2023 NHL Trade Deadline winners and losers: Showtime on Broadway

Matt Larkin
Matt Larkin(MLarkinHockey)
2023 NHL Trade Deadline winners and losers: Showtime on Broadway
Credit: © Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

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What…time is it? What day? What year?

The 2023 NHL Trade Deadline homestretch assaulted our senses this week like nothing in recent memory, with teams piling on move after move, recruiting third-party brokers to make cap space work and dropping our jaws enough to make even the NBA jealous. According to our friends at CapFriendly, in the two weeks leading up to Deadline Day, we saw a staggering 43 trades league wide, with 19 more consummated on March 3 leading up to the final horn at 3:00 p.m. ET.

It has been a season of extremes, with restless contenders taking aggressive swings in pursuit of a Stanley Cup or even, cough cough, a single playoff series win. Adding another layer of drama, in The Connor Bedard Year, seller teams tripped over themselves to strip their rosters bare, upping their odds of losing down the stretch while also loading up on picks and prospects to accelerate their rebuilds.

So which teams made out the best? Here are my 2023 Trade Deadline winners and losers, factoring in not just moves made on March 3 but also deals struck over the past several weeks – as it wouldn’t make sense to exclude a team simply for getting its trades done before the final day, right?

Trade Deadline Winners

BOSTON BRUINS

When you’re on pace to break the single-season NHL record for team points, and your future Hall of Fame No. 1 center could retire this summer…you best be all-in. And Bruins GM Don Sweeney got the memo. Dmitry Orlov has transitioned seamlessly into a formidable top four on ‘D’; Garnet Hathaway brings a heavy edge and strong defensive play as a bottom-six forward; and Tyler Bertuzzi will be Brad Marchand Lite, an agitator with scoring touch. The injuries to Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno are unfortunate, but if they return in time for the playoffs, the Bruins will be stacked. Even if they don’t, the Bruins are the team to beat. Extra points for getting all their upgrades done without sacrificing top prospect Fabian Lysell.

NASHVILLE PREDATORS

Wow, is David Poile ever rolling out the red carpet for his GM successor Barry Trotz. In addition to getting a 2023 first-round pick and solid prospect in Reid Schaefer in the Mattias Ekholm trade, Nashville got five picks for middle-six banger Tanner Jeannot and some more for Nino Niederreiter and Mikael Granlund. Nashville now picks 10 times in the first four rounds of the 2023 NHL Draft, with five first-rounders lined up for the next three drafts and 11 picks in the first two rounds of the next three drafts. Only in retirement did Poile finally do what he probably should’ve done a couple years go: blow it up rather than have his team limp along in mediocrity.

NEW JERSEY DEVILS

The Devils didn’t have to be all-in. As I said repeatedly leading up to the deadline, their championship contention window is only just opening. But they do have one of the best teams in the NHL right now, so while a rental wasn’t that appealing, the idea of adding Timo Meier as an upgrade who could grow with the team as a long-term asset was very enticing. And what do the Devils do? They go out and get the exact player that made the most sense for them. Not only did they land arguably the best overall asset on the market in Meier, a stud forward in his prime, but they wisely dealt from their area of surplus. By my estimation, Shakir Mukhamadullin was only their fourth-best blueline prospect. Top marks to GM Tom Fitzgerald for keeping forwards Alexander Holtz and Dawson Mercer out of the deal. As a kicker, New Jersey picked up some checking forward depth with Curtis Lazar on Friday.

