With two days to go before the trade deadline, things heated up around the league as several deals were made that took some of the top trade targets off of the market. It started rather small as the Florida Panthers picked up some scoring help in Vladimir Tarasenko for a third-round pick and a conditional fourth-round pick. And Florida retained salary!
Then the Avalanche made their big move, sending Ryan Johansen and a 2025 first-round pick (top 10 protected) to Philly for Sean Walker and a 2026 fifth-round pick. That one kind of hurt as the Lightning were rumored to be in the Walker market. Now, the Avs had an extra defenseman and were short a forward, so why not make another deal? They sent young blueliner Bowen Byram to Buffalo for Casey Mittelstadt. It was one-for-one.
The Bolts were involved in the next deal as they brokered some salary cap hit for a fourth-round pick as Anaheim and Edmonton worked a couple of deals. In the end, the major pieces that moved were Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick who went to the Oilers while the Ducks picked up a first-round pick and a conditional fifth-round pick in 2025.
The Rangers were next on deck as they filled in some depth on their bottom-six with Alex Wennberg. The Kraken received a second-round pick and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2025.
The big bomb landed later in the evening as Darren Dreger reported that Noah Hanifin was on his way from Calgary (well, technically Tampa since the Flames are in town) to the Vegas Golden Knights. The two sides were also working on an extension which would remove Hanifin from free agency this summer.
As of press time, the return on the deal had yet to be announced. [Updated: Vegas released the trade details with the Flyers acting as cap brokers]:
As we all know, Hanifin was rumored to be the number one target on the board for the Lightning, a team that could use a boost in their defensive ranks. Granted, all of that noise came from the media, there was no indication from the Lightning themselves that they had made any kind of offer for him.
With Hanifin off of the board, and to a lesser extent Sean Walker, the available impact defensemen available has dwindled quite a bit. Matt Dumba, Erik Johnson, or Joel Edmundson just don’t seem to have the ability to move the needle. Julien BriseBois will likely have to get creative to find a defensive player better than what’s on his roster right now. The good news is that he still has a few days to figure it out.
Other Hockey News
Crunch defeat Rocket 3-2 in overtime [The AHL]
Gabriel Fortier scored with less than a minute to go in overtime to win the game for the Crunch. Gage Goncalves scored twice and Alex Barré-Boulet added two more assists to his total. Matt Tomkins stopped 21-of-23.
Martin Pospisil suspended for three games [ESPN]
Pospisil won’t be in the line-up against the Bolts tonight as he was suspended for boarding Vince Dunn in the Flames 4-2 loss to the Kraken.
Flyers sign Nick Seeler to four-year extension [Broad Street Hockey]
The extension to someone rumored to be on the trade block is always a fun swerve at this time of the season. Instead of dealing the defenseman, the Flyers locked him up for four more seasons at an AAV of $2.7 million.
