The trade deadline has come and gone and as is always the case, deadline week was a whirlwind across the NHL. We’ll compile as much of the news as we can into our key stories.
Busy Week For Utah: While Utah wasn’t overly active on the trade front aside from unloading Shea Weber’s contract to Chicago to open up cap space for next season, they were the busiest team in the league on the contract extension front. They went into the week with five full-time regulars as pending unrestricted free agents and came out of it with just one. Getting new deals were center Alexander Kerfoot (one year, $3MM), defensemen Ian Cole (one year, $3MM including bonuses) and Olli Maatta (three years, $10.5MM), plus goaltender Karel Vejmelka (five years, $23.75MM). As a result of their moves, Utah now has over $22MM in cap room for next season, per PuckPedia, with only a few roster spots to fill. The team also lost goaltender Connor Ingram to another stint in the Player Assistance Program; he will be out indefinitely.
Atlantic Shuffle: The top three teams in the Atlantic Division already have some separation from the pack in the standings and all three made moves to shore up their rosters. After adding blueliner Seth Jones from Chicago last week, the team moved winger Matthew Tkachuk to LTIR for the rest of the season and used that cap space to add winger Brad Marchand for a second-round pick that could become a first-round selection depending on Florida’s playoff success and Marchand’s usage in those games. Meanwhile, their cross-state rival in Tampa Bay paid a pair of first-round picks and more to Seattle to pick up winger Oliver Bjorkstrand and center Yanni Gourde, making their forward group a lot deeper in one swap. Toronto elected to make a pair of moves to keep pace, first sending a first-rounder and winger Nikita Grebenkin to Philadelphia for center Scott Laughton and a pair of later-round selections. They then dealt a first-round pick and center Fraser Minten to Boston for blueliner Brandon Carlo while flipping rearguard Conor Timmins and center Connor Dewar to Pittsburgh to clear up the salary cap space to make the move.
It wasn’t just the contenders who were making moves. On top of moving Marchand and Carlo, Boston’s sell-off continued as they swapped centers with Colorado, acquiring Casey Mittelstadt and a second-round pick from the Avs in exchange for Charlie Coyle (other smaller pieces were also in the swap). Lastly, Buffalo…
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