NEW YORK RANGERS

The Blueshirts had one of the most loaded rosters in the Eastern Conference but had a few bugaboos to sort out. The right wing position was a black hole, with a desperate carousel of Vitali Kravtsov, Sammy Blais, Jimmy Vesey, Kaapo Kakko, Alexis Lafreniere and Barclay Goodrow failing to produce one top-sixer on a team that needed two. Well, with Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane in town, the problem is solved and then some. With coach Gerard Gallant able to keep the Kid Line of Lafreniere, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko intact as third unit now, there isn’t a deeper team at forward in the NHL, 1 through 9. The Rangers loaded up – and added Niko Mikkola for defensive depth and Tyler Motte for fourth-line smasher duty too – without giving up any top prospects. They used up a first-round pick on Tarasenko but could afford it since they have Dallas’ first-rounder from the Nils Lundkvist trade. They capitalized on having a ton of leverage over Chicago and didn’t even surrender an official first-rounder for Kane. That only happens if the Blueshirts make the Eastern Conference Final, a tradeoff they’d gladly take. It was a monstrously successful deadline season for GM Chris Drury.

OTTAWA SENATORS

The Senators a week ago were more or less what many of us thought they were heading into this season: an exciting young team with some tantalizing offensive talent and not enough defensive acumen to be a true playoff threat yet. They’d gotten hot enough to sniff the Eastern Conference playoff periphery but weren’t a sure enough contender in the present for GM Pierre Dorion to have chased a rental. Enter Jakob Chychrun, a non-rental with two remaining seasons after this one at a $4.6 million cap hit. As a bona fide top-four difference maker on ‘D,’ he massively upgrades Ottawa at its thinnest position for the foreseeable future. In his prime at 24, he can grow with the Sens as they ascend to what might be a stronger playoff push next season. And given the reported asking price from Arizona across the past year and a half, it was a coup for Ottawa to land Chychrun for a package that included just one first-rounder (only an additional first if Ottawa reaches the Eastern Conference final this season, so, LOL) and zero elite prospects.

ST. LOUIS BLUES

Doug Armstrong has a singular ability as a GM to recognize the need for a retool before it’s too late, make some moves on the fly and build around the prime-year talent still on his roster. He did so in 2017-18, selling off Paul Stastny at the deadline, then pivoted and offered a huge package including Tage Thompson and a 2019 first-round pick to land Ryan O’Reilly from Buffalo the ensuing offseason, setting up the 2018-19 Cup run. Well, ‘Army’ is doing it again. He understood that his team didn’t quite have the horses for 2022-23 and went to work selling off O’Reilly, Tarasenko, Mikkola and Ivan Barbashev. Those moves netted St. Louis, among other things, legit prospect Zach Dean and two additional first-rounders the 2023 Draft. St. Louis can either dip three times into a loaded class this June or use the picks to trade for a big-name upgrade in the summer. As a bonus: they rolled the dice with a buy low on Jakub Vrana, who has battled demons but undoubtedly still has high upside. He’s a 30-goal scorer or better if he can play a full season next year, and the Blues are only paying half his cap hit.

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS

If you’re a jaded Leaf fan who has endured year after year of heartbreak, you have permission to let the demonic voice in for just a minute. You still have to play Tampa Bay again. Boston loaded up. So did a bunch of other teams in the East. It’s entirely possible you lose in the first round again even if you’re a top-five team in the NHL. OK. Now shake it off and acknowledge that GM Kyle Dubas shot his shot like a wild man this winter. Toronto has six new regular skaters in its starting lineup: Ryan O’Reilly, Noel Acciari, Jake McCabe, Sam Lafferty, Erik Gustafsson and Luke Schenn. This team didn’t need any more skill. It needed heaviness and jam from players who weren’t marginal NHLers that would be healthy scratched come playoff time. I’m surprised to see Toronto emerge from the deadline with 10 NHL defensemen in the system, but, heck, this team will not have to worry about injuries when it’s time to go to war. Maybe it all blows up in the Leafs’ face, but they understood the need for urgency, especially with Dubas’ contract set to expire. It was a shock to see them sacrifice Rasmus Sandin in the Gustafsson deal, but they emerged from the deadline a much better team – while not trading top prospect Matthew Knies and also nabbing Boston’s first-round pick from the Caps.

