Arizona Coyotes forward Nick Schmaltz emerging as a ‘wild card’ leading up to the trade deadline

The trade deadline is less than a week away. For Daily Faceoff hockey insider Frank Seravalli, that means we’re right in the thick of “wild card week” in the NHL.

Everybody talks about rental players — pending unrestricted free agents — in the days leading up to the trade deadline, and those are typically the players most freely moved around this time of year. But as Seravalli noted to Tyler Yaremchuk on Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, there’s been more and more chatter surrounding players with term remaining — the “wild cards” — in recent days and weeks.

One of those players is Arizona Coyotes forward Nick Schmaltz, whose name has popped up in the rumor mill with increasing frequency of late. The 27-year-old right wing is under contract through 2026 and ranks second on the ‘Yotes in scoring, behind only Clayton Keller.

Here’s what Seravalli had to say on Monday’s show about Schmaltz, who plays RW on Arizona’s top line with Keller and Barrett Hayton — and ranks No. 13 on Daily Faceoff‘s upcoming Trade Targets board.

Tyler Yaremchuk: You have referred to it, Frank, as “wild card week” here in the NHL. Five more days until the NHL trade deadline, who are some other names that you’re looking at on your trade targets board, thinking, “these guys could be wild cards”?

Frank Seravalli: Yeah, I think one that stands out to me is Nick Schmaltz from the Arizona Coyotes. We’ve had Lawson Crouse on our board for a while, from Arizona. They’re considering a whole bunch of different things as teams continue to make offers. Schmaltz has been darn near a point-per-game guy over these last couple seasons. Really a talented player who predated this current management regime in Arizona. You look at his stats this year, 39 points in 43 games. I don’t have it in front of me but I think it’s something like 92 in his last 96. He’s been pretty good.

And at $5.85 million for three years remaining after this one, I call it “wild card week” because guys like [Kevin] Hayes and Schmaltz and Crouse, you’re going to hear names that pop up through this week, players that have term with the rental guys being off the board where teams say, “you know what, we’d rather just make a hockey trade here, we don’t need a rental acquisition to add to our group.” Not everyone can be in the game with term, but I think teams have been circling around someone like Schmaltz and Hayes that really put the “wild card” stamp on this week.

Watch the full episode here: