Welcome to Day 4 of our Trade Deadline Cheat Sheets. After working our way through the Eastern Conference, we’ll start attacking the West with the Pacific Division. We’ll take a common sense approach in reviewing each team in the division. Are they going to be a buyer or seller? Do they have cap space? What holes do they need to fill? Is management working with a lower budget mandated by ownership? Do they have assets in their pipeline?
All of these things go into any potential trades at the deadline. To make a trade, you have to have the necessary assets, salary cap space and NEED at the position where a player is available. These cheat sheets are not so serve as fuel for the rumor mongers. No, these are just here to give you some idea of the position of every team in the NHL before the trade deadline and going forward.
Each day this week, we’ll take a look at another division in preparation for the NHL Trade Deadline on March 3. Remember, if you hear something—don’t believe it until you hear it from a reputable source! Here are some things to think about when you hear about a breaking NHL trade.
This week, here’s what you can expect:
Monday: Atlantic Division
Tuesday: Northeast Division
Wednesday: Southeast Division
Friday: Central Division
Saturday: Northwest Division
San Jose Sharks
Teams that are at the top of their conference do not sell. The San Jose Sharks buying is as obvious as a Don Cherry suit. But will it be as easy as they hope?
Two of the most important things that contenders need at the deadline to acquire rentals are prospects and cap space. The Sharks could add a little bit of salary, but certainly not anyone of serious consequence to put them over the top. Guys that make $1.6 million are rarely HUGE difference makers—and that’s all the money the Sharks have to spend.
Turn your attention to their prospect pool and the story doesn’t get much better. The Sharks have one of the worst rated pipelines in the NHL. Logan Couture has had a few cups of coffee with the NHL club, but he might be a season away. Thomas Greiss is the only back-up option the Sharks have right now and Jason Demers has been playing consistent minutes on the blueline. But after those guys, it gets pretty thin pretty quickly. They could kill for a winger prospect in the pipeline—but this might not be the season that they’re adding prospects.
They’ve already made one move to help fine-tune their team by adding defenseman Niclas Wallin from the Carolina Hurricanes. They may want to add a little help to their 4th line—but that’s a problem that only teams like the Sharks have. Most teams are just throwing together any NHLers they can find for the 4th line. The Sharks are in the position to make sure their 4th line is good enough to withstand the rigors of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Phoenix Coyotes
Are they going to find some help for Matthew Lombardi?
Stop and imagine a hypothetical team. It’s a team that has a brand new coach with a good system, has been playing great hockey all season (4th in their conference), has a strong prospect pool, and a ton of cap space. Sounds like a franchise that is on the right track and has a lot of promise, doesn’t it? Now if I told you that it was the Phoenix Coyotes, would you still think they have a lot of promise?
The truth is that the ownership questions have cast a Saddleback-sized shadow over the entire franchise since the day Jerry Moyes filed for bankruptcy. While people should be talking about the play on the ice, they’re instead talking more about Ice Edge Holdings and attendance figures. But if you put this team and organization in a different jersey, people all over North America would be talking about a team with dangerous potential.
Looking around at the needs on the team, they Coyotes could use a scoring winger to help pick up the slack for injured Scottie Upshall. Actually, they could use ANY forward that can score on a consistent basis. Once again, that goes back to the question of GM Don Maloney’s budget. Without an ownership group officially in place and the NHL still in control of the team, will the league give him the green light to add payroll? Whether the NHL should add payroll or not is a philosophical question that Coyotes fans will get to discuss until Ice Edge actually takes ownership.
Nobody knows what the Coyotes are going to do at the deadline—and nobody will until the deadline. The Coyotes have promising prospects in San Antonio and juniors that could get some attention. They have two 1st round draft picks to play with and have plenty of space under the NHL’s salary cap. What they do with all of these assets though is anyone’s guess.
Los Angeles Kings
Even though the Kings didn’t win the Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes, we still learned plenty about their organization’s position from the fallout. First and foremost, we learned that the team that has been the NHL’s farm-team for playoff contenders in recent seasons will be changing their tune this season. Instead of liquidating assets at the deadline, the GM Dean Lombardi and the Kings will be making a push for the playoffs this year and keeping the present team intact. It’s a small, but important mile-marker in the Kings’ complete rebuild.
As the rumors flew around about Kovalchuk heading to the Kings, the Thrashers insisted that they wanted players that were currently playing in the NHL. In shooting those offers down, Lombardi also stated that he intends on keeping all of the current NHLers together and trading only prospects to help this season’s team. General Managers have a way of changing their tune on Deadline Day—but I wouldn’t expect the Kings to part with the guys that have them in 5th place in the Western Conference.
Los Angeles still has plenty of quality assets to offer the sellers out there even with their unwillingness to part with their young players. Even with guys like Wayne Simmonds and Drew Doughty graduating to the NHL to play huge minutes, there is still a wealth of prospects to intrigue any GM looking to build. Blue chip prospects Jonathan Bernier, Brayden Schenn and Thomas Hickey were all high 1st round draft picks that are still developing. Colten Teubert, Vyacheslav Voinov, Andrei Loktionov and Trevor Lewis are also guys that any team would love to add to their prospect pool. Kings fans might want to hold onto every single prospect they have—but at some point there aren’t enough roster spots for all of the players coming up. With plenty of cap space—they can acquire $35.1 million in annual salaries for the rest of the season—money won’t be the problem.
