2025 NHL Trade Deadline Pressure Gauge: Which teams are all-in?

Credit: Oct 9, 2024; Edmonton, Alberta, CAN; Edmonton Oilers forward Zach Hyman (18) and Winnipeg Jets forward Kyle Connor (81) battle for position during the second period at Rogers Place. Mandatory Credit: Perry Nelson-Imagn Images

With just more than a month until the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline March 7, we’re delivering at least one deadline-focused story every day at Daily Faceoff.

Today, we explore every team’s posture entering the final four-week stretch before the deadline. Who is all in? Who is ready to sell? Who hasn’t decided yet?

2025 NHL Trade Deadline Countdown: 33 Days

One reason why the NHL Trade Deadline maintains our excitement year after year? It’s increasingly difficult to predict which team will do what. We live in an era of extreme parity, one in which multiple playoff teams turn over year over year. Some stretch-run contenders end up missing the playoffs, and some supposed pretenders squeak in with late runs.

It’s thus quite a challenge to categorize where teams fit on the buyer/seller scale and how much pressure they face to make a major move. But we’re taking a crack at it anyway. Welcome to Daily Faceoff’s third annual Trade Deadline Pressure Gauge.

Tier 1: ALL-IN

1A — Already made moves

Carolina Hurricanes
Colorado Avalanche
Dallas Stars

The Canes can only waste so many more years of contention while Rod Brind’Amour is leading them behind the bench and key cogs like Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov remain in their primes. That’s why they took an extremely aggressive swing in acquiring pending UFAs Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall. The Avalanche, meanwhile, keep their window propped open with Martin Necas as their centerpiece of the trade – while freeing up cap space for GM Chris MacFarland to potentially add another piece before March 7. Could these two meet in the Stanley Cup Final? With a relatively shallow draft class looming, the Stars did something they’ve rarely done under GM Jim Nill: surrender a first-rounder, which they did Saturday in the trade for Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci.

1B — Soon to make moves?

Edmonton Oilers
Florida Panthers
Los Angeles Kings
New Jersey Devils
Toronto Maple Leafs
Vegas Golden Knights
Washington Capitals
Winnipeg Jets

All teams in this tier belong in the arms race and face varying degrees of pressure to keep up. The Jets are the best bet to make a move; they have a hole at center, a clear win-now window and lots of projected cap space. The Oilers and Panthers might be good enough to reach the Final again as currently constructed but could use some tinkering lower down their lineups. The Leafs and Devils have plenty of talent but are weathering injury problems and aren’t deep enough to go all the way unless they add. If Vegas and L.A. want to keep up with the mighty Oilers, they have to consider adding, and we know the Golden Knights always have something creative cooked up. As for Washington: this season feels like house money for a team that has vastly exceeded expectations, but they’re in the market for a center.

Tier 2: BUYER MODE

Detroit Red Wings
Minnesota Wild
New York Rangers
Ottawa Senators
Tampa Bay Lightning

Should I have placed the Sens a tier higher? They’re winning enough of late that they’re in contention for the Atlantic Division crown now. Given they haven’t even made the playoffs since 2017, I don’t want to get ahead of myself here; just seeing GM Steve Staios in legitimate buyer mode is a win. It feels like the Red Wings need to shoot their shot now, too. They remain a flawed team but have improved a lot offensively since the coaching switch to Todd McLellan. The Wild should have slotted in the all-in tier, but what does the Kirill Kaprizov injury mean? They still have a high ceiling if they make the playoffs, but is it not the right window to make an aggressive play anymore with their superstar’s status cloudy?

The Rangers have yo-yo’d from preseason Cup contender, to struggling and actively selling off multiple players, to heating up and feeling relevant again. If they make up enough ground in the East within the next month, they could be a pesky Wildcard seed capable of pulling an upset on the back of their goaltending. They’ve already made a significant move, landing J.T. Miller, but it wouldn’t feel right to call them an “all in” team given their place in the standings. The Lightning’s true contention window has passed, but a savvy 2024 offseason has rewound the clock slightly, so maybe notoriously aggressive Trade Deadline wizard Julien BriseBois has something planned.

