The NHL trade deadline is later this month and every team —
whether it is a contender or a pretender, a playoff team or a lottery team, or
anything in between — will be trying to position itself for the best possible short-term
and long-term outlook. No team in the league is perfect and everyone has its
own share of needs. Here we will be taking a look at what all 31 teams in the
NHL need the most.
PITTSBURGH PENGUINS (DEPTH AT FORWARD AND DEFENSE)
If could be either of those positions or it could be both of
those positions. The Derick Brassard experiment ended up being a failure, and
they undid that by sending him and Riley Sheahan to Florida for Nick Bjugstad
and Jared McCann. They could still use another winger for the third- or
fourth-line to help take some of the pressure off the top six, and especially
the Sidney Crosby-Jake Guentzel line, to carry all of the offense. For as good
as the Kris Letang-Brian Dumoulin defensive pairing is at the top of the blue
line (it is one of the best defensive pairings in the league), there are some
major questions on the second and third pairings, even with the eventual return
of Justin Schultz to the lineup.
ANAHEIM DUCKS (A NEW SYSTEM)
The Randy Carlyle system only works if you have an
outstanding goalie and some forwards who can shoot the lights out. If things
work out perfectly and you get both of those at the exact same time, it is very
possible for it to work. But eventually the dam is going to break when your
team is giving up 35 shots per game, not generating anywhere near as many and
spending all of its time pinned in its own zone. At some point you cannot be
100 percent dependent on your goalie, no matter how good he is, to withstand
that much pressure. There is talent on this team, but it is not being utilized
in the best way.
ARIZONA COYOTES (AN IMPACT FORWARD)
The easy answer here is they need some better injury luck
because their injury list this season is just completely ridiculous. But that
is taking the short-term outlook. Long-term outlook is that they need a
game-changing forward to build around. Oliver Ekman-Larsson is an outstanding
cornerstone on the blue line, and they have some really intriguing young
players they can build around. But they are still missing an elite, top-line
forward to build their offense around. That is also the toughest thing to get.
They were hopeful that Dylan Strome would be that player, but it never really
worked out.
BOSTON BRUINS (SCORING DEPTH)
They have one of the best top lines in hockey, they have a
solid defense and they have two goalies playing outstanding hockey this season.
All of that is great and could be the foundation of a Stanley Cup contender.
The problem is that top line is the only one really capable of producing offense.
They need more because one-line teams do not typically go far in the playoffs,
especially if they get stuck in the Atlantic Division bracket of the Eastern
Conference playoffs where they will probably have to go through Tampa Bay and
Toronto.
BUFFALO SABRES (A CONTRACT EXTENSION FOR JEFF SKINNER)
The Buffalo Sabres may not end up making the playoffs, but
they hit a home run this season with the addition of Jeff Skinner. Now they
need to get him signed long term. There was always some amount of risk to the
deal because Skinner, one of the league's best goal-scorers, did not have a
contract beyond this season. But he has been such a perfect fit on Jack
Eichel's wing that they need to do whatever they can to get him a long-term
deal. He and Eichel could be a dominant force at the top of the lineup for the
next six or seven years and perhaps be the cornerstone of the next contending
team in Buffalo.
CALGARY FLAMES (GOALTENDING)
This has been one of the biggest surprise teams in the
league this season, not only in their ability to jump up to a likely playoff
spot but also because they might just be one of the best teams in the league.
Unfortunately their only big weakness is probably the one that can hurt them
the most: goaltending. Mike Smith has not played well and while David Rittich
has been a huge surprise, is he really the type of goalie who is going to
backstop a team to a championship? This might need to be addressed at the trade
deadline so an otherwise outstanding team does not get sunk in the playoffs.
CAROLINA HURRICANES (FINISHERS)
Every year it is the same story for the Carolina Hurricanes.
They generate a ton of shots, they do not give up any shots, and they still end
up finishing somewhere outside of the playoff picture in the NHL's middle ground.
Part of it is the fact their goaltending has consistently been an issue and
submarined their team. The other part is they just don't have enough finishers
offensively who can capitalize on their chances. They obviously hope No. 2
overall pick Andrei Svechnikov can help fill that in the future, and Nino
Niederreiter was a great pickup from the Minnesota Wild. But they are going to
need more than those two if they are going to become the team everyone always
thinks they can become.
CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS (A BIG STEP FORWARD FROM THEIR YOUTH)
Even if they don't make a drastic trade involving one of
their core players the Chicago Blackhawks are still going to have a little bit
of salary cap flexibility this summer. At least more than they have had in the
past. They could still use someone to take on Brent Seabrook's contract, and
they could really use a consistently healthy Corey Crawford in net, but what
this team really needs is more young players to take a big step forward. Alex
DeBrincat looks like a star, and Dylan Strome has played well since coming over
from Arizona. They need to find a couple of more players like them in their
next wave of young talent to complement the two big-money stars at the top of
the lineup (who are still producing at top-line levels) if they are going to
return to being a contender in the near future.
COLORADO AVALANCHE (DEPTH SCORING)
Just like the Boston Bruins, this is a team that is only
going to go as far as its top-line can carry it. Fortunately for the Colorado
Avalanche, their top line is perhaps the best in the business. But there is not
anywhere near enough on this roster after them to help carry the load come
playoff time...assuming they get there. They have three of the top-25 scorers
in the league, but they can't do it alone. Still, given how young they are all
and the fact they are going to likely get a top-five pick in the draft, and
perhaps even the No. 1 overall as a result of owning the Ottawa Senators' 2019
pick, there is still a great future ahead of this team with the right
complementary parts added to it.
COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS (A CHANGE OF HEART FROM ARTEMI PANARIN)
The Columbus Blue Jackets are in a no-win position right
now. They are a playoff team but are on the verge of losing their best player,
Artemi Panarin, because he seems destined to test the unrestricted free-agent
market after this season. General Manager Jarmo Kekalainen is going to listen
to trade offers but unless he gets absolutely blown away by something, he needs
to keep Panarin this season for one more run at the playoffs. What the Blue
Jackets need, though, is for Panarin to change his mind and reconsider his
position. He is arguably the second-best player who has ever come through the
Blue Jackets organization, and it is going to be nearly impossible for them to
replace him next season if he moves on to a new team.
DALLAS STARS (NEW MANAGEMENT)
The biggest and most bizarre story in the first half of the
season was Dallas Stars CEO Jim Lites loudly and profanely ripping his best
players, Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn, for the team's struggles. He did this
while absolving general manager Jim Nill of any and all responsibility for the
consistent mediocrity of the team when Lites is the one who constructed the
roster that has almost zero depth after its top three or four players. The
drafts have not been good. The free-agent signings and trades have included
some busts. A ton of money is spent on a team that cannot even consistently
make the playoffs. It all starts at the top, and in Dallas the top is where
things are going wrong.
DETROIT RED WINGS (STEVE YZERMAN)
Look, Ken Holland has done a lot of great things for the
Detroit Red Wings over the past three decades. But it is time for a change, and
the obvious successor here is a return to Hockeytown for Steve Yzerman to help
bring the franchise out of this funk. He did it once as a player; now he can do
it as an executive. It is a match so perfect it would be a failure by everyone
involved if it did not happen.
EDMONTON OILERS (NEW MANAGEMENT)
Yes they finally fired general manager Peter Chiarelli long
after the damage had been done. But that is not the management change I am
talking about. The general managers change. The head coaches change. The
players change. The results remain the same. I am talking about CEO Bob
Nicholson. I am talking about owner Daryl Katz. These are the people who are
the common denominators in this failure of a franchise that has wasted the
first four years of Connor McDavid's career by surrounding him with nothing.
This is a team that has only made the playoffs twice in the salary cap era and
has been one of the least successful sports teams in North America, and it just
keeps allowing the same people to make the wrong decisions over and over and
over again.
FLORIDA PANTHERS (DEPTH)
The Florida Panthers have the same problem they have had for
the past four or five years. Their top-tier players are good enough to compete
and good enough to be the foundation of a contending team. Aleksander Barkov is
an elite two-way center, Jonathan Huberdeau and Vincent Trocheck are top-line
forwards, Aaron Ekblad and Keith Yandle are excellent offensive defenders...but
there just isn't enough after them to make a dent in the top-heavy Atlantic
Division.
LOS ANGELES KINGS (A NEW DIRECTION)
The Los Angeles Kings have been in need of a rebuild for a
few years now and have been terrified to commit to it. They keep trying to hang
on to the glory years of 2012-2014 by throwing money at veterans, and all it is
doing is making them older and slower in a league that is getting younger and
faster. Yes, they made the playoffs a year ago. But their first-round loss to
the Vegas Golden Knights was like watching two teams playing a completely
different game and all the Kings have done this season is take a huge step
backward. Tear it down and start over.
