The NHL Trade Deadline Kicked Off With Brock Nelson Going To Colorado, And The Dallas Stars Getting A Deal Together For Mikko Rantanen
Every year all the insiders around the NHL put together their big board of names of guys who are on the trade block come Deadline Day. Every year, we as hockey fans attempt to convince ourselves that there's going to be a flurry of big names on the move throughout the day. That the Trade Deadline will be complete chaos and carnage with players moving all across the league. Most years, we're left sorely disappointed after a few bottom six forwards are traded for 3rd and 4th round picks.
But as the clock struck midnight last night to bring us to Deadline Day, one of the first big names already came off the board. Brock Nelson--the pride of Warroad, Minnesota--is now a member of the Colorado Avalanche after spending his entire 12-year career with the New York Islanders.
It's a move that definitely helps the Islanders out in the future. Calum Ritchie is a high-end prospect and probably one of the best 15-20 players not currently in the NHL. They get a 1st round pick. It's a good starting point for whatever that rebuild is going to look like on Long Island.
And for the Colorado Avalanche, they are loading the fuck up. They had to make the decision this year to trade Mikko Rantanen, but they brought in Martin Necas and Brock Nelson to replace him. Necas is giving them just as much point production as Rantanen would, and now you get one of the ultimate Swiss Army Knife kind of guys out of Brock Nelson. A guy who is going to give you everything he has every time he touches the ice. I feel like you're never going to get a bad game out of Brock Nelson. There will be nights where he doesn't end up on the scoresheet at all, but the way he plays the game is always going to benefit your team in the playoffs. You win a Stanley Cup and nobody ever gives a shit about losing that 1st round pick.
And speaking of Mikko Rantanen, it sounds like there's a strong chance he's wearing his 3rd jersey of the season later today as long as the Dallas Stars can get to the number he's looking at for an extension.
You see, this is the way that Rantanen trade should have happened in the first place. I mean how dumb do the Carolina Hurricanes have to be? Here I was thinking that Eric Tulsky was some genius. But the fact that the Hurricanes shipped Martin Necas out of town for Mikko Rantanen without ever considering the possibility that Rantanen wouldn't sign an extension in Carolina is so donkey brained. That's what happens when an organization has an overinflated sense of their own standing in the league. Have you ever seen a big name free agent sign in Carolina? Of course you haven't. But for some reason, the Hurricanes thought all they'd have to do was get Rantanen in the building and he'd be signing the next 8 years of his life away with them. A few weeks go by and they quickly start to realize that's not the case. Mikko Rantanen has no interest in signing an extension in Carolina yet, and now they have to scramble.
For Dallas, what a move this would be. They'll probably have to give up someone like Logan Stankoven to make this deal happen. But the only way you pull the trigger on this deal is if you already have Rantanen locked into an extension. So Stankoven for Rantanen is a trade you make 11 times out of 10. You add a top 10 point scorer in the league to your roster, you bring Tyler Seguin back from injury just in time for the Stanley Cup Playoffs to start up, and all of a sudden we get the greatest playoff series ever between the Avs and Stars. That will be the real Stanley Cup Final. Whichever team wins that matchup will win the whole thing.
There are still a couple of Flyers who should be on the move today with Scott Laughton and Rasmus Ristolainen. There's still a chance that Vancouver decides to keep blowing up the whole thing and move guys like Boeser or Pettersson. Maybe there's something actually to the rumors that the Bruins would be open to trading Marchand. We could be in for an elite Deadline Day here, folks. Turn on those Friedman notifications.