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Daily Faceoff’s 2023 Deadline Day Live Blog

Mike Gould
Mike Gould
Mar 3, 2023, 10:00 ESTUpdated: Mar 3, 2023, 16:01 EST
Daily Faceoff’s 2023 Deadline Day Live Blog
Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

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Happy Friday, everyone! After the most chaotic week leading up to the trade deadline in recent memory, we’ve finally arrived at Deadline Day itself.

Most of the big names are gone. A few still remain. And we’re expecting to see plenty of activity as the 3:00 PM ET deadline nears and teams try to make their final adjustments before the home stretch.

It’ll be a busy day in front offices around the National Hockey League. Here at Daily Faceoff, we’re going to do our very best to keep up with all the action. Welcome to the Deadline Day live blog!

Follow along below for all the latest news! Newer updates are at the top.

4:00 PM

Let’s wrap things up with a few more housekeeping tidbits.

  • The Nashville Predators have signed defenseman Dante Fabbro to a one-year contract extension. Fabbro, who turns 25 in June, has had a difficult year in Nashville and was on Seravalli’s Trade Targets board. This feels a little bit like a contract the Predators signed with the ultimate intention of moving it.
  • The Detroit Red Wings have signed veteran forward Alex Chiasson to a contract for the rest of the season. Chiasson attended Coyotes camp on a PTO last fall but has spent most of the season in the AHL.
  • Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher addressed not trading James van Riemsdyk: “I’m trying to be very clear here. I didn’t get a clear offer of even a fourth-round pick.” Ouch!

Beyond a few other minor moves, that pretty much wraps it all up. Certainly a bit of an anticlimactic day after a bonkers week of leadup.

Thanks so much for following along with our DFO Live Blog! Stay tuned for more of these at the draft and free agency.

3:30 PM

We have a brother-for-brother trade! Further to a report by yours truly yesterday, the Flames have acquired forward Nick Ritchie (alongside Stecher) from the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for forward Brett Ritchie and defenseman Connor Mackey.

Nick is the more productive (and younger) of the two Ritchies, while Stecher is a scrappy but undersized defenseman. Mackey has been the Flames’ No. 7 D all year long.

Meanwhile, John Klingberg — No. 2 on the Daily Faceoff Trade Targets board — is off to the Minnesota Wild. While also retaining half of Klingberg’s remaining cap hit, the Ducks receive a 2025 fourth-round pick, defenseman Andrej Sustr, and prospect Nikita Nesterenko.

Klingberg started his NHL career with five consecutive 40-point seasons in Dallas. How far his value has fallen …

3:05 PM

And after all that, van Riemsdyk is staying in Philadelphia. According to Seravalli, the Flyers were unable to move JVR before the 3:00 PM deadline. Woof.

Beyond that, it’s time for the flurry of moves. We’re going to attack this with bullet points:

  • The Flames have reportedly acquired defenseman Troy Stecher from the Arizona Coyotes. We’re not completely sure why the Flames are buying, but Stecher is a solid bottom-pairing defenseman heading to a team flush with them.
  • The Ottawa Senators have acquired forward Patrick Brown from the Flyers in exchange for a 2023 sixth-round pick. Depth forward for a team desperate to make the playoffs after trading its first.
  • According to Seravalli, the Chicago Blackhawks have acquired forward Austin Wagner from the L.A. Kings in exchange for future considerations. Wagner is an AHL forward with a bit of NHL experience but certainly nothing to write home about.
  • The Buffalo Sabres have reportedly traded depth center Rasmus Asplund to the Nashville Predators in exchange for a 2025 seventh-round pick.
  • Montreal Canadiens defenseman Joel Edmundson was not traded before the deadline.

There will be plenty more to come!

2:50 PM

Uh oh. Scratch all that. It looks like JVR isn’t going to Detroit after all … and with 10 minutes left until the deadline, will the Flyers have enough time to pivot?

JVR has nine goals and 23 points in 41 games with Philadelphia this year and remains at No. 1 on Daily Faceoff‘s latest Trade Targets board. Finally, some drama this Friday afternoon.

2:45 PM

The Flames have finally made a deal, sending AHL center Radim Zohorna to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for winger Dryden Hunt.

But we won’t waste too much time talking about that one because there are rumblings that something much bigger is going down: James van Riemsdyk is reportedly heading to the Detroit Red Wings.

https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/1631740587396268037

This move is hard to square with Detroit already having sold Filip Hronek, Tyler Bertuzzi, Oskar Sundqvist, and Jakub Vrana, but we also don’t know what the return will look like. JVR is still somewhat productive at age 33 but is set to become a UFA this summer.