WASHINGTON CAPITALS

Rather than break the same way as their perpetual rival Pittsburgh Penguins, the Capitals and GM Brian MacLellan assessed their situation more realistically. They saw they were riddled with injuries and hanging by a thread in the Eastern Conference wildcard race. They had tons of expiring contracts they could rent out. They also have one of the weakest prospect crops in the league. MacLellan made a mature decision and turned Orlov, Hathaway, Marcus Johansson, Gustafsson and Lars Eller into a pile of second- and third-round picks in 2024 and 2025 – and, best of all, a legitimate building block on defense in Sandin. Rather than use a first-rounder acquired from Boston that could be 32nd overall, they used it to bring in an established young blueliner with top-four upside. The Caps made rebuild and retool moves simultaneously. That’s not easy to do.

The Murky Middle

Technically any team not cracking the Winners or Losers list could qualify here, but I’ll single out a few teams that stand out the most.

CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS

The Hawks did decently to harvest a first-rounder in the Sam Lafferty and Jake McCabe deal and a second-rounder in the Max Domi trade. But if I had told you in October that the Hawks would end up with 0.0 guaranteed first-round picks and 0.0 prospects for Kane and Jonathan Toews, what would you say? With Kane holding all the cards in the form of a no-movement clause, the best GM Kyle Davidson could wrangle was a conditional first-rounder, and Toews’ illness problems rendered him untradeable. These were circumstances out of Chicago’s control, but the outcome was disappointing nonetheless.

COLORADO AVALANCHE

The defending Stanley Cup champs have won seven of their past 10 games. They’ve closed to within six points of Central Division leader Dallas and have three games in hand. They’ll soon have Cale Makar (head) and Gabriel Landeskog (knee) back in their lineup. With so much talent jumping to the Eastern Conference in Trade Deadline Deals, Colorado might still be the class of the West. Which is why it was underwhelming to see them count Lars Eller and Jack Johnson as their only acquisitions. To stay top dog, I think Colorado needed to upgrade its second-line center. Instead, it traded for another bottom-six center. That means J.T. Compher will continue his miscast role as the No. 2 center indefinitely. He has done career best work in that gig this season, picking up 20 points in his past 21 games, but he’s not Nazem Kadri. Perhaps the Avs just didn’t have a choice, however, as the center market was weak once Horvat and O’Reilly were off the board.

EDMONTON OILERS

While Mattias Ekholm nicely addresses a need for big, strong a left-shot shutdown defenseman. He’s 32 and may not age well across the remaining three seasons of his deal, but he’s still plenty effective in the present – and the Oilers did well to beef up their bottom six forwards with Nick Bjugstad. They did lose one of their higher-end prospects in Reid Schaefer, but GM Ken Holland understands the window his team is in right now. The West is wide open, and a team with the best player in a generation in Connor McDavid and another superstar in Leon Draisaitl has as strong a shot as anyone to go all the way. Holland has deepened a team that was good enough to win two playoff rounds a year ago. But I just wish the Oilers could’ve held onto Tyson Barrie in the process and had Nashville retain more money on Ekholm instead. It’s rare to see a Cup contender move its No. 1 power play quarterback in the middle of the stretch drive. You traded Barrie and Jesse Puljujarvi for Ekholm and Bjugstad while giving up a first and one of your top prospects. Do the net gains amount to a win? Probably, but ideally you’d want to be sure of that.

NEW YORK ISLANDERS

I’m doomed to go to war with Isles Twitter for months and years to come over the Bo Horvat blockbuster. New York gave the Vancouver Canucks its top prospect in Aatu Raty plus a first-round pick and Anthony Beauvillier in that deal while sitting outside a playoff spot at the time. Strange time to go all-in. And even once Horvat signed an eight-year extension, my opinion was unchanged. He undoubtedly improves his team in the present, but he also joins one of the older teams in the league on a contract that essentially begins at the end of his prime. The Isles arguably weren’t close enough to real contention to take a swing like that, which is why I can’t declare them a winner despite the fact they acquired one of the best assets on the market – plus another handy forward pickup in Pierre Engvall.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING

There was no more polarizing trade than the five-pick bonanza the Bolts ponied up for Tanner Jeannot. One school of thought: the Lightning don’t need draft picks, as they’re firmly in win-now mode and their player development system is peerless, so it’s fine to go get their guy. The other: it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison between Jeannot, a late bloomer who had an unsustainable shooting percentage as a rookie, and the likes of Brandon Hagel, Nick Paul, Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow. I lean toward the first opinion, as GM Julien BriseBois has earned my trust at this point, but I acknowledge that the deal dumbfounded many people, so that lands Tampa in the Murky Middle.

