Grading overreactions to the 2025 NHL trade deadline

The 2025 NHL trade deadline had a bit of everything: a superstar traded twice, a beloved captain sent to an archrival and first-round picks treated with the sacrosanctity of samples at a mall food court.

Something else the deadline had: overreactions, to the trades that were made, the teams that stayed quiet and the aftermath of those decisions.

Here are 10 overreactions to the 2025 NHL trade deadline that we judge to be absolutely reasonable or totally misguided.

Carolina botched the deadline

The Carolina Hurricanes made a blockbuster trade in January when they acquired Colorado Avalanche star Mikko Rantanen and Chicago Blackhawks winger Taylor Hall, shipping out leading scorer Martin Necas, forward Jack Drury a 2025 second-rounder and 2026 fourth-rounder. They were unable to sign Rantanen, who struggled offensively after arriving in Raleigh, to a long-term contract extension.

So they turned around and flipped him to Dallas for 22-year-old forward Logan Stankoven, first-round picks in 2026 and 2028 and third-round selections in 2026 and 2027.

The Hurricanes went from acquiring the missing ingredient for a Stanley Cup championship to punting on their season, their trade process with Dallas having been so prolonged that they didn’t have the salary cap certainty to acquire other players they targeted at the deadline. Meanwhile, after failing to convince elite players in Jake Guentzel and Rantanen to sign extensions, Carolina’s brand as a player destination is tarnished.

The verdict: OVERREACTION.

Let’s talk about some concepts. The first is “recency bias.”

Thanks to his background — no other NHL general manager has a doctorate in chemistry from California Berkeley, at last check — Eric Tulsky has been lauded as a genius. The Hurricanes have made “4D chess” moves during his time in the front office, with Tulsky having ascended to the general manager’s chair this season. The team’s initial trade for Rantanen received an A-plus from ESPN. But Tulsky’s deadline was given a D from beat writer Cory Lavalette of The Athletic, who wrote “the acquisition, courting and departure of Mikko Rantanen will be seen as a stain on the Hurricanes.”

There are a lot of critics questioning Tulsky after moving Rantanen so soon. That wasn’t helped by his admission that the process took so long on Dallas’ end — signing Rantanen and completing the deal — that the Hurricanes