Some of these moves really make me question how these GMs have gotten their jobs. The NHL trade deadline week has inspired the GMs from all around the league to embrace their inner The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly characters with the moves they pulled off.
Who doesn’t love The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly?
It’s a classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti western film pitting three unique, mysterious, and intriguing cowboys against each other in a race for a fortune of gold and treasures during the difficult times of the American Civil War. Not only is it one of the most iconic and classic movies in cinema history, but it’s title also can be used to perfectly describe the moves the NHL GMs make every year during the trade deadline week.
I really don’t know why these GMs find it necessary to throw away years worth of draft picks and potentially franchise changing prospects to get some aging, declining, mediocre veteran player that they could have traded for a 5th round pick back in December.
Truthfully, I think these GMs get FOMO (fear of missing out) when they see their rivals make dumb acquisitions in the name of “bolstering the team for a cup run, which obviously then triggers them to make even bigger and dumber trades for the same exact reason.
However, 9/10 times these teams don’t need some 32-year-old veteran that is either declining or was never that great to begin with as the current team they assembled is in a playoff race for a reason.
Now, I’m not trying to call out or insult some of these GMs when I list the worst moves seen so far, but someone has to tell these guys that they traded their proverbial Ferraris for Toyota Prius.
Why did Lightning GM Julien BriseBois trade Cal Foote (a really good young defenseman), their 2025 1st round pick, 2024 2nd round pick, 2023 3rd round pick, 2023 4th round pick, and 2023 5th round pick to Nashville for forward Tanner Jeannot? You know, the very same forward that has 5 G, 9 A for 14 PTS in 56 games this season for the Predators.
Picking up Nick Paul from Ottawa was a brilliant move last season, but this move reeks of desperation and fear of an early playoff exit. The Lightning could have used these pieces for another defenseman or a 2nd-line center, not a 3rd line checking winger at best. I know Julien BriseBois has had tremendous success in the past with deadline deal moves, but I’m not a fan of this one.
Moving on, it seems like GM Ken Holland and Edmonton Oilers are desperate to ruin all the chemistry the team has built up over the last few years.
In what can only be described as a fleece by the Nashville Predators, the Oilers willingly traded D Tyson Barrie (10 G, 33 A, 43 PTS), their 2023 1st round pick, a 2024 4th round pick, and a prospect (Reid Schaefer) in exchange for Mattias Ekholm (5 G, 13 A, 18 PTS) and a 2024 6th round pick.
Yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious how lopsided this move is just by briefly glancing at it.
Ken Holland really gave up his most prolific defenseman, a valuable 1st round pick in this year’s stacked draft, a promising young forward, and a 4th round pick for an aging defensive defenseman and a 6th round pick. Sure, Tyson Barrie is no Cale Makar or Erik Karlsson, but he was the best scoring defenseman Edmonton had and was a locker room favorite/leader.
Just go look at all of the tribute posts the Oilers players have posted in the last few hours for Barrie to see that this was a dreadful move by Holland.
If he wanted to get Ekholm, then he should have packaged Jesse Puljujärvi (who he traded to the Hurricanes for an unsigned rookie yesterday) or some other tradable asset to pry Ekholm out of Nashville. I’m not trying to disparage the guy as Ekholm was a good player for a long time with the Predators, but he’s no longer the rugged, Top-4 defenseman that helped the Preds reach the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals.
And Ken Holland and the Oilers are about to find that out for themselves.
Lastly (for the bad moves), are the Vancouver Canucks aware that they’re in a tanking battle for the #1 pick of the 2023 draft?
The Canucks, who are currently 6th in the Pacific and 19 points behind 8th seeded Winnipeg, made a decent trade in acquiring the Islanders 2023 1st round pick for former team captain Bo Horvat back in late January.
This team desperately needs young, impactful prospects to bolster a stale roster, so what did Canucks GM Patrik Allvin do today? Trade Brock Boeser? Or Conor Garland? Or maybe even Thatcher Demko or Quinn Hughes?
Nope, he decided that an excess of 1st round picks was too much to bear as he sent the Islanders 1st and the Canucks 2023 2nd round pick (which is probably going to be in the late 30’s or early 40’s) for Red Wings defenseman Filip Hronek. Don’t get me wrong as Filip Hronek is a solid Top-4 defenseman that will shore up the Canucks defensive woes, but what is he going to do this season?
Vancouver is 19 POINTS OUTSIDE OF THE PLAYOFFS! This is the kind of move a team makes if they are on the verge of a Stanely Cup win or need some defensive help to secure a spot in the playoffs, not one that is barley staying afloat in the Top-6 of their own division.
There’s a reason why the Canucks have only made the playoffs twice (and one of those was during the COVID bubble) in the last ten years, and it’s mainly down to the management making stupid decisions like this. Stevie Y fleeced another fool.
Regardless, I can’t be all negative as there were also some good moves done in the last few days too.
The Avalanche picking up Jack Johnson and Lars Eller for a couple of mid-round picks will really shore up depth issues for their defending cup run, the Devils blockbuster deal for Timo Meier should take some of the scoring pressure off Jack Hughes for their first serious playoff run in a decade, the Bruins picking up Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway helps them toughen up for one final run at the cup with Bergeron, Marchand, and Krejci, and the Hurricanes getting Shane Gostisbehere will make their defensive core that much more imposing.
And, obviously, the moves the Rangers made were my favorite of the deadline so far, but I wrote an article about that already.
Oh, and before I forget, the ugliest move so far has to be the playoff-bound (most likely) Los Angeles Kings shipping off their legendary goalie Jonathan Quick, a 2023 1st round pick, and 2024 3rd round pick to the Columbus Blue Jackets, the worst team in the league, for Joonas Korpisalo and Vladislav Gavrikov.
What a nice sendoff for the team’s greatest ever goalie by Kings GM Rob Blake, right? Sending him to the literal worst team in the league despite the fact that this was probably going to be his final year in the NHL.
Why did this move happen? Kings wanted more cap space. Plain and simple.
Okay, that’s probably enough talk about these GMs making logic-defying moves as we’ve got another two whole days of this before the real playoff chase begins.
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