Winners & Losers NHL Trade Deadline

Sometimes the trade deadline in the National Hockey League lives up to the hype. Sometimes it doesn't. There had been some big moves that were made going into the trade deadline, when you see guys like Rick Nash, Tomas Plekanec and Derick Brassard all get moved well before the deadline. It gave fans some hope that maybe, just maybe, there was some big names to be moved. A little surprising that there wasn't much starpower moved, Paul Stastny got delt, then so did McDonaugh and Miller on the Rangers for Namestnikov. In total, there were 16 trades made, involving 31 players delt, with 18 draft picks being swapped and $30.8 million in salaries exchanged. It was the lowest total of players delt over the last six years. With all that being said, here's some of the winners and loseres from the trade deadline.

Winners: New York Rangers
I know it may not seem like it right now, but this could be a major win in the long run for the Broadway Blueshirts. This team wasn't kidding when they said they were going to blow this up and start a rebuild. They got rid of three guys who are going to serve as rental players the rest of the way in Grabner, Holden and Nash, all of whom will be free agents at the end of the year. Then they trade away Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller. What they got back in return for all those deals were pretty good though. Coming to Broadway are two useful NHL forwards in Vladislav Namestnikov (123 points in 263 games) and Ryan Spooner (144 points in 254 games), three promising prospects in 19-year-old forward Brett Howden and 20-year-old defensemen Libor Hajek and Ryan Lindgren, a handful of additional picks and a couple of other players. There's no way to be able to tell now if this is going to work out in the long haul, but at least on paper it looks good for the Rangers. Plus there's always the possibility that some of those traded away players could come back in the offseason. All in all, this was a good deadline for the Rangers, it was a good start to the rebuild.

Loser: Buffalo Sabres
Rumor had been flying around like crazy that the Sabres could be looking to deal Evander Kane. That did happen as Kane was shipped off to the Sharks, for a conditional 2nd round pick that could change if the Sharks either win the Cup or re-sign Kane. It looks like it was the best that Sabers GM Jason Botterill could do. Benoit Pouliot and Josh Gorges couldn't be moved, which is something I heard BUffalo management was trying to do. It doesn't look, based on what happened at the deadline, that there isn't much relief heading the way of Buffalo. Sorry Sabres fans but things don't really look good at the moment for the club.

Winners: Tampa Bay Lightning
General Manager Steve Yzerman has pulled off some wonders in Tampa in his time running the Bolts. Sure it may have cost him a little to pull this move off but he got himself a shutdown defender out of it in Ryan McDonaugh, who is probably going to be paired up with another former Ranger in Dan Girardi. It now gives the Bolts a fantastic one-two punch on the blueline with Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman on the top pair. And McDounagh has a lot of playoff experience to add to this team, which is going to be more valuable to this team. He added another depth forward with JT Miller as well. Steve Yzerman added more depth into an already solid lineup, and he did it without getting rid of young pieces like Mikhail Sergachev or Brayden Point. This is a way to go all out and the Bolts have done it.

Loser: St Louis Blues
It's weird to think about this but for the 2nd year in a row the Blues were sellers at the deadline. And they've been in the hunt for a playoff spot in both instances. St Louis is only a point out of the final playoff spot right now. That's only because the club has slipped to a six game winless streak, which would possibly explain why General Manager Doug Armstrong pulled the trigger on another big deal. This time, he sent impending unrestricted free agent center Paul Stastny to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for a package that includes a 2018 first-round pick. Losing a guy like this is a big blow to the Blues because it shortens up any chances of the club trying to regain some of that magic that they had earlier in the season. The Blues are clinging to a glimmer of hope at a playoff spot but losing a talent like Stastny to a contender in Winnipeg might be a bad move.

Winner: Winnipeg Jets
Hey they turned nothing much into a whole lot of something at the deadline. General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff looked like he was going to miss out on a lot by letting Derick Brassard, Mark Letestu, Tomas Plekanec (who were all on the market) go right by the wayside and get nothing. Then the Blues handed them a gift, by giving them Paul Stastny for a draft pick. A player with Stastny's experience and talent in the faceoff circle plugged in on the third line? Yeah, we like the Jets a lot more now as a team to emerge from the West. Good on ya Winnipeg for picking him up. This will be huge in getting you momentum going into the playoff push.

Loser: Ottawa Senators
This whole thing was just a mess. It was bad enough that the organization threatened to trade the clubs best player and team captain in Erik Karlsson, and then not going through with it. Mike Hoffman was said to have been on the trade block, as was Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Zack Smith. Bobby Ryan has been publically labelled an unmovable albatross, and it has been with good reason because of his poor play. All of them are still in town and appear to be dead weight at the moment for this team, which is in the middle of a divebomb from where they finished last season. Its been rough for the fans this year, as they can’t stand the owner, and they were told to prepare for the franchise player’s departure, which was a tough pill to swallow. This has got to be a gigantic slap in the face to the franchise and the fanbase with the way things thigns have gone for the team in the Canadian Capital. I would have held out higher hopes for Ottawa,as I said before, after the way thigns went down last year and that magical playoff run. Now its turned intoa dumpster fire and it seems as if there's no real end in sight at the moment.