2:20 PM

The dam is finally bursting.

The Buffalo Sabres have acquired forward Jordan Greenway from the Minnesota Wild in exchange for a 2023 second-round pick and a 2024 fifth-round pick, according to multiple reports.

Greenway, 26, has just two goals and seven points in 45 games with the Wild this season. He’s a classic reclamation project acquisition for a Sabres team looking to leap back into the playoff picture — and, as Frank Seravalli noted in his Greenway profile last week, he could be a tailor-made Kyle Okposo replacement in Buffalo.

It doesn’t look like the Wild are done, though. According to The Athletic‘s Shayna Goldman, the Detroit Red Wings are in the process of sending pending UFA Oskar Sundqvist — a big center with 21 points in 52 games this year — to Minnesota in exchange for a 2023 fourth-round pick.

Greenway out, Sundqvist in. Not too bad for Minnesota. And with Greenway’s $3 million cap hit through 2025 now off the books, the Wild now have the flexibility to cook up something bigger if they wish.

2:10 PM

Well, if you’re still here, we have nothing new to report (except that the Montreal Canadiens ended up being the third-party broker in the Nick Bonino trade).

James van Riemsdyk is still out there. So are John Klingberg, Kevin Hayes, Brock Boeser, Colton Parayko, Conor Sheary, Troy Stecher, and Justin Holl. But things have slowed down to a complete crawl.

It’s worth noting that the Calgary Flames remain the only NHL team to not make a single trade during the 2022–23 season. Will that change with 45 minutes left on the clock?

1:20 PM

We’re into the final 100 minutes before the deadline, and we finally have another trade. According to TSN’s Pierre Lebrun, the Anaheim Ducks are sending defenseman Dmitry Kulikov to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Kulikov, 32, has three goals and 15 points while averaging 20:13 in 61 games with the Ducks this season. He’s a pending UFA with a $2.25 million cap hit.

The Penguins are in full-on tinker mode as they look to lock down one of the final spots in the hotly contested Eastern Conference playoff race. They already cleared up a ton of cap space to get Mikael Granlund earlier this week — what’s a veteran depth defenseman on top of that?

According to ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, the Ducks will receive a third-round pick and a player in exchange for Kulikov. That’s a bit of a steep price for a guy who was traded for future considerations last summer.

UPDATE: OK, so LeBrun and Frank Seravalli are reporting that the player heading back to the Ducks in the deal is Brock McGinn, which makes this deal way more interesting. McGinn is a 29-year-old winger making $2.75 million through 2025, but he hasn’t scored a goal since Dec. 22 and cleared waivers earlier this week. Classic reclamation project for a Ducks team with plenty of opportunities to give.

12:30 PM

Here’s another one: Vladislav Namestnikov is off to the Winnipeg Jets.

Namestnikov started the year with the Tampa Bay Lightning before being traded to the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday in exchange for Mikey Eyssimont (who, incidentally, the Sharks claimed off waivers from the Jets).

It never made sense for the Sharks to keep the pending UFA Namestnikov, and now they’ve sent him off to Winnipeg in exchange for a 2025 fourth-round pick. The 30-year-old forward is under contract for the rest of this season at a $2.5 million cap hit, although the Lightning already retained half of that when trading him to San Jose (the Sharks did not retain in this deal with Winnipeg).

Through 57 games with the Lightning this season, Namestnikov collected six goals and 15 points. He never really seemed like a great stylistic fit in his second go-round with the Bolts.

Talk about an established market: Namestnikov has now been traded for a fourth-round pick four times in his career. The Jets will be Namestnikov’s seventh NHL team.

12:05 PM

They’re coming fast and furious now. We have an actual hockey trade to talk about this time!

The Los Angeles Kings have traded forward Brendan Lemieux to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for forward Zack MacEwen, according to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun.

It’s a swap of two 26-year-old wingers — but while Lemieux is a pending UFA, MacEwen can become a restricted free agent with a qualifying offer.

Why did Philadelphia do this? We honestly aren’t sure. They traded an energy winger with nine points in 46 games for a different energy winger with three points in 27 games. Except the guy they got is two inches shorter and could easily walk for nothing this summer.

