2024 NHL Trade Deadline Winners and Losers: Long live the Golden Knights’ evil empire

Credit: Noah Hanifin (© Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports)

No matter how bland the market seems to be…the Trade Deadline always delivers.

The deals don’t all come through on the final day, of course. The dam broke earlier this week, with the likes of Vladimir Tarasenko, Casey Mittelstadt and Noah Hanifin changing teams on a wild Wednesday, with the Jake Guentzel blockbuster taking place Thursday. Friday featured the shocking 11th-hour trade sending Tomas Hertl to the Vegas Golden Knights. Add it all up and we got a total of 42 deals this week alone, including 23 on Friday, according to our friends at CapFriendly.com.

With the 3:00 p.m. ET deadline behind us and all the final trade calls processed, it’s time to ask: who won and lost at the deadline?

I present my 2024 Trade Deadline winners and losers.

My usual disclaimer: this breakdown includes any trades made in the past two months. Just because a team acquired a key piece before March 8 doesn’t mean that shouldn’t count as an upgrade.

Disclaimer No. 2: If I don’t list a team, it means I think they did…just fine, not enough to warrant a deep discussion. The Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning come to mind there.

TRADE DEADLINE WINNERS

Calgary Flames

We can nitpick whether Calgary got the exact return it should have for Chris Tanev or Noah Hanifin. But that’s not the right way for Flames fans to perceive those deals and the ones GM Craig Conroy made earlier this season involving Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm. What I see here is maturity. The worst-case scenario in 2023-24 would’ve been for this middling team to believe it had a shot to make a run in the playoffs and hold onto its expiring veteran assets. Instead, the Flames walked the harder path and acknowledged the need to go backward to go forward. The Flames got further away from short-term playoff contention with their moves, but they got closer to a Stanley Cup. The assets secured in those four big trades – five if you count last summer’s Tyler Toffoli deal – include two first-round picks, a second, four thirds, a fourth, a fifth, Yegor Sharangovich, Andrei Kuzmenko and prospects Hunter Brzustewicz, Artem Grushinkov, Joni Jurmo and Daniil Miromanov. The Flames got a lot younger this year and, in the process, have elevated their long-term ceiling.

Carolina Hurricanes

FINALLY. Year in, year out, the Hurricanes dominate the regular season on the back of elite defensive play and universal buy-in to coach Rod Brind’Amour’s teachings. But year in, year out, the Canes fall short of their goal in the playoffs because they lack a game-breaking scorer. Case in point: Sebastian Aho will be their only 30-goal, 70-point player this season. They’re a franchise known to dislike rentals, but they finally blew through the stop sign Thursday night and paid up for the top asset available at the deadline: left winger Guentzel. In acquiring him from the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Canes get a proven winner whose 34 goals in 58 playoff games give him the sixth-highest scoring rate in NHL postseason history among those with 50 or more contests. Nothing less than a Stanley Cup Final berth will suffice for Carolina this season. Good on GM Don Waddell for shooting his shot. Better yet, the acquisition cost wasn’t too prohibitive, likely because a Guentzel extension wasn’t part of the transaction. Carolina parted with a Michael Bunting, a conditional second- and fifth-round pick and prospects Ville Koivunen, Vasily Ponomarev and Cruz Lucius. It was a coup for the Canes to land Guentzel without surrendering any prospect ranked in their top five, according to Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis. The cherry on top: a relatively low-risk bet on Evgeny Kuznetsov at 50 percent retained, putting Carolina on the hook for $3.9 million through next season. When his head’s on straight, his talent hasn’t gone anywhere, and he, like Guentzel, is a proven Stanley Cup winner and playoff performer. Kuznetsov had 32 points in 24 games during the Washington Capitals’ 2017-18 title run.

