Teams that should buy, sell, and watch at the NHL Trade Deadline
Buffalo Sabres
Sell everything. Earlier in the season, I said that the Sabres needed to launch a full rebuild, and since that time, the club has tied an NHL record for the longest losing streak in league history. Needless to say, I stand by my point to blow things up in Buffalo and build a new foundation that can hopefully right the ship for this franchise.
As mentioned before, Eric Staal‘s move to Montreal was the first domino to fall, and it was a very solid start to the process. The Sabres added two mid-round picks in this year’s Draft, which is good value for a player that is aging, underperforming, and set to pursue a new opportunity when his contract expires after this season, while they also got a Third-Round pick this year for defenseman Brandon Montour who was dealt to the Florida Panthers on Saturday.
It seems inevitable that Taylor Hall will also be on the move. When that happens, Buffalo’s roster on paper will begin to more accurately resemble the on-ice product. It seems very likely that the Sabres, the worst team in the NHL before these trades, will move on from their key offseason acquisitions. The only thing that could scream rebuild louder is trading Jack Eichel.
Calgary Flames
It’s time for the Flames to make some changes. A full rebuild doesn’t need to be the answer, but it seems wise to sell high level talent in some type of a player-for-player trade. This club is full of great players, but no one is at a point-per-game and at 37 points in 41 games played, the Flames are squarely in fifth place in the North Division.
Johnny Gaudreau seems like the perfect player to sell. This is his seventh full season with Calgary, and the team has yet to take a step forward. In addition, he has only recorded 29 points (14 G, 15 A) on the year despite being two years removed from a 99 point campaign. The Flames’ failures are not on Gaudreau alone, but as one of the premier players on the roster, seeing both he and the Flames regress is problematic. At the very least, it’s time for a change of scenery for some of Calgary’s top guys.
Los Angeles Kings
It looked for a while as though the Kings might be able to rekindle some 2012-type magic, but reality has set in. This is not a Playoff team, and if it did happen to squeak in, it is no match for any of the elite teams in the West Division. While players like Dustin Brown, Jeff Carter, and Drew Doughty may not be finding the level of success that they found early in the campaign, I think they have proven that they can still be useful to a contending team.
This would not exactly be selling high for Los Angeles (that would have been the case back in February), but it is probably as close as it gets. Brown and Carter feel like easy choices, while Doughty and Anze Kopitar would be much more difficult to part with. At the end of the day, though, the Kings are not going to win a Stanley Cup with these guys again, so make the moves now before that championship core carries no more value.
Honorable Mention: Nashville Predators
Nashville peaked when it reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2017. Since that postseason run, the Predators have really not replicated that success or proven to be among the elite of the Western Conference, or now the Central Division. It’s great that the Preds have been surging a bit recently, but if they get into the Playoffs as the fourth seed in the Central, are they truly threats to take down two of those top teams en-route to a championship?
To me, the answer is clearly no, so if Nashville’s peak came four years ago, then why would it do anything besides establish itself as a seller now? Much like the LA Kings, the Predators can offer several pieces with a lot of value. That, combined with the fact that some of the players that the Preds have acquired never played up to their potential, tells me that selling now could accelerate a Nashville rebuild.