Daily Faceoff Show: Which teams have unfinished business after the trade deadline?

Scott Maxwell
Scott Maxwell
Daily Faceoff Show: Which teams have unfinished business after the trade deadline?

With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror, Frank Seravalli and Matt Larkin decided to look back on what happened, and what it means going forward.

One trend Frank noticed is that there weren’t a lot of true “hockey deals” happening that day, when the only trade we saw with two players exchanged while under control for at least two years was the San Jose Sharks sending Jacob Middleton to the Minnesota Wild for Kaapo Kahkonen. Everything else was mostly just rental players going to playoff contenders.

With so many players left on the board, Frank posed the question: which player who was out there at the deadline could be the most interesting to watch in the offseason?

Matt Larkin: It’s interesting too, the term “out there,” I don’t know for sure that he was out there, but a lot of people were talking about Filip Forsberg, obviously a pending UFA. We know David Poile sort of came out after the fact almost apologetic that they couldn’t get an extension done. He’s having a great season, 35 goals, but there’s been a snag in talks with the Predators and his agent J.P. Barry.

So there was some chatter on deadline day. Would the Preds consider moving him? I know he wasn’t prominent on your targets board, Frank, and I agree with that.

Frank Seravalli: He wasn’t on it at all.

Matt Larkin: Yeah, exactly. To me, it would have been a mistake, and I think David Poile learned from last year. Mattias Ekholm was the name, the pending UFA and defenseman that was being talked about leading up to the deadline. Would the Predators have to move him if they weren’t in a playoff position? They decide to keep him, it’s the sort of “rental” that you don’t have to give up anything to get. They end up making the playoffs and re-signing Mattias Ekholm in the offseason.

I think we’re going to see something similar play out for Filip Forsberg. I don’t think the Predators want to let him go, even if it’s going to cost $9 million a year. He’s now their leading goal scorer in franchise history and an important part of what they’re doing going forward.

So I think he’s going to stay, and I think the Predators made the right choice. We saw Montreal, 18th overall, made the Stanley Cup final last year. Anything can happen. You can’t give up your best goal scorer just because you’re worried about losing him in the offseason. So I say kudos to David Poile for staying strong and keeping that asset.”

Frank Seravalli: Yeah, he was never on our Trade Targets board because I don’t think that he was ever actually available. And David Poile said as much: “We never, ever engaged in conversation with other teams about Filip Forsberg.”

For me, it’d be easy to say Jakob Chychrun, I’m surprised how long that lingered out there, but it’s Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny from the Philadelphia Flyers.

You look at their seasons, and everyone’s had a down year in Philly, but I can tell you that Chuck Fletcher from the Flyers was taking calls on just about everyone on his roster. And I think they were more exploratory conversations. He admitted in the last few days after the Claude Giroux trade that he did have lots of talks about “hockey trades.”

What’s interesting is that, a few years back in his first year as GM [in Philadelphia], he had a lot of those same conversations at the deadline and didn’t end up doing anything, but used that as the groundwork for what came in the summer. Conversations about someone like Matt Niskanen, who they later added. They’re in the germination stage for what may come. Travis Konecny was out there, Ivan Provorov out there. The Flyers have a lot of work to do to be competitive. I don’t see both of these guys moving. In fact, none of these guys could move.

All of which is said to say, keep an eye on the Flyers because they’re going to have a really interesting summer, given their edict from Comcast Spectacor CEO Dave Scott saying, “Hey, we need to turn it around, quickly. This isn’t going to be a rebuild or anything like that. This isn’t a five-year plan. We need to be competitive next year.” And Chuck Fletcher has a blank check, so keep an eye on the Flyers this summer.

You can watch the full episode here…

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