Colorado Avalanche

The Avalanche know exactly who they are: a win-now operation with its superstars still in their peak primes. Their window to win remains right now, and GM Chris MacFarland recognizes that. Moving such a promising talent in Bowen Byram, 22, made sense specifically for this team, because another championship is the goal in 2023-24 and that can’t be achieved without a proper No. 2 center. Not only does Mittelstadt provide Colorado with that service, but, at 25, he still has plenty of upside left. The Avs also solidified their defense by acquiring the steady, mobile Sean Walker from the Philadelphia Flyers and added underrated checking forwards Brandon Duhaime from the Minnesota Wild and Yakov Trenin from the Nashville Predators. You can either watch the arms race pass you by or join it. The Avs did the latter.

Dallas Stars

Not every contender needs to make a million moves. Sometimes, a stacked team just needs a small tweak to put it over the top. That was top-four blueliner Tanev for the Stars. His warrior mentality, smothering shutdown game, and penalty-killing acumen made him the best defensive defenseman available leading up to the deadline. The Stars didn’t make multiple splashy deals like division rivals Colorado and Winnipeg. But when you have young talents on the level of Thomas Harley, Wyatt Johnston and now Logan Stankoven breaking through to become key contributors and already have a star core of Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, Miro Heiskanen and Jake Oettinger, you don’t need to blow things up. The Stars are positioned as an elite Stanley Cup contender in my mind, and Tanev, while not flashy, could end up being the single most impactful addition of any team. As a bonus: because the trade with Calgary was a rental, Jim Nill didn’t have to surrender a first-round pick for Tanev, either.

Montreal Canadiens

Remember: the Monahan trade counts as part of this exercise. We have to give GM Kent Hughes a shoutout for turning Monahan into not one, but two first-round picks – one which the Habs received when they first acquired him from the Calgary Flames, the other acquired from the Winnipeg Jets on Feb. 2. Tidy business for a player who had 24 goals in a 140-game stretch at that point before he caught fire upon being sent to Winnipeg. As a bonus: on Friday, Hughes shed half Jake Allen’s $3.85 million cap hit, which runs through 2024-25, to secure a conditional third-round pick from the goalie-starved New Jersey Devils. The Habs had a logjam in net and are fine to roll with Sam Montembeault and Cayden Primeau now. Those two can keep the seat warm until mega-prospect Jacob Fowler gets his shot down the road.

Vegas Golden Knights

Cue The Imperial March. No team plays a better villain than the defending Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights. It’s easy to accuse them of cheating when captain Mark Stone seemingly lands on LTIR at the perfect time each year. But (a) a lacerated spleen seems, uh, difficult to fake and (b) the Golden Knights are one of 16 teams operating in LTIR. They’re doing nothing illegal and they’re doing something half the teams in the league are also doing. Enough with the sour grapes. The Golden Knights will stop at nothing, surrendering any pick or prospect in their possession, to go get what they need. To bring in goal-scoring winger Anthony Mantha, top-four blueliner Hanifin and, as the topper, two-way center Hertl over the past few days, the combined assets GM Kelly McCrimmon surrendered were 2025 and 2026 first-round picks, a 2024 second-round pick, a 2024 fifth-round pick a, 2025 conditional third-round pick, a 2026 fourth-round pick and prospects David Estrom and Miromanov. And the Golden Knights gave zero you-know-whats about it. If you’re a fan of another team, lamenting Vegas’ skullduggery: that’s your jealousy talking. You wish your team was this aggressive.

Winnipeg Jets

The Jets drew first blood in the Central Division when they acquired Monahan during the All-Star break. But after watching Colorado and Dallas make upgrades this week, GM Kevin Cheveldayoff answered in a big way with the Tyler Toffoli trade. The Jets’ power play ranks 24^th in the league, last among all teams currently in playoff spots. Toffoli, an eight-time 20-goal scorer who should secure his third 30-goal campaign in the coming weeks, helps there. If you look at the Jets’ core: Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Nikolaj Ehlers, Josh Morrissey and Connor Hellebuyck are all between 27 and 30. The Jets need to push now, and Cheveldayoff did well to recognize that.

