2020 NHL trade deadline: Top 5 biggest winners and losers
The 2020 NHL Trade Deadline saw both winners and losers. Teams got better and worse. Let’s take a look at the five most obvious winners and the biggest losers.
To almost every NHL trade, there is a winner and a loser. Usually, people who tells you “both teams won this trade” are either lying or convincing themselves a team didn’t lose the trade. So naturally, the 2020 NHL trade deadline saw a number of winners and losers.
Teams got better, both in the future and the present. The standings made for an interesting deadline and there were some very exciting moments. This was easily one of the most exciting deadlines in years.
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Now that the trade deadline is over, let’s take a look at the biggest winners and losers.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
WINNER: The Edmonton Oilers quietly had a nice deadline. While the Andreas Athanasiou trade was a bit rich for me, he’s unquestionably talented and, on paper, he could be a great linemate for Connor McDavid. They also got Tyler Ennis and Mike Green for late-round picks. The high price for Athanasiou knocked them off my top five winners, though.
LOSER: After trading a first-round pick for Barclay Goodrow and signing recently-released defenseman Zach Bogosian, who wasn’t good enough for the Buffalo Sabres, it was mighty tempting to put them in the “loser” category. But the Blake Coleman trade was great, so that keeps them out of it.
WINNER: San Jose Sharks
Anytime you’re one of the worst teams in the NHL and you walk into the trade deadline without a first-round pick, that’s not optimal. The San Jose Sharks managed to get a first-round pick out of Barclays Goodrow. Yes, that player actually does exist.
They also traded Patrick Marleau to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a conditional third-round pick. Plus, the Sharks got a nice haul for Brenden Dillon earlier in the month. Overall, this was a pretty darn good deadline for the Sharks.
LOSER: Florida Panthers
Dale Tallon doesn’t have a good track record of making trades. He added to his list of transgressions by getting a rather underwhelming return for Vincent Trocheck. Erik Haula will be a free agent soon and Lucas Wallmark is a bottom-six forward.
While Chase Priskie and Eetu Luostarinen could both be decent players, the Panthers needed help right now. They managed to trade a valuable asset while not getting anything back that’s going to help them right now except a middle-six forward who will be gone in a few months and a bottom-six forward. That’s not good.