husso from Detroit earlier this week, a trade to send their long-time veteran on to a new chapter seems even more likely. At only 31, there’s still plenty for Gibson to give, and the American has long seemed like a potential game-changer for a contender in need of an upgrade.
Jordan Binnington, St. Louis Blues
You’d have to go back to Binnington’s first few years in the league to find a time when his stock was higher than it is right now. A key piece of the Blues championship run back in 2019, Binnington now finds himself part of a woeful situation in St. Louis that has seemingly every key name on the roster potentially available for the right price. The 31-year-old hasn’t exactly lit the league on fire this season himself, nor has he over the past few years. But he’s fresh off backstopping Canada to a 4 Nations Face-Off championship that seemed to revive his reputation as a big-game player, particularly given the heroics he came up with late in the tournament’s championship overtime thriller.
Karel Vejmelka, Utah Hockey Club
The 28-year-old is four years into his run with Utah’s organization, joining the club as a free agent back in 2021, when they were still in the desert. Vejmelka hasn’t exactly been a world-beater at the NHL level to this point, posting a career-best .910 save percentage through 36 games this year and a .900 overall in his big-league career so far. But he’s shown flashes of quality — the latest coming just a couple months ago, when he authored a 49-save performance that stole Utah a win over the contender Canes. Playing out the final year of a three-year pact, Vejmelka could find himself on the move if Utah feels an extension can’t be hammered out before the deadline arrives.
