Top 10 NHL trades of 2024: Utah got serious about winning with Sergachev acquisition

Credit: Nov 15, 2024; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Utah Hockey Club defenseman Mikhail Sergachev (center) celebrates scoring a goal against the Vegas Golden Knights with center Clayton Keller (9) and center Alexander Kerfoot (15) during the second period at Delta Center. Mandatory Credit: Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Clap, clap, clap.

I applaud you, general managers of the National Hockey League. You delivered one of the most creative and bold calendar years of trading in recent memory. That included traditional all-in blockbusters; shaking things up by trading heralded prospects for each other; acquiring seemingly impossible to acquire players and jettisoning seemingly impossible to trade players with many years of term left on their contracts; and a lot more.

Today, we toast the top 10 NHL trades of the calendar year 2024. If there’s one major takeaway here, it’s that the Washington Capitals, Vegas Golden Knights and San Jose Sharks are the league’s most aggressive dealmakers.

As for the primary criterion of this list: impact. If a big name got moved but neither side of the trade experienced a significant change in the present (buying team) or future outlook (selling team), it didn’t make the cut.

One disclaimer: players whose rights were acquired just before free agency, such as Chris Tanev’s and Jake Guentzel’s, don’t apply, as those deals were more or less signings rather than true trades.

Honorable mentions

Two trades we could look back on as the most impactful of 2023: the Anaheim Ducks acquiring Cutter Gauthier from the Philadelphia Flyers for Jamie Drysdale and the blockbuster trade that brought Yaroslav Askarov to the Sharks and sent David Edstrom to the Nashville Predators. They just fall short of my top 10 because none of the prospects involved has played enough yet to truly indicate the long-term impact. I’ve also tucked Jakob Chychrun just outside the top 10 because, hey, I can’t have this list be exclusively comprised of Capitals trades, plus he’s a pending UFA in 2025 and thus isn’t guaranteed yet to be a long-term piece for Washington.

10. Flames set up future by selling high on Elias Lindholm

It’s mind-boggling just how far Lindholm’s star has fallen in the past year. A season ago, he was easily one of the top difference makers available leading up to the trade deadline, a talented two-way center who could play in pretty much any situation. The Vancouver Canucks were conceivably jumping the market to snag a top asset when they landed him right before the 2024 NHL All-Star Game for 2024 first- and fourth-round picks, Hunter Brzustewicz, Joni Jurmo and Andrei Kuzmenko. Lindholm never found his groove as a Canuck, posting the worst play-driving numbers of his career, albeit he flashed a bit in the playoffs with five goals and 10 points in 13 games. He’s now property of the Boston Bruins, continuing to underachieve as he embarks on a seven-year contract with a $7.75 million AAV.

As for the Flames’ side of the deal: Kuzmenko was a revelation last season, producing almost a point per game post-trade, but he’s since returned to frustrating enigma status. What matters more is that the Flames landed a promising puck-mover in Brzustewicz, who topped 90 points in his final WHL season and is now getting his first pro experience with the AHL Wranglers, plus that first-round pick. After landing Zayne Parekh with their own first-round selection, they used Vancouver’s pick to draft Matvei Gridin. He’s lighting it up in his first QMJHL season, and DFO prospect analyst Steven Ellis is high on the right winger’s potential. The Lindholm deal was just one of many selloff trades Craig Conroy made last season. From 2023 to 2024, the Flames climbed into the top half of Ellis’ league-wide prospect pool rankings.

9. Capitals take a swing on Pierre-Luc Dubois reclamation project

Dubois was an utter disaster in Year 1 of his eight-year, $8.5 million AAV deal with the Los Angeles Kings, too often lacking competitive fire and not-so-secretly called out publicly by his teammates. When Washington took on the final seven years of his deal in exchange for goaltender Darcy Kuemper, with L.A. retaining no salary, it felt like someone was going to look very foolish. But most people would’ve presumed that honor would go to Washington. So far this season, Dubois looks reborn, bringing his power forward game to the second line on a surprising Caps team that has surged to first place in the Metropolitan Division.

On the other side: after a couple seasons of declining play, Kuemper has been above average in L.A.’s net. Given he helped the Kings escape a player they felt could not fit into their team chemistry, this trade feels win-win early on in 2024-25.

8. Sharks land minute muncher Jake Walman for literally nothing

“Hey, would you like a defenseman who plays 22 minutes a game and sits third in the NHL in 5-on-5 points per 60, two spots above Cale Makar?”

“Who wouldn’t? But what’s your exorbitant asking price?”

“I’m thinkin’ free. Yep, free. You can just have him.”

It was puzzling even in the moment when the Detroit Red Wings and GM Steve Yzerman sent Walman to the Sharks this past summer for future considerations. Walman was Moritz Seider’s best fit as a partner for the previous couple seasons. But Walman has bloomed with more responsibility as a Shark to the point that this trade giveaway now looks downright embarrassing for Detroit. Is this a bad time to mention that the Red Wings also threw in a second-round pick as a sweetener for San Jose to take on Walman? Well done, GM Mike Grier.

