Now that the NHL trade deadline has come to a close, teams can no longer make big changes to their team. It's time for teams to look ahead and prepare for the playoffs.
General managers have tirelessly worked the phones over the last month or so to prepare their teams for the final stretch. Some teams are ready, but others made some questionable choices. Here are the three losers of the trade deadline.
Carolina Hurricanes
General Manager Eric Tulsky and the Carolina Hurricanes looked like geniuses to some extent when they acquired Mikko Rantanen earlier in the season. However, they didn't take into consideration his commitment to his new team and signing an extension.
In the end, they thought it was best to part ways with the Finnish superstar, resulting in a massive downgrade in personnel heading into the playoffs. Trading away Rantanen to the Dallas Stars allowed the Canes to get forward Logan Stankoven, two conditional first-round picks and two third-round picks.
While Tulsky received solid assets, it doesn't come close to how Rantanen would've helped a team looking to compete for the Stanley Cup. Stankoven will be an NHL player for a long time, but there's no guarantee he can make an impact like Rantanen.
Not only is it almost regrettable to let go of Rantanen, Carolina parted ways with 26-year-old Martin Necas, who has the potential to be a 100-point scorer one day.
The Hurricanes will hope Stankoven can come close to a version of Necas. In his second NHL season, the 22-year-old has scored nine goals and 29 points in 59 games for the Stars.
Furthermore, Tulsky added they couldn't pursue any replacements of their choice because of how long the Rantanen situation took. It was not the ideal deadline for the Hurricanes.
Vancouver Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks are in a delicate time as the playoffs loom closer. They're in the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. Vancouver has just one more point than the Calgary Flames, meaning there is no room for errors.
There's no doubt that General Manager Patrik Allvin and company still have aspirations to make the postseason, especially when their success from last season are considered.
They advanced to the second round and were defeated by the Edmonton Oilers in seven games. However, this season they have not looked the same. Losing J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers earlier in the year didn't help their case either.
There was plenty of trade speculation about Brock Boeser potentially being moved at the deadline as he is a pending UFA. However, it seemed there wasn't much in the right winger and nothing came of it. Furthermore, Alvvin said, "If I told you what I was offered for Brock Boeser, I think I would have to run out of here because you would not believe me."
Aside from the Boeser saga, Vancouver still didn't add any pieces to help them during the final stretch of the regular season. They made one trade on deadline day, sending defenseman Carson Soucy to the Rangers for a 2025 third-round pick, which belongs to the San Jose Sharks.
Only time will tell if the Canucks made the right move by staying relatively quiet on Friday's trade deadline day.
Buffalo Sabres
The Buffalo Sabres have missed out on the playoffs for the last 13 seasons and will likely be 14 when this campaign is said and done. In fact, it's the longest drought in NHL history.
On deadline day, General Manager Kevyn Adams made some moves that left fans around the hockey community scratching their heads. They started the day by signing 33-year-old Jason Zucker to a two-year extension at $4.75 million per season.
This was an interesting move given Zucker's age and where the Sabres sit in the standings. However, it wasn't their most mind-boggling move of the day. Not much later, Buffalo traded Dylan Cozens and Dennis Gilbert to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for Josh Norris and Jacob Bernard-Docker.
This was a solid move by the Senators, acquiring a player who's in a similar stage to Norris but is two years younger. Not to mention 25-year-old is considered an injury-prone player, playing a career-high 66 games in one season of his six-year career thus far.
There is the argument that Cozens has been underperforming with the Sabres, but no player has stood out for Buffalo in the last two seasons, with the partial exception of Rasmus Dahlin.
However, it isn't all bad for the Sabres, Norris has shown signs of being an elite scorer in the NHL, tallying 35 goals in the 2021-22 season. Also, Bernard-Docker is still a promising blueliner at 24 years old.