Tier 3: LAST GASP

Boston Bruins
New York Islanders

Welcome to the Denial tier, Bruins. It’s been a quite the fall from setting an NHL record with 65 wins just two seasons ago. But every empire must crumble. This Boston team has one elite offensive player, and no coaching change was going to fix that problem. The Bruins are so used to being competitive that it’s a tough habit to quit, and they may want to pursue deals that keep them in contention, but GM Don Sweeney and president Cam Neely have to understand that their club has slid down into the playoff bubble tier. The Islanders…sigh. Hey, you, fans who got mad at me for giving them a D+ for the Bo Horvat trade two years ago: do you finally get it? This team has languished in hockey purgatory for four years. Wheezing its way into quick first-round exits every season gets you no closer to a Stanley Cup. Just give it up, Lou. The Islanders’ recent winning streak is actually disastrous, yanking them away from lottery contention and back toward their usual spot on the playoff periphery. I feel for the fan base.

Tier 4: SWING TEAMS

Buffalo Sabres
Calgary Flames
Columbus Blue Jackets
Montreal Canadiens
Utah Hockey Club
Vancouver Canucks

The Sabres are almost bad enough to land in the Tanker tier but have been bad enough long enough that they’re loath to start over again. If they pursue any moves, they’ll be hockey trades made in hopes of improving the team in the present. One franchise can only amass so many picks and prospects.

The Flames are such a tough team to categorize that I almost gave them their own tier. They’d been too competitive to fall into their originally anticipated seller posture, then nudged the needle the other way by acquiring Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost from the Philadelphia Flyers this week. Still, that was GM Craig Conroy adding some plausible upside with term, so while it helps his team in the present, it wasn’t a pure buyer trade per se. Could Calgary still part with a few pieces if it doesn’t hold a playoff spot a month from now? Maybe.

As for the other teams here: we have two clubs far more competitive than anticipated in the Blue Jackets and Habs, who may not be buyers but have to also consider sitting on their veteran assets as ‘own rentals’ to stay in the hunt. We have one club far less competitive than anticipated in the Canucks, who have the talent to get hot and already made a couple major moves Friday, bringing Filip Chytil and Marcus Pettersson in and saying goodbye to Miller. Are the Canucks not done tinkering? What happens to Brock Boeser? And then there’s Utah, who isn’t a strong bet to make the playoffs but still seems more interested in buying than selling.

Tier 5: SELLERS

Nashville Predators
Pittsburgh Penguins
Philadelphia Flyers
Seattle Kraken
St. Louis Blues

Not every team here is thrilled about being a seller, of course. It surely stings for the Penguins and Predators, but the standings don’t lie, the the Pens got the process going with the Pettersson deal Friday. The Kraken and Blues feel like teams without identities; they have decent collections of veteran talent but no superstars, so they may need to go backward to go forward.

The Flyers, like the Flames, warrant their own paragraph here after the trade. My colleague Anthony Di Marco broke down here why Philly was willing to weaken its somewhat-competitive club in the present by dealing Farabee and Frost for Andrei Kuzmenko, Jakob Pelletier and picks. The TL;DR version: the Flyers aren’t delusional and remain committed to the long-term plan. Did this week’s trade make it more likely that they’ll entertain deals for veterans like Rasmus Ristolainen and Scott Laughton, then?

Tier 6: TANKERS

Anaheim Ducks
Chicago Blackhawks
San Jose Sharks

While the Ducks have improved a bit this season, their playoff odds sit just north of two percent, so they haven’t quite graduated tiers. The Blackhawks and Sharks remain as bad as ever, with the lottery balls holding a 25.5 percent chance that one of them will pick first overall for the second time in a three-year stretch.

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