7. Mittelstadt, Byram swap teams in the year’s purest Hockey Trade

The win-now Avs had been chasing that No. 2 center since Nazem Kadri and J.T. Compher departed them in consecutive summers. They decided on acquiring Mittelstadt, who had underachieved in Buffalo relative to his immense hype as a prospect. It meant sacrificing the talented and well-rounded but injury-prone Byram. Mittelstadt immediately bolstered Colorado’s lineup, particularly in the playoffs, when he was low-key dominant at times, while Buffalo immediately handed Byram a huge role. Early on, the Avs looked like the winners of the deal, especially since they locked up Mittelstadt on a three-year extension at a $5.75 million AAV. But Byram has been quite the player for Buffalo in an otherwise miserable season, playing north of 23 minutes a game and scoring at a 46-point pace. It remains to be seen which side wins this trade in the long run, especially when Byram is an arbitration-eligible RFA this coming offseason.

6. Senators attempt rebuild acceleration with Linus Ullmark acquisition

So much has gone wrong in recent seasons for the Senators, perennially crowned the breakout team of the year, that it’s tough to blame the disappointments on one thing. But in the three seasons preceding this one, Ottawa sat 23^rd in team save percentage. Their puck-stopping certainly wasn’t helping things. Steve Staios deserved kudos, then, for attacking the problem and landing the 2022-23 Vezina Trophy winner in Ullmark – and re-signing him to a four-year contract at an $8.25 million AAV before he’d played a regular season game with the team. Ullmark started slowly but has rounded into form with a stellar December, helping Ottawa jump into the Eastern Conference Wildcard race. He’s also a hugely vocal dressing room presence. He has made the Senators better.

5. Devils get serious about goaltending, land their ‘big game’ in Jacob Markstrom

Goaltending almost singlehandedly dragged a Cup-contender Devils team into Hell last season as Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid imploded. After papering over the problem by trading for safe veteran Jake Allen at the deadline, GM Tom Fitzgerald vowed to hunt for “big game” in the offseason. Markstrom had previously accepted a trade to New Jersey that was reportedly vetoed by president of hockey ops Don Maloney on behalf of Flames ownership, but the two sides completed the deal in the summer, with Calgary sending Markstrom there for a 2025 first-round pick and Kevin Bahl. With the Flames retaining $1.875 million of Markstrom’s cap hit, the Devils are paying Markstrom just $4.125 million through 2025-26. They finished 30^th in team SV% last year. This season, they sit eighth – and have returned to a prime playoff position in the standings.

4. One of Vegas, San Jose will someday look foolish for the wild Tomas Hertl deal

By last winter, we already suspected that no trade was out of reach for Vegas. But GM Kelly McCrimmon really jumped the Shark, pun intended, with his deadline-day humdinger. Not only did he snatch Tomas Hertl way from the last-place Sharks with six years remaining on his contract, but San Jose agreed to retain $1,387,500 of his $8,137,500 cap hit for its duration. The price was what the Golden Knights consider Halloween candy: a first-round pick and a prospect in Edstrom. Retaining all that salary stung, but are we sure San Jose will be remembered as the loser of this deal? It flipped Edstrom in the Askarov trade months later. Hertl, meanwhile, hasn’t excelled with Vegas in his first full season there and just turned 31. It’s possible we look back on his acquisition as the day Vegas flew too close to the sun.

3. Evil Empire seizes trade deadline week, acquires and extends Noah Hanifin

Days before acquiring Hertl, the Golden Knights capitalized on the Flames’ fire sale and did whey always do, dealing a package that included, you guessed it, a first-round pick and a prospect (blueliner Daniil Miromanov) to solidify their D-corps with Hanifin. As an extra touch, they locked him up on an eight-year deal at a $7.35 million AAV a month later. He quickly ascended the depth chart and manned Vegas’ top pair and power play unit by season’s end. Hanifin has regressed this season, but he’s still just 27 and will be an important member of a Cup contender’s blueline for years to come. With the extension factored in, the acquisition cost was pretty darned low.

2. Capitals kidnap Logan Thompson while he’s in the building during NHL Draft

It’s not every day someone gets traded while in their original team’s arena signing autographs. That’s what happened during the 2024 Draft, which was held at Sphere in Vegas. The Evil Empire’s cutthroat methods know no bounds. The Golden Knights sent Thompson packing, literally, to the Capitals for a pair of third-round picks. He’s been a revelation, losing just twice in regulation through his first 16 starts this season and sitting seventh in the NHL in goals saved above expected per 60. He was conceivably acquired to share starts in a platoon with Charlie Lindgren but has outplayed him and seems likely to be Washington’s playoff No. 1.

1. Utah transforms D-corps, gives Mikhail Sergachev chance to be a horse

That wily Bill Armstrong. On night 1 of the 2024 Draft, Utah Hockey Club’s GM told reporters he was in no rush to make a bold move. The next morning he traded one of his top prospects in Conor Geekie plus a solid young blueliner in J.J. Moser in a package to land Sergachev from the Tampa Bay Lightning. The trade sent a message that Utah felt it had assembled a critical mass of prospects and could finally start accelerating its rebuild with aggressive upgrades. As of mid-December, Utah was in the hunt, one point out of a playoff spot with a game in hand on the team it was chasing, and Sergachev has been a big reason why. He sits third in the NHL in average ice time at almost 26 minutes; he’s pacing for a career best in goals; and he’s been one of the NHL’s best all-round horses, finally becoming a true No. 1 blueliner playing out of Victor Hedman’s shadow.

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