As the NHL season pulls into the All-Star Break stop, two rivals hooked up for the first major trade of 2024. The Calgary Flames played the role of seller as they dealt all-star Elias Lindholm to the Vancouver Canucks for Andrei Kuzmenko, prospects Hunter Brzustewicz and Joni Jurmo, a 2024 first-round pick, and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2024.
Vancouver is showing the hockey world that they are all in for this season as they sent a rather hefty trade package for a possible one-year rental. Does this mean we’re in for a seller’s market where the buyers are going to have to dig deep into their vaults to pry the missing piece to their Stanley Cup puzzle, or is this an outlier for one of the top trade targets on the market?
Bleacher Report had Lindholm as their number five trade target while Daily Faceoff had him number one. Lindholm is a coveted two-way center that can help lock down other team’s offenses while also chipping in a few goals. The Swedish-born pivot has 9 goals and 23 assists in 49 games this year, but has four 20-goal seasons on his resume including a career-high of 42 in 2021-22.
Calgary likely isn’t done dealing away players as they have pending free agents like Noah Hanifin and Chris Tanev drawing interest from teams needing help on the blueline. Bringing in a first round pick helps in case they lose their first round pick to Montreal due to some of the conditions in the Sean Monahan deal. Brzustewicz was a third-round pick in the 2023 draft and has exploded in Kitchener this year with 8 goals and 61 assists in 47 games. Jurmo is a big defensemen playing professionaly in Finland.
Kuzmenko waived his no-trade clause to make the deal work and should help the Flames offense. While he’s not playing at quite the 39-goal pace he did last season, he does have 21 points (8 goals, 13 assists) in 43 games. He had been healthy-scratched a few times earlier in the season and hasn’t quite clicked with head coach Rick Tocchet. Hopefully, a change of scenery will get him back to where he needs to be.
Vancouver GM Patrik Allvin, who signed a multi-year extension with the Canucks earlier in the day, showed his players and fan base that he’s not going to let their unexpected success go to waste. Vancouver might be outplaying their underlying stats, but they are atop the Western Conference and he wants to keep them there. Lindholm gives him strength down the middle and he really didn’t sacrifice a key part to their success this season.
Will this move kick off a series of trades by other general manager’s? Possibly. We’re seeing teams make their moves earlier in the season these days as contenders look to get as much out of their possible rentals as they can. Why wait a month to pick up a player that you’ve targeted?
A more local question might be if this deal sets the market higher than the Lightning can afford. The immediate answer is probably no. Tampa Bay likely isn’t in the market for any of the top-end trade targets so this doesn’t really affect the players they’re targeting at this point. We’ll have to wait until some of the second or third-tier players start moving between teams.
Welcome to the 2024 NHL trade season folks, it could be an interesting ride.
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Jack Thompson added to all-star roster [The AHL]
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