Trade Deadline Losers

CAROLINA HURRICANES

Argh. Carolina. Come on. You have your most dominant team in franchise history. You’ve been knocking on the door of true Stanley Cup contention every year of the Rod Brind’Amour era without breaking through. You had extra cap space with Max Pacioretty landing on IR. And what you have to show for it is…Shayne Gostisbehere and Jesse Puljujarvi. Not good enough. Not when Horvat, Tarasenko, Kane and Meier joined other teams in your division. Maybe the Canes simply got outbid or didn’t want to overpay for a middle-tier upgrade remaining on the board. I don’t care. No excuses. This team should be going all the way and it fell behind as its stiffest competition in the Metro and Atlantic Division kept adding. The loser teams aren’t ranked, but if I had to hand out a Biggest Loser award, it would go to Carolina simply because the expectations for this team are so high. Even owner Tom Dundon hinted at an aggressive buyer mentality the week before the deadline. What happened? 

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS

A month ago, the Flyers were arguably positioned as one of the more prominent seller teams, with James van Riemsdyk and Ivan Provorov headlining their list of potential assets. But did GM Chuck Fletcher not anticipate a slew of bubble teams suddenly jumping in as sellers? The minute that relatively competitive teams like the Blues, Capitals and Predators decided to offer up their superior assets, the bottom dwellers got leapfrogged in the pecking order and the Flyers were evidently left in the cold. Provorov and Kevin Hayes staying isn’t a disaster given they both have plenty of term left on their contracts, but it was an outright failure not finding a taker for ‘JVR,’ with a trade to the Detroit Red Wings falling through at the 11th hour. Fletcher explained that he received almost no calls for JVR. I don’t buy the excuse. He evidently didn’t pick up the phone himself early enough and got snaked by the other sellers. He received no calls on March 3 because it was too late.

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS

The year is 2059. The Penguins, limping through an injury-plagued season under Mike Sullivan, add a handful of mediocre veterans before the deadline in preparation of their 32nd consecutive first-round exit. Sigh. To recap: the Penguins establish themselves as still all in by re-signing Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Rickard Rakell, and then, come the 2023 Deadline, GM Ron Hextall declares his first-round pick likely unavailable and winds up adding Mikael Granlund and Nick Bonino at forward and Dmitry Kulikov on defense? But not before nudging Teddy Blueger out the door? Yawn. The Pens are once again doomed to get bounced in the first round. Are you frustrated if you’re Sidney Crosby? Escaping Brock McGinn’s remaining term was wise, but why is Hextall focusing on next season when it’s imperative to maximize the remaining good years of your future Hall of Fame stars?

VANCOUVER CANUCKS

It must be hard being a Canucks fan right now, watching your franchise wrestle with itself. Vancouver turns the page with the Horvat trade, bringing in a first-round pick and Raty, then…Vancouver punts that pick in a confounding trade for puck-moving defenseman Filip Hronek. It essentially means Vancouver moved Horvat and a second-round pick for Raty, Hronek, Beauvillier and a fourth-round pick. Woof. Hronek is a perfectly capable player, and Beauvillier looks reborn since arriving in Vancouver, but these are the caliber of assets that characterize middling contender status. The Canucks are in denial. Keep in mind they also sold off Schenn, adopting a seller posture, before turning around and dealing away a first-round pick. Talk about contradictory behavior. This franchise is lost.

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