MINNESOTA WILD (MORE OFFENSE)
With Matt Dumba, their top scoring defender, sidelined for
the immediate future and Nino Niederreiter now playing in for the Carolina
Hurricanes, an already weak offense has taken two more big hits. The Minnesota
Wild are a fringe playoff team coming out of the All-Star break, but their
roster on paper should be better than most of the teams they are competing with
for a spot. They just need to add a little more scoring to really put them
ahead of that pack. Whether or not they can find enough to get through Winnipeg
and Nashville remains to be seen.
MONTREAL CANADIENS (CAREY PRICE BEING CAREY PRICE)
Carey Price is the X-factor in the Eastern Conference
playoff race. When he is healthy and at his best, there is almost no single
player in the league who can transform his team the way he can. As a goalie,
and one of the best in the league, he can elevate an otherwise mediocre team to
something great. The Montreal Canadiens have been better than expected this
season, which is really impressive when you consider that for most of the
season Price has not been himself. He has shown signs in recent weeks that he
is on track to getting there, and if he does this could be a really difficult
team to knock out in the first round.
NASHVILLE PREDATORS (HEALTH)
Like the Tampa Bay Lightning, this roster is as complete as
it gets in the salary cap NHL. The Predators are loaded on defense, they have
two outstanding goalies (both of who could be a No. 1 goalie in the NHL right
now), and a deep, talented group of forwards. The only thing that has stood in
their way this season has been injury. They were decimated in recent weeks by
injury, and it helped lead to an extended slump. Get this team healthy, and
there is nothing significant they need outside of a minor tweak before the
start of the playoffs.
NEW JERSEY DEVILS (HELP FOR TAYLOR HALL)
Yes that is a generic and vague "need," but there
is really no other way to put it. Taylor Hall spent the first part of his
career trying to drag a stinking carcass of a franchise out of the gutter and
ended up getting run out of town when he was unable to do it by himself. He
went to New Jersey and had the best season of his career in 2017-18, won the league
MVP award and nearly single-handedly dragged the Devils to a playoff spot. Now
he is back to where he was in Edmonton, as the big fish in a small pond without
much else around him. When he is healthy and in the lineup (he has been hurt
lately) the Devils do not have enough to win. Take him out of the lineup, and
they have next to nothing.
NEW YORK ISLANDERS (MORE OFFENSE)
Coming out of the All-Star break, it looks like the New York
Islanders are going to be in a position to secure a playoff spot in what would
be a stunning one-year turnaround given everything that happened with this team
over the summer. A lot of credit has to go to Barry Trotz, the new coaching
staff and the play of their goaltenders for getting them into this position.
They could still use a little bit more offense both for this season, where they
are one of the lowest scoring teams in the league, and in the future, as
captain Anders Lee and wingers Jordan Eberle and Brock Nelson are all eligible
for unrestricted free agency after this season.
NEW YORK RANGERS (A YOUNG CORNERSTONE PLAYER)
Right now Henrik Lundqvist is still the face of the
franchise, and he is still great. But he is not going to play forever, and with
the New York Rangers' rebuild underway they need someone to be a long-term
building block. That player does not exist yet in the organization. They have
some promising young players for sure but nobody who projects as a
franchise-changing superstar whom a full-on rebuild can be centered
around.
OTTAWA SENATORS (A 2019 FIRST-ROUND PICK)
It is really difficult to rebuild without first-round draft
picks. It is even more difficult to rebuild without a first-round pick when you
are also one of the worst teams in the league and are giving up the opportunity
to potentially add an impact, franchise-altering player at the top of the
draft. That is the easiest place to get those players, and the Senators are
losing the opportunity to potentially win the Jack Hughes lottery because their
2019 first-round draft pick now belongs to the Colorado Avalanche as a result
of the Matt Duchene trade. They could still pick up a first-rounder (or even
two) at the trade deadline by trading Duchene or fellow free-agent-to-be Mark
Stone. But even if they do, it will not be a pick that puts them in a position
to get a player like Hughes. That is unfortunate for Ottawa Senators
fans.
PHILADELPHIA FLYERS (A HEAD COACH)
This is not a playoff team this season, and this is not a
team that is going to be adding. But it is also not a team that is far away from
returning to the playoffs next season. They have the veteran talent up top,
they have really good young players, and they might finally have a goalie in
rookie Carter Hart. The organization has undergone significant changes, from
the front office to the behind the bench. The Flyers have a new permanent
general manager but have yet to fill the spot behind the bench with anyone
other than interim coach Scott Gordon. Is Joel Quenneville still a possibility?