THE MURKY MIDDLE

Detroit Red Wings

On one hand: if you’re a die-hard Red Wings fan craving the end of a seven-year playoff drought, Friday must’ve been disappointing. Nothing materialized for GM Steve Yzerman. With top center Dylan Larkin out multiple weeks and the surging New York Islanders pushing hard for an Eastern Conference Wildcard spot, failing to add any pieces doesn’t bode well for Detroit’s stretch run. At the same time: this team remains decidedly Mid, with peripheral numbers far weaker than its actual results. It might not be the fun move, but it was probably the smart move this year for Yzerman to play it safe. Maybe next year will represent the critical juncture at which Detroit can push hard for deadline upgrades.

Edmonton Oilers

If you look at what the other Western Conference superpowers accomplished this week, particularly Vegas, it’s understandable to feel ambivalent or even a little disappointed over Edmonton’s moves. It’s Ken Holland’s last ride as GM, so wasn’t he supposed to go all-in and land that marquee forward for the top? Sorry, no Toffoli or Pavel Buchnevich. Still, it’s not like the Oilers ignored their shopping list entirely. They landed an intelligent and versatile middle-six forward in Adam Henrique, a checking center in Sam Carrick and veteran puck-moving depth on defense in Troy Stecher. Adding another high-end scorer would’ve been exciting, but the Oilers, fuelled by two of the greatest scorers this millennium in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, weren’t hurting for offense.

New Jersey Devils

The messaging from GM Tom Fitzgerald Friday was confusing. You move your leading goal-scorer out in Toffoli, signalling you’ve cut your losses. Then, you pay for an extra year of term with the Allen acquisition at $1.925 million after Montreal retained half the cap hit. Moving out from Vitek Vanecek’s $3.4 million in a late-day trade helps, but the Devils have a 17.7 percent chance to make the playoffs this season…did they really need to spend draft capital to secure their 1B goaltender for next season? I get the idea of wanting to take heat of Akira Schmid and Nico Daws, but adding the expiring contract of Kaapo Kahkonen is how you do that. Did they need to give up a mid-round pick for Allen on deadline day? Fitzgerald said Friday the Devils are set up to big-game hunt in the offseason, but I would argue the Allen deal wasn’t necessary to make that plan work.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Leafs GM Brad Treliving signified the need for “snot” in the summer after bringing in Ryan Reaves, Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi and Simon Benoit. Over the past week the Leafs added two bruising blueliners in Ilya Lyubushkin and Joel Edmundson and a strong defensive forward in Connor Dewar. The latter addition was a nice get. As for Lyubushkin and Edmundson: there’s no doubt Toronto is tougher to play against now, but the Leafs are also slower, less disciplined and generally worse at preventing scoring chances with those two in their lineup. Is the tradeoff worth it? We’ll see come playoff time if this team becomes more formidable when the officials pocket their whistles. On the whole: it didn’t feel like this was the year for a decent but flawed Leafs team to chase the big game, so Treliving deserves credit for showing restraint and holding onto his first-round picks and prospects.

Vancouver Canucks

The Canucks were in on “most of the players available,” GM Patrik Allvin indicated to media Friday afternoon, but couldn’t get a deal done. That may disappoint some Canucks fans, but we have to zoom out and remember they traded for Lindholm six weeks ago. That counts. He hasn’t been nearly as productive as hoped so far, but he remains a very good all-around player, impactful in all situations, and it’s possible he finds a rhythm soon.

TRADE DEADLINE LOSERS

Boston Bruins

I didn’t expect much from the Bruins, given they were among the most asset-poor teams in the league after burning through their first-round picks last year in deadline deals for Tyler Bertuzzi and Dmitry Orlov. But even through that lens, it wasn’t a great day for GM Don Sweeney. When the Andrew Peeke deal broke, I assumed Boston was receiving a third-round pick as a favor for taking Peeke off Columbus’ hands. He’s having a bad year and has been a healthy scratch – on a horrible team – at times this season. He has two seasons left at a $2.75 million AAV, and Daily Faceoff insider Frank Seravalli surmised this week that Peeke was even a buyout candidate. Yet Sweeney felt Peeke was worth a third-rounder and Jakub Zboril? Curious. Worse still: the PR nightmare of the nixed Linus Ullmark trade. The Bruins reportedly had some type of major trade in place that Ullmark blocked due to geography. That will make things awkward between the Bruins and the reigning Vezina Trophy winner going forward.