But it certainly makes sense for an LA team with a clear path forward in the playoffs. MacEwen is more than suited to May hockey and shouldn’t cost much if the Kings re-sign him as an RFA.

UPDATE: OK, LeBrun is saying the Flyers are also getting a 2024 fifth-round pick in this deal. Sure. That makes slightly more sense. Works for us.

11:55 AM

A trade! As I live and breathe!

According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Vancouver Canucks have traded forward Curtis Lazar to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for a 2024 fourth-round pick. The Canucks subsequently confirmed the deal on Twitter.

Lazar, 28, is under contract for two more years after this one at a $1 million annual cap hit. The six-foot center recorded three goals and five points in 45 games with the Canucks this season. Things didn’t really work out for him in Vancouver — it happens.

For the Devils, it’s a move to bolster their depth down the middle as they prepare for what looks to potentially be a long playoff run. New Jersey currently ranks second in the Metropolitan Division with a 40–15–5 record in 60 games.

Maybe this will open the Friday floodgates …

11:45 AM

Things are moving slooooooooow. Vrana remains the only legit NHL player traded today (so far) and there haven’t been many rumblings beyond that.

Thankfully, Frank is on the case. The Daily Faceoff insider just posted a new report suggesting the Tampa Bay Lightning are “among the teams monitoring [the] price” on Anaheim Ducks defenseman John Klingberg.

Doesn’t that sound like a very Kevin Shattenkirk-ish addition for the Bolts? Coincidentally, Klingberg and Shattenkirk are currently teammates on the bottom-feeding Ducks. Shattenkirk was a key cog for the Lightning in their run to the 2020 Stanley Cup.

Klingberg is very expensive — $7 million for this season — and the Bolts will probably need double-retention on his contract to fit him under the cap ceiling. It’s something to keep an eye on.

10:30 AM

Chris Johnston says the Philadelphia Flyers are looking for a third-round pick in exchange for the services of pending UFA winger James van Riemsdyk, which sounds like a pretty sweet proposition for all parties involved (which could potentially include Vegas, Winnipeg, and Seattle):

JVR has nine goals and 23 points in 41 games with the Flyers this season. He’s currently at a $7 million cap hit, which means a third-party broker would almost certainly need to be involved in any deal.

Calgary Flames fans should take solace in the final line of Johnston’s report. With the playoffs now looking like a faraway dream in Cowtown, Johnston indicated that the Flames — once thought to have interest in van Riemsdyk — “no longer seem to be in a buying frame of mind.” Wonder if they shift gears toward selling some of their 2024 UFAs like Mikael Backlund, Tyler Toffoli, and Chris Tanev … we shall see!

10:25 AM

Not a whole lot is happening, but that’s OK because BONINO BONINO BONINO BONINO BONINO! It looks like Nick Bonino is a Pittsburgh Penguin once again, reportedly being acquired from the San Jose Sharks late last night in exchange for fifth- and seventh-round draft picks. Neither team has confirmed the deal and it sounds like a third-party broker might be involved as well, so stay tuned.

To help tide you over before any more news drops, here’s a helpful little primer from our friends over at CapFriendly on some of the key points to keep in mind as we come closer to the deadline.

Before we go — Columbus Blue Jackets center Sean Kuraly is expected to miss the next six weeks while dealing with an oblique injury, which may well end his season. Kuraly has two years left on his contract after this one and probably wasn’t realistically on the trade block (not even for the selling Blue Jackets), but you never know.

Stay tuned!

10:00 AM

Well, it’s early. The big news so far is that the Detroit Red Wings have traded Jakub Vrana to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for AHL body Dylan McLaughlin and a 2025 seventh-round pick. It’s a deal we all kind of saw coming, although perhaps not with Detroit retaining half of Vrana’s $5.25 million cap hit for this year and next.

Vrana has had a tough year, spending time in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program and flitting in and out of Detroit’s lineup upon his return to the team. It very much seemed like both parties were ready to turn over a new leaf. Kudos to Blues general manager Doug Armstrong for picking up such an intriguing reclamation project for virtually no acquisition cost.

By the way, while you’re here, go ahead and check out Frank Seravalli’s newest Trade Targets board. There’s a strong chance some of the 35 players he mentions in there will be on the move today, so be sure to give it a read! You’ll also be able to see Frank on the Daily Faceoff Trade Deadline live show beginning at noon ET on our YouTube channel.

More updates to come!

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CLICK HERE to access the DFO Trade Tracker!

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