At the NHL level, the Kings blueline has looked deeper than it has in years. Midseason acquisition Randy Jones has taken up the 7th or 8th defensemen spot in the press box, so it’s doubtful they will be seeking help on the blueline. But up front, the Kings could use a scoring winger to play with Anze Kopitar on a scoring line. Ray Whitney’s name has already been connected with Los Angeles, but he was asking for a 3-year extension before he was willing to waive his no-trade clause. The Kings balked and the deal fell through—but things can change before March 3rd.
Another area the Kings may look to fill is the backup goaltending position. Jonathan Quick has had the heaviest workload in the NHL over the first 60 games of the season and will need some help sooner rather than later. At some point, the coaching staff (and perhaps organization) lost trust in Erik Ersberg and he’s only started 6 games all season. His sub-.500 record hasn’t done anything to win the hearts of fans either. With Jonathan Bernier and Jeff Zatkoff playing well in the minors, they have plenty of goaltending help on the way. But with the prospects about a year away, a 2 month veteran rental might be just what the Kings are looking for.
Dallas Stars
People hate Ott now... but will they hate him if he's on their team on March 4th?
On the surface, the Stars look like a team that would be adding players at the deadline to help make a playoff push. They are sitting in the 9th spot in the Western Conference and are only a point out of a playoff spot. They are almost $9 million under the cap so they could go after any player they really wanted. But in Dallas, the situation isn’t as clear cut as it may seem.
Tom Hicks recently announced that the team is losing money and he’s looking for buyers. In this aspect, hockey teams are exactly like any other business we find in real life. When a business is getting sold, the last thing they want to do is ADD debts to the bottom line. Whether fans like to look at it this way or not, a player’s salary is a debt for club owners. If anything, moving player salaries would make the team more fiscally attractive to any potential owners. That’s the reality—and it sucks.
If ownership and outside money concerns were not an issue, the Stars would be extremely active in the market for a big-time defenseman and scoring winger. Looking at their roster, they have Stephane Robidas and Trevor Daley as their two horses on the blueline. Daley is a good, young defenseman (most of the time), but there’s no way he’s a top pairing type guy. Put him in a Top 4 role and he would look much better. Recently, they’ve been depending on Mark Fistric, Nic Grossman and Matt Niskanen to be everyday defensemen. They could use another.
As it stands today, no one knows if the Stars are going to be buyers or sellers at the deadline. The truth is they’ll probably fall somewhere in between. Their recent Kari Lehtonen-for-Ivan Vishnevskiy trade may be an example of the types of moves we see GM Joe Nieuwendyk swing before the deadline. He was able to add a young goaltender with potential and give them a little more long-term stability between the pipes—while not giving up a player from their current roster. That’s the good side. The bad side, he traded one of Dallas’ best defensive prospects to get that goaltending security. He’ll be balancing risks and rewards for the foreseeable future.
No matter which direction Nieuwendyk chooses to go, both Steve Ott and Marty Turco are in very uncomfortable positions. Both are unrestricted free agents at the end of the season, neither are a sure bet to return to the Stars next season and both have value on the trade market. Many people thought that the arrival of Lehtonen signaled the end of the Turco era in Dallas—but then he proceeded to play his best hockey in the last two seasons. It’s doubtful they want to carry 3 goaltenders, so they’ll have decisions to make. And no, sending Alex Auld to the AHL is not a long-term solution.
In many cases, they look very similar to the Atlanta Thrashers. Close to a playoff spot, plenty of cap space, and ownership questions that may prevent management from spending freely. Unfortunately, most Stars fans would probably not like to be compared to the Thrashers. This season has the potential to be one of those “what if” seasons if the Stars fail to make a move. Look at the team and how they performed and imagine if they used HALF of the available space they have under the cap.
Update (3/1/2010): Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News reports that Steve Ott and the Stars have agreed to a 4-year extension worth just under $12 million dollars.
Anaheim Ducks
General Manager Bob Murray has an interesting situation to deal with this season. Despite their rough start, they’re only 2 points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Outside of their goaltender though, they haven’t really been noteworthy this season. They’ve been an average team with an average prospect pool and an average amount of salary cap space.
But for such an ordinary team this season, they have some extraordinary issues to deal with. Teemu Selanne, Saku Koivu and Scott Niedermayer are all unrestricted free agents at the end of the season. Of those superstar players, only Selanne has a no-trade clause included in his contract. Plenty has been made of Selanne, Niedermayer and their possible retirement at the end of the season—so this could be their one-year window. Does a team that has been so average and inconsistent add players to try to make a run at the playoffs? Are there really any players that would help them turn the corner?
If they keep those 3 players around, then they really have to bring in some players to help. Their defensive corps has been suspect at best. Down the road, prospects Luca Sbisa and Jake Gardiner look like they’ll be able to thrive in the NHL—but that doesn’t really help now, does it? If they want to win games, they’re going to need to address this rather glaring hole on their roster.
On the other hand, the average team might not have what it takes to make a strong run this season. If Bob Murray decides to take a step back from this season and live to fight another day, he has plenty of assets that other teams would be interested in. Can you think of many other better rentals than Saku Koivu or Scott Niedermayer? If Selanne was willing to waive his no-trade clause, think of the return the Ducks could get for parting with the Finnish Flash only two months before his retirement. James Wisniewski is a restricted free agent at the end of the season and judging by LAST season’s negotiations, the Ducks and Wiz don’t see eye-to-eye on his value to the team. If he’s on the move, contract questions will be more to blame than any play on the ice.
Matt Reitz is the Editor-In-Chief here at ViewFromMySeats.com and former NHL Writer for ProHockeyTalk on NBCSports. When he’s not shoving a mic in the face of NHLers or explaining why home teams should wear white, he’s usually trying to figure out what song to play next on his iPod. It’s a never-ending job.
