Which fringe playoff teams will pivot to selling early? 

ADD PIC

As we near the turn of the New Year, there are several teams that are close to a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. However, even though they might be in the running to make it to the postseason, some might decide the risk isn’t worth the reward.

Just a couple of days away from 2026, only five teams are below .500, all of which come from the Western Conference. On top of that, no team is beyond six points from a Wild Card spot. Even though some teams are considered long shots to qualify for the playoffs, no team is completely out of it yet. That said, some organizations might explore selling as we close in on the trade deadline to teams that are going to go for broke.

On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, David Pagnotta joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to discuss which fringe playoff teams might alter their strategy and look to sell off assets heading toward the trade deadline.

David Pagnotta: I think those teams are going to be middle ground, where they’ll sell off a piece and then will look to buy in another area, you know, a little more long-term. Short-term selling, long-term buying. I think St. Louis and Nashville understand, and I’ll throw Seattle in that mix, where they’re at. Like, ‘Yeah, we can go on a bit of a heater. Yeah, we can – maybe we make the playoffs. We can go on a run here. But then what? To lose to Colorado in four games? You know, maybe you squeeze five, to lose to Vegas in five.’ That’s where some of these teams are looking at it going. ‘Do we want to push this season forward just for the sake of getting a couple extra home games in the playoffs? Or do we want to make a little more bold changes and really gear up for next season and make this a legitimate contending team going forward?’

I think Seattle, St. Louis, and Nashville are kind of in that boat, where they’ve accepted their fate. Calgary’s not there yet, although I still think they’re going to eventually trade Rasmus Andersson, but they’re not there yet in terms of accepting. That’s where some of these other teams that are bubble/fringe teams are going to have to look at this and go, ‘If we can get an extra couple pieces here or a first-round pick instead of a second or something to that degree for a particular player,’ I think that’s where they look at.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…