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The 6 Teams Who Won the Deadline… |
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Win, lose, or draw?
This year‘s deadline was definitely one of the most unpredictable, and for the first time in a few years, the whole thing lived up to its hype…
For the sake of this article, I’m going to call the trade deadline beginning with the first Rantanen trade…..
Let’s start off with the winners today …
#1. Florida.
I think the number one spot has to be Florida . Getting Seth Jones , Brad Marchand, and Nico Sturm while only giving up your back-up goalie and no remaining pieces from the Stanley Cup team is pretty amazing. I love the fact that the two Florida teams right now are just killing it. The Panthers, for the first time in their history, have a waiting list for season tickets! Just think about that. And the battle between the Panthers and the Lightning is just must-see television… if Bill Zito isn’t the GM of the year this year, something’s very wrong…
#2. Colorado.
The Avalanche has once again shown its great ability to make deals which make them even harder to play against. And this is a team that was already very hard to play against. Getting Marty Necas for a player that wasn’t going to be there next year was the first amazing move…. The crazy thing is Marty has looked every bit as good as Rantanen looked in Colorado. And then you went out and got Brock Nelson and Charlie Coyle? This team is loaded for bear.
#3. Tampa
Tampa once again went out and traded first-round draft picks to make them immediately better by getting Yanni Gorde and Oliver Bjorkstrand. They add this to a team that was already playing at the top of its game…. At some point, we’re going to see a hell of a playoff series between the Panthers and the Lightning…..
#4 NY Rangers.
It might surprise even Rangers’ fans that I’m putting them at #4, but adding JT Miller and Carson Soucy while opening up cap space by moving on from some pending UFAs, I felt Drury did his job this year. I still think the Rangers will make the playoffs, and if they do, I think they’re going to be a lot tougher to play against because of the moves that were made.
#5 Dallas
OK, they got Mikko Rantanen… Is he a $12 million player for eight years? Time will tell on this one… They make it onto this list because he is the best player that was moved at the deadline… Carolina did get some good capital back… two first-round draft picks is surprising when you consider there weren’t many places they could trade him/.
#6 Toronto
The Leafs didn’t have the cap space to play with that Tampa or Florida had, but they did get two very serviceable players that make them better in Laughton and Carlo. Two playoff players that I think will matter a lot to them, and they didn’t move anything out of significance…They were in on Rantanen, which makes you wonder about the future of certain players on this team. If they got him, Marner would’ve been gone?
Who are some of your winners?
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