Top 10 NHL trades of 2022: Blockbuster of the century

Credit: © Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

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What makes a trade “great”? Does it need to have a clear winner, with one team fleecing the other? Does it need to be astute, with a team seeing something in a player that the other team didn’t? Does it simply need to wow us with big names, regardless of whether it makes a long-term impact?

The answer is: “great” can mean anything we want. The rules are nice and rubbery here as I rank my top 10 NHL trades of the calendar year 2022. The main criteria I used in my evaluations were (a) Did at least one side gain significant value in the deal? (b) Did the trade produce noteoworthy long-term value? And (c) OK, yes, did it involve some big names?

With those loose “rules” in mind, here is my list.

10. Mark Giordano rental turns into hometown discount for Maple Leafs

The rental made enough sense for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were pushing for home ice advantage in the playoffs. They got defensive depth and leadership in the grizzled Giordano and a checking forward in Colin Blackwell from the Seattle Kraken in exchange for a 2022 second-round pick, 2023 second-round pick and 2024 third-round pick in a March 20 trade.

So, sure, Giordano in particular fit in on his hometown team quite seamlessly, forged nice chemistry with Timothy Liljegren and was handy on the penalty kill. But the Leafs really won the trade because of its long-term salary cap implications. Giordano loved being a Leaf so much that he re-signed on a two-year deal at an $800,000 cap hit, way below his actual value. That gave GM Kyle Dubas more wiggle room to maneuver his cap-crunched roster – and will help the team’s payroll next season too. All while Giordano has been a useful middle-pair contributor at 39 years old.

9. Senators end their rebuild with splashy Alex DeBrincat trade

It’s too early to know if this trade will work out for Ottawa and GM Pierre Dorion. DeBrincat’s goal-scoring touch has taken longer to awaken than expected on his new team, and his future is quite complicated given he’s an arbitration-eligible RFA owed a $9 million qualifying offer.

But, even before we know its long-term impact, the trade has to make the 2022 list because of what it signified. When the Senators sent the No. 7 pick in the 2022 Draft, a 2022 second-rounder and a 2024 third-rounder to Chicago on July 7, a.k.a. Draft Day, it meant they were pushing their chips in. They were switching from rebuilding mode to win-now mode. It’s fair to wonder if they would’ve been able to attract UFA Claude Giroux a couple weeks later had they not made the DeBrincat deal. Giroux was signing with his home team but also with a team he viewed as competitive in the present.

8. Devils make brilliant buy low on John Marino

Marino had a promising start to his Penguins career, impressing with his defensive attention to detail while chipping in a bit of blueline offense, finishing eighth in the 2019-20 Calder Trophy vote. He signed a six-year extension at a $4.4 million AAV in 2021 but seemed to hit a wall in the first year of that contract.

He went from a supposed long-term pillar on the Penguins blueline to sliding down the depth chart and, essentially, becoming a cap casualty, dealt to the rival New Jersey Devils on July 16 for underachieving defenseman Ty Smith and a 2023 third-round pick. As a Devil? Marino has been a revelation in a shutdown role, a key contributor to the team’s ability to tilt the ice. Marino has taken on tough competition, too. His most faced opponent at 5-on-5 this season? Connor McDavid, believe it or not. Marino, 25, has become a top-four fixture on a rising Stanley Cup contender. He’s suddenly week-to-week with an upper-body injury, however.

7. Canadiens unlock Kirby Dach’s potential

The deck was stacked against Dach almost from the moment he became a Blackhawk, chosen third overall in the 2019 Draft. He suffered a concussion in his first training camp, saw his debut season shortened by the pandemic, broke his wrist at the World Juniors the following winter, dealt with a bout of COVID-19 and a shoulder sprain the season after that and…you get the idea. It just wasn’t working out. The Montreal Canadiens saw potential in the 6-foot-4, 197-pound center, however, and felt it was worth giving up a 2022 first- and third-round pick for him.

Now, he’s seeing regular time in the top six on a rebuilding Habs team with a coach players go to war for in Martin St. Louis. Dach is on track to beat his statistical career highs across the board in about half the games. And he’s having fun for a change, as evidenced by his gleeful taunting of Blackhawks fans when he scored the shootout winner for the Habs in a Nov. 25 game at Chicago’s United Center. We’re finally getting a glimpse of Dach’s potential as a puck-distributing forward.

6. Kings level up their offense with Kevin Fiala

The Los Angeles Kings and GM Rob Blake shifted from rebuild to contender mode in summer 2021, signing Phillip Danault and trading for Viktor Arvidsson. After reaching the playoffs for the first time in four years in 2021-22, the Kings continued to throttle up, sending a first-round pick and high-end prospect blueliner Brock Faber to the Minnesota Wild for RFA Kevin Fiala, whom the Wild couldn’t afford to pay given their cap troubles caused by the buyouts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise.

Fiala will forever be streaky but he has mostly been as advertised, a speedy hornet of a winger who piles up scoring chances. He leads the Kings with 35 points in 37 games. The Kings had the NHL’s No. 20 offense last season, averaging 2.87 goals per game, and have jumped to 16^th at 3.19 goals per game with Fiala in town. He’s quietly still just 26 and signed for six more years after this season, too.

