The National Hockey League trade deadline is Feb. 28, and the national hockey experts are already trying to decide who’ll be a seller and who’ll be a buyer this year. We’ll certainly talk about various teams’ needs, but the reality is this: With the salary cap, blockbuster trades are unlikely.
Sure, there will be deals with veteran rent-a-players changing teams in the final year of a contract so one team can take a run at the playoffs and the other can either drop salary or acquire a prospect. You can wager that Buffalo gets into that kind of scenario a few times.
However, if you think there will be a huge six-player deal involving the game’s biggest names on deadline day, don’t hold your breath.
After all, take a look at last year. Here was a big deal: Edmonton sent Lubomir Visnovsky to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for Ryan Whitney. Here’s another: Tampa traded Jeff Halpern to Los Angeles for Teddy Purcell. Want a third? Try this. This is what passes for a blockbuster these days and it’s the deal that kept the panels on Canada’s three sports networks on the edges of their seats for hours: Toronto traded Alexei Ponikarovsky to Pittsburgh for Martin Skoula and Luca Caputi.
The one big trade deadline deal that took place last year didn’t actually take place at the deadline. It took place on Feb. 4, a full month before the deadline, when Atlanta sent Ilya Kovalchuk and Anssi Salmela to New Jersey in exchange for Jonny Oduya, Niclas Bergfors, Patrice Cormier and a 2010 first-round draft pick (which was eventually dealt to Chicago in the Dustin Byfuglien trade).
In the next few days, there might be a decent trade or two. But on deadline day? If there is more than Visnovsky-for-Whitney, I’ll be shocked.
What will be fun, however, is watching highly-paid experts on three Canadian sports networks twiddle their thumbs for eight hours. It’s painful, but entertaining in a strange way.