Winners and losers from the deadline 2023

[yave1964]

  This includes all moves leading up to the deadline that occured over the past couple of weeks

 

WINNER TORONTO. Man did they load up. O'Reilly for the top six, Acciari and Lafferty for the 4th line, Mccabe to fix the second pairing on defense, managed to trade out Engvall and Sandin for a first and a third, brought Schenn in for the bottom pairing. One of the leagues top teams fixed their few holes and upgraded replacing perfectly servicable players in Engvall and Sandin with better fits. They won the deadline-period full stop

 

WINNER NEW YORK RANGERS Just getting Taresenko and Mikkola would have probably put them on the list but then they added tough as nails Motte to the 4th line and somehow fitting Kane in makes this a team primed for a deep run.

 

WINNER ST. LOUIS BLUES They intelligently attacked a necessary tear down and traded O'Reilly, Taresenko, Buchnevich and added a ton of draft picks, got top prospect Zach Dean who will be scoring 20 goals in the NHL likely by next year, claimed Kapanen off waivers and got Vrana for free who has a year to prove he belongs in the NHL.And Schenn among others are already making overtures to O'Reilly that they want him back next year. They took a bad situation and worked it,  rebuilt on the fly. It is not done but a fine start.

 

SHARKS Every deal they made seemed as if they had a plan, they were aproached by a few teams asking about Barabonov and they resisted efforts to pry him away. They are terrible but a slim glimmer of light is out there. 

 

WINNERS SEVERAL EAST CONTENDERS  Bruins added three tough mothers, Pittsburgh added Bonino and Granlund, Meier to the Devils, Horvat to the Islanders, the East is stacked.

 

WINNERS KNIGHTS Added Quick for depth in net, added Blueger as a veteran experienced 4th liner, added Barbashev as a point a game top line sniper. these were not sexy but all were solid and in the West it pushes them towards the top

 

LOSERS

 

LOSER LOS ANGELES KINGS Not only did they screw up the end of the Quick era he ended up with one of their biggest rivals and might haunt them in the playoffs. Also a first and third for Gavrikov and Korpisalo was a way overpay, Korpi is pretty bad and Gavrikov is ok but nowhere near worht a first.

 

LOSER LIGHTNING AND HURRICANES While the rest of the Eastern conference tough guys loaded up with multiple players the Canes added Ghost and the Bolts added Jeannot (for five picks!!!!!) which seems more tweaking type moves when everyone else brought in the big guns. Especially the Hurricanes who went out in the playoffs last year because they couldnt score. 

 

LOSER CAPITALS Ok, they started a kind of sort of tear down and began to put it back together, but are you kidding, A first for Sandin?? He has barel;y been able to maintain in the NHL. Unreal.

 

LOSERS FLAMES AND PANTHERS Huge things were expected from both this year, both are four points out of a spot and running out of time, both coaches are on the hot seat, and both teams did absolutely nothing. If either team had started a tear down i coulda respected it, if either had added i woulda said sure but standing still with stagnant teams made zero sense. zero.

 

LOSER BUFFALO Fighting for a spot, Islanders added, Penguins added, Sabres stood pat. Dont understand this one at all

 

LOSER FLYERS. Unless his ineptitude finally gets management to realize how bad Fletcher s and replaces him, in that case they move to the winner category.

 

LOSER COYOTE FANS (ALL SEVEN OF THEM) The return for Chychrun was solid, three very nice picks but puzzling as everyone expected a young player back but the Coyotes refused to add salary. This franchise is in a non stop rebuild, added Voracek who will never play again to go along with half a dozen others who are also just numbers now and wont ever play again. They are a fraud of an nhl team, i feel sorry for their few fans who have to go to St. Marys school of the blind to watch them play home games with AHL retreads.and when the draft picks mature they will be dealt out as well.