If he is, adding one of the best coaches in the NHL to a team that still has a
solid core in place and a potential starting goalie developing into his role
would be a huge addition.
SAN JOSE SHARKS (BETTER GOALTENDING)
I don't think the Sharks are in a position where they will
go out and add a goalie for the stretch run, but that is still the one position
that is going to make or break them. They have one of the best defensive groups
in the league with two Norris Trophy winners in Erik Karlsson and Brent Burns
(both of whom are absolutely contenders for the award this season) and a deep
collection of forwards. Together, that has them near the top of the NHL looking
like a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. The only thing that looks like it
could hold them back is that starting goalie Martin Jones has been terrible
this season. He does not need to be a game-saver. They just need him to be
better than he has been so far this season.
ST. LOUIS BLUES (GOALTENDING)
They have managed to play their way back into playoff
contention after a miserable start to the season. One of the issues that put
them in that early hole was that their goaltending completely abandoned them.
Rookie Jordan Binnington has stepped in lately and given them some surprisingly
strong play, but is he the answer to help get them back into the playoffs? That
remains to be seen.
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING (STAYING HEALTHY)
This is the most complete team in the NHL by what is
probably a pretty wide margin. They really do not have a weakness. The biggest
thing that could hurt them is a significant injury. It has happened in the
past. In 2016 it was Steven Stamkos. In 2017 it was Stamkos and several other
players. This season, outside of some injuries to Victor Hedman, Anton
Stralman, and Andrei Vasilevskiy (with all of them back again), they have been remarkably
healthy. If they stay that way, they are going to be one of the toughest teams
to beat in the playoffs.
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS (DEFENSE)
The Toronto Maple Leafs have the forwards, they have the
goalie, and they have the No. 1 defender. What they need is some additional
help on the blue line to complement that No. 1 defender (Morgan Rielly). That
is probably the one weak link on this team and the one Achilles heel that could
hurt them come playoff time. They started to address it with the big trade for
Jake Muzzin, and he is a huge addition. But we will see if that is enough to
get them over the top. We know they are going to score goals, and we know
Frederik Andersen is going to be strong in net. That does not mean Andersen has
to face the type of workload he usually does when it comes to the number of
shots other teams are able to get on him every night.
VANCOUVER CANUCKS (GOALTENDING)
The Vancouver Canucks are probably not in a position to be
serious buyers at the trade deadline. They have taken a huge step forward in
their rebuild this season and should see how far this young core can take them
and then add around them in the offseason. But if they were going to do
something in the short term, they could probably start looking in net. Neither
Jacob Markstrom nor Anders Nilsson is a No. 1 goalie in the NHL or played at
that level this season. An upgrade there could maybe put them over the hump in
the free-for-all that is the Western Conference wild-card race.
VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS (SCORING DEPTH)
Even though it is not playing at the same level as it did a
year ago, the Vegas Golden Knights' top line is still outstanding. With Alex
Tuch taking a big leap forward and Max Pacioretty and Paul Stastny in town,
they have more secondary options that they did in their inaugural season. But
they could still use a little more offense for the third and fourth lines if
they are going to make another serious run at the Stanley Cup in a top-heavy
Western Conference.
WASHINGTON CAPITALS (BETTER GOALTENDING)
They do not really need much from outside the organization.
They could always trade Andre Burakovsky or pick up some additional depth, but
the biggest thing this team needs right now is for its goaltending to improve.
Entering the All-Star break neither Braden Holtby or Pheonix Copley have a save
percentage better than the league average, and neither one is playing
particularly well at the moment. The good news is that Holtby had some
struggles a year ago but managed to get back on track at the right time in the
playoffs. They need that again because they cannot win another Stanley Cup
without him.
WINNIPEG JETS (THIRD-LINE CENTER)
Paul Stastny was a great luxury for the Winnipeg Jets a year
ago after they acquired him at the trade deadline, so when he left in free
agency after the season it was not really a crushing blow. But Jack Roslovic
hasn't take a step forward down the middle, Adam Lowry isn't really a threat
offensively, and they could use another big-time center for their third line if
they are going to get back to the Western Conference Finals or beyond. They
were in on Derick Brassard a year ago before he went to Pittsburgh; they lost
out on him again as he was just traded to Florida.
