Video: Brian Burke provides update for Calgary Flames ahead of trade deadline
Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill and many of his colleagues don’t plan to panic as the NHL trade deadline approaches, and that’s bad news for fans hoping for a flurry or a frenzy of moves.
“It’s tough to make deals right now,” Nill said.
Tough because all but a handful of teams are in the playoff mix and many clubs don’t have oodles of salary-cap space to play with. The unknowns are plentiful and the supply is short with the clock ticking down to Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET.
BELOW: Interactive graphic looking at the top 10 players most likely to get traded (courtesy Canadian Press)
“The most unpredictable time in the NHL is 24 hours around July 1 and 24 hours around the trade deadline,” Carolina Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford said in a phone interview. “It’s hard to say. There may be a bunch of deals made for lesser players, for like role players or fourth-line players or depth defencemen or things like that.
READ MORE: Vancouver Canucks trade goalie Roberto Luongo to Florida Panthers
“A bunch of those could be made, which would mean there’ll still be a lot of deals. But as for the bigger-name players, there’s not as many available and a lot more people looking for them.”
Even if the Chicago Blackhawks stand pat and Central Division rival St. Louis Blues hold tight after getting goaltender Ryan Miller and forward Steve Ott from Buffalo, several teams may contact the Sabres, Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, New York Islanders and Florida Panthers looking to try to get Jaroslav Halak, Matt Moulson, Ales Hemsky, Mike Cammalleri, Thomas Vanek or Andrew MacDonald.
Those are the only teams that could be considered true sellers. The buyers they need are everywhere around them.
“There’s 25 of us looking at the other five teams saying, ‘How can we help ourselves?'” Phoenix Coyotes GM Don Maloney said in a phone interview. “There’s a lot of teams calling those teams. And then it’s one thing to say, ‘I’d like to get one of these higher-end players,’ but you have to have the cash and the cap space to do it, which creates another whole challenge.
“If you ask me, ‘Do I think there’s going to be a ton of deals on Wednesday?’ I don’t know. I really don’t. I do think there’ll be movement, but how meaningful the movement is, I don’t know.”
Thirty trades were consummated in the days leading up to last year’s deadline, including 17 on April 3 itself, and just 24 of those included at least one everyday NHL player.
A few deals were made on the eve of this year’s deadline, including Nill sending injured defenceman Stephane Robidas to the Anaheim Ducks for a fourth-round pick.
READ MORE: NHL rumour mill heats up as deadline approaches
The Ducks also traded winger Dustin Penner to the Washington Capitals for a fourth-round pick and got a third- and a fifth-round selection from the Oilers for goaltender Viktor Fasth. Edmonton sent veteran goalie Ilya Bryzgalov to the Minnesota Wild for a fourth-round pick as well.
Salary-cap motivated moves
Teams can only spend up to US$64.3 million this season, down from $70.2 million a year ago after the conclusion of the lockout.
While that seemed to put a tighter squeeze on over the summer during free agency, the lasting effect is there and it could potentially slow player movement.
According to the CapGeek salary cap website, eight teams have no actual cap space and can only add players using long-term injured reserve allowance space. That includes the Toronto Maple Leafs, who are expected to have about $1 million available once they activate Dave Bolland off LTIR.
Teams like the Blackhawks and Capitals are in similar situations, while LTIR-dependent ones like the Vancouver Canucks and Philadelphia Flyers have roughly $3 million to work with.
READ MORE: Edmonton Oilers trade goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov to Minnesota Wild
“It’s just that everybody’s probably a little closer to the cap, and that makes it more difficult,” said Jarmo Kekalainen of the Columbus Blue Jackets in a phone interview. “Obviously when you slash almost 10 per cent off the salary cap, it’s going to affect the trades.
“The consideration has to be with most teams that you have to move money out to take money in.”
Ray Shero and the Pittsburgh Penguins, reported to be involved in talks for Canucks centre Ryan Kesler, might have to play that game, too, because of the major question of whether defenceman Kris Letang will be able to return before the end of the regular season after suffering a stroke.
“I’m not exactly sure what we have cap-wise, to be honest,” Shero told reporters in Pittsburgh last week. “They’re moving parts in terms of this LTI, in terms of the Vokoun situation, the Letang situation.”
Even without that kind of volatility, many teams well below the league-imposed salary cap like the Stars, Coyotes and Ottawa Senators, have their own internal budgets to worry about.
As Kekalainen pointed out, getting a third-round pick for an established player is “definitely not worth” falling short.
Making a move just for the sake of it doesn’t make financial or hockey sense for a lot of general managers, especially with the long term in mind.
Tight standings could affect deals
Playoff races being so competitive – or at least looking so because of the tight standings – could change the kind of deals that happen before the deadline. If the Rangers are in the market to trade another winger in Ryan Callahan in the event they can’t get their captain re-signed, or if the Canucks are motivated to move Kesler, the cost could slant much more to current NHL players and not just a mix of prospects and draft picks.
“All my conversations are all in the same (neighbourhood) – they’re really more hockey-related trades,” said Maloney.
“Like, ‘OK, we have this guy, you have this guy, can we make the money work?’ And that’s what’s going on right now.”
Kekalainen sees the dangers in making player-for-player hockey trades with competitors because it could come back to bite a team if a player keeps his former teammates out of the playoffs.
Down the line, that same debate can be had over prospects and draft picks. The Boston Bruins wound up with Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton from the Phil Kessel trade with the Maple Leafs, but Kessel’s production eventually made it seem lopsided in the other direction.
Protecting first-round picks
Even with some big names available, most teams will likely hold onto or at least protect their 2015 first-round picks with Connor McDavid seen as that draft’s big prize.
“It’s pretty subjective the way you evaluate the value of the picks. Somebody could tell you that it’s worth $10 million, and I could tell you that it’s worth (crap). It’d be somewhere in the middle,” Kekalainen said. “When you win the lottery and get Sidney Crosby, then that pick’s worth quite a lot of money. There’s so many different variables that go into that equation.”
Another variable this season is the Olympic break. Maloney said he was a bit surprised at how most of the dialogue between teams stopped while the Games were ongoing, but now the focus has shifted to looking at every game as though it’s of playoff importance.
For teams like the Sabres, Oilers, Flames, Islanders and Panthers, every game is another audition for next season. And the deadline is a chance to build toward that and beyond by selling off veterans who might not have a role in the future.
“We’ve got a number of guys that are UFAs that are veteran players that are going to elicit some attention around the league for teams that are preparing for a playoff run,” Oilers GM Craig MacTavish told reporters in Edmonton last week. “This is an unfortunate circumstance but we have to take advantage of the position that we’re in right now and try and accumulate as many assets as we can going through this deadline and open up some spots so our prospects down in the American Hockey League can get a look.”
Though cap space is at a premium around the league, Nill doesn’t necessarily feel bad for his colleagues needing to unload more expensive players because that comes with the territory.
Even in the cycle of standing pat, Nill doesn’t know if he or any of his fellow GMs are ever comfortable given the unknowns from injuries to sudden changes in the standings. Maloney knows that all he can do is grind it out through the deadline and then wait for the rest of the season to unfold.
“You have two or three good days and you’re feeling pretty good about your team, then you drop an overtime game to Winnipeg and you’re not feeling so good,” he said. “We expect to be a playoff team, and if we can help make that happen we’re going to do it, and if not then we’ll grab our popcorn and cheer like heck come March 6.”
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