Los Angeles Kings

The Kings made a blockbuster trade for Pierre-Luc Dubois over the summer. They felt enough urgency to fire coach Todd McLellan halfway through the season. You would think a team this committed to winning in the present would’ve made some upgrades this week, especially given how many other Western Conference contenders did. But all was quiet for GM Rob Blake. The Kings had already slipped into the second or third tier of threats in the West, and the gap between them and the elite has widened even more now.

New York Rangers

I would argue no team in the league had clearer, easier-to-identify roster holes than the New York Rangers coming into deadline week. With Filip Chytil out for the year, they needed a No. 3 center. And with Blake Wheeler out for the year, they badly needed a first-line right winger better than Jimmy Vesey and Kaapo Kakko. General manager Chris Drury landed two veteran forwards for his top nine for a third consecutive postseason, but were they the right ones? Alexander Wennberg was a perfectly fine add as a bottom-six center. But Jack Roslovic? That’s an awkward fit. He’s a talented center with a reputation of playing when he wants to. Is he your elusive top-line right winger? Drury told reporters Friday that where Roslovic slots in “will be up to coach Peter Laviolette.” So, to summarize, Drury had a glaring roster hole on a Cup contender team in a division where his top competition landed the top forward available…and he doesn’t know where one of his forward acquisitions will play. Sheesh. Between Toffoli, Guentzel, Buchnevich, Frank Vatrano and so on, we know wingers were available. It feels like the Rangers whiffed here.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Ugh. That was a tough week for the Penguins and GM Kyle Dubas. They made the right decision to sell Guentzel. But the return was decidedly bland. They didn’t secure an elite prospect or even a guaranteed first-round pick, as Carolina must reach the Stanley Cup Final for that to happen. Could Dubas not have at least landed one of those two things? He also had a chance to recoup some goodwill Friday by trading Reilly Smith, who was in high demand around the league. Instead, Pittsburgh’s big move Friday was shipping depth blueliner Chad Ruhwedel to the Rangers for a 2027 fourth-round pick. It’s OK for teams to fall in dark times, given the league is cyclical. But when you do, you want to make sure you cash out your best assets for appropriate value. The situation wasn’t completely in Dubas’ control, but, in a vacuum, Guentzel is worth more than what Pittsburgh got for him, full stop.

San Jose Sharks

Where do I begin with this one? Things started out promisingly enough for GM Mike Grier this week when he picked up a third-round pick and Jack Thompson from the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Anthony Duclair trade. The Hertl jaw-dropper was a lot to process. The good: they moved out 83% of the cap hit over the next six seasons for someone who will be 36 at the end of his deal, they landed a 2025 first-round pick, and they nabbed a nice prospect in David Edstrom, Vegas’ 2023 first-rounder. But after my brain processed the trade, I realized two third-round picks went in Vegas’ direction, not San Jose’s. The Sharks also have all their salary retention slots filled up, with six more years of Hertl, three more years of Erik Karlsson and one more year of Brent Burns. That trio will take up more than $5 million next season, but the bigger problem is that San Jose can’t retain on any additional deals for until 2025-26 now.

Then Grier made the head-scratching decision to take on Vitek Vanecek, who carries a $3.4 million AAV next season, in the deal sending Kahkonen to New Jersey. Even if it represents a move to reach the salary floor…maybe spend that money this summer on a decent player who could be a flippable asset next season, not arguably the worst goalie in the NHL this season? The Sharks put on a clinic Friday. Not the good kind.

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