5. Hampus Lindholm trade goes from bust to boom

A 2022 first, 2023 and 2024 seconds and young defenseman Urho Vaakanainen highlighted the package Boston surrendered to land smooth two-way blueliner Hampus Lindholm from the Ducks, whom they quickly signed to an eight-year extension at a $6.5 million AAV. The initial fit was not befitting the price Boston paid. Playing alongside dominator Charlie McAvoy, Lindholm had a mostly forgettable 10-game Bruins debut in the regular season, then was limited to four playoff games after getting knocked out of the Carolina Hurricanes series with an upper-body injury.

This season? Lindholm has been a savior and arguably the team’s most important player. He was the Bruins’ backbone while they waited for McAvoy to return from offseason shoulder surgery. Lindholm showed a level of offense he had never flashed at the NHL level before and, while his totals have shrunk since McAvoy returned, Lindholm is on pace to smash his career bests. Playing Norris-level hockey this season, Lindholm has the fourth highest expected goal share of any D-man in the league at 5-on-5. He looks like a key pillar of the team’s medium-term future at the moment.

4. Lightning get their new ‘Coleman and Goodrow’ with Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul

Tampa Bay Lightning GM Julien BriseBois pulls so many salary-cap rabbits out of his hat that he could run a pet store at this point. After cap constraints forced the Lightning to bid its championship third line of Blake Coleman, Yanni Gourde and Barclay Goodrow farewell, their depth was damaged as they tried to push for a Stanley Cup three-peat. But BriseBois’ creativity helped him restore the team’s depth and tenacity.

First, he surrendered 2023 and 2024 first-round picks plus prospects Taylor Raddysh and Boris Katchouk to land the breakout two-way forward Hagel, who was especially valuable because he had three seasons remaining at a $1.5 million AAV. Two days later, on deadline day, the Lightning traded Mathieu Joseph and a fourth-round pick in 2024 to Ottawa for big center Nick Paul.

Last season, Paul paid the big dividends, including five playoff goals and two-game winners with the tremendous penalty-kill work. He parlayed that into a seven-year deal at a $3.15 million AAV. While Hagel didn’t contribute as advertised last season, he has found his footing as a crucial contributor in 2022-23, often seeing first-line work with Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov. Paul and Hagel have a combined 25 goals already and eat up only $4.65 million in combined cap space. Mr. BriseBois has done it again.

3. Artturi Lehkonen turns into Stanley Cup playoff hero for Avalanche

What’s the old adage? Ah yes: that it’s not always the flashiest acquisition that wins you a Stanley Cup. The Avs did understand that the hyper-competitive Lehkonen was an important middle-six forward addition, as they surrendered prospect blueliner Justin Barron and a 2024 second-rounder in the deadline-day trade, but the Avs couldn’t have predicted the deal would work out this well.

During Colorado’s run to winning the 2022 Stanley Cup, Lehkonen delivered eight goals in 20 games, including four game winners, one in overtime. As a Montreal Canadien, Lehkonen averaged 16.5 goals per 82 games across seven seasons. As an Av, including the postseason, Lehkonen has 23 goals in 65 games, good for a 29-goal pace. That’s some tasty gravy for someone who was brought in more for his all-around play than for his offense.

2. Pretty much every offseason goalie trade works out perfectly

Aren’t goalies supposed to be impossibly fickle? Isn’t it a fool’s errand to surrender any asset in a trade for one? Not according to the offseason market, in which the Maple Leafs landed Matt Murray, the Devils acquired Vitek Vanecek, the Detroit Red Wings got Ville Husso, the Avalanche scored Alexander Georgiev and the Senators nabbed Cam Talbot. The lowest save percentage among that group this season is .909. The NHL’s league average save percentage in 2022-23 is .905.

1. Matthew Tkachuk, Jonathan Huberdeau swap teams in trade of the century

Too much hype to say trade of the century? No. This was bigger than Shea Weber for P.K. Subban. It was bigger than the San Jose Sharks getting Joe Thornton or the Colorado Avalanche landing Ray Bourque. Matthew Tkachuk heading to the Florida Panthers in a jaw-dropping blockbuster that included Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar and a 2025 first-round pick going the Calgary Flames was…unlike anything we’ve seen in the 2000s.

Huberdeau had just finished second in the NHL with 115 points and set a single-season record for assists by a left winger. The Panthers had won the Presidents’ Trophy. Tkachuk, who had requested a trade out of Calgary, had finished eighth in league scoring with 104 points. It was only the second time in NHL history that 100-point players had been swapped for each other. The previous time came in the previous century’s biggest trade, when Wayne Gretzky became an L.A. King and Jimmy Carson became an Edmonton Oiler.

Now, with Tkachuk and Huberdeau signing max-term extensions, both franchises’ trajectories will be judged based on this trade for the next decade, and the two stars will be constantly compared to each other. So far, so good for the Panthers’ wild gamble, as Tkachuk is showing he’s a superstar with or without Johnny Gaudreau, while Huberdeau has been a shell of himself early on as a Flame. It’s still far too early to declare a winner on this deal, however.