Who Won The NHL Trade Deadline?

Some teams got better; some teams gained ground by getting less-worse.

Despite the usual concerns that the NHL trade deadline might not be NBA-level exciting, there actually ended up being plenty of fireworks during the run-up to Friday’s cutoff. Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko are Rangers! Timo Meier is a Devil! Jakob Chychrun is a Senator! Jonathan Quick is not a King!

Given how many name-brand players were on the move, this deadline has more potential to reshape the Stanley Cup chase than most. So let’s unpack which teams got better — in terms of total 2022-23 adjusted Goals Above Replacement produced by new acquisitions, minus adjusted GAR produced by departures — at the deadline.

(Fun side tangent: What timeframe counts as “at” the deadline? This was a pretty drawn out deadline timing-wise, in the sense that some deadline-ish activity dates back to the end of January. So I included all deals in ProSportsTransactions.com’s database since January 30, the day Bo Horvat was shipped to the Islanders. No matter what you pick, it will be arbitrary, but being more inclusive is better than less.)

Looking at net GAR added, a somewhat surprising deadline winner emerges: the Los Angeles Kings. L.A. gained a bit from picking up solid goalie Joonas Korpisalo and D-man Vladislav Gavrikov, but even more so from ditching gritty-but-replacement-level winger Brendan Lemieux and Quick, the once-stellar netminder who had become one of the worst goalies in the entire league. On a per-82-game basis, swapping Quick for Korpisalo is worth 26.1 net goals alone, based on how each has played so far this season.

That might be overstating things a bit, as Quick had already basically been supplanted as the Kings’ starter by Pheonix Copley, so he was unlikely to keep piling up as much negative value going forward even if he’d remained with the Kings. But anytime you can swap out a goalie with an .876 save percentage for one with a .911 mark, you are performing addition by both addition and subtraction.

Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs, Islanders and Bruins gained in a more conventional way, by trading away some pieces of value but getting more of a boost in the short-term.

Toronto’s deadline strategy seemed to be one of accumulation, with the additions of multiple good players (such as Erik Gustafsson, Jake McCabe, Luke Schenn, Ryan O'Reilly and Noel Acciari). As usual, the Leafs will come into the playoffs looking loaded on paper, while also trying to shake their first-round losing streak that somehow now sits at seven consecutive series.

With 17.4 GAR, Horvat was the single most valuable player moved at the deadline overall. The Isles still have an uphill climb to the playoffs (their odds are 38%, per FiveThirtyEight), but adding a scorer of Horvat’s quality helps. And while I wrote that Boston’s acquisition of Dmitry Orlov looked like a complete luxury purchase, he has 8 points in his first 4 games as a Bruin, so there’s no question he will be a net positive for a team that continues to be the overwhelming Stanley Cup favorite.

I was a bit surprised that the burgeoning arms race between the Rangers and Devils didn’t land them higher in the net GAR rankings, but both Meier and Kane (and even Tarasenko, despite his hot start in New York) are having down years compared with their previous track records, depressing their value in this metric. Kane is probably better than his career-low numbers this season would indicate, but the hype-hungry NYC media needs to understand he is 34 years old and hasn’t been playing like a true superstar-level player in a few years now.

As for the deadline losers, the team with the most net GAR lost was the Washington Capitals, who had a confusing and ultimately counterproductive week leading up to Friday. The team has been losing recently (they have a .364 winning percentage in the second half of the season, as Alex Ovechkin missed time due to his father’s death) and is falling out of the postseason picture, with just a 12% chance to make the playoffs. They also dealt away a number of productive pending free agents at the deadline — including Gustafsson, Orlov, Marcus Johansson and Garnet Hathaway — all of which would seem to indicate Washington has packed it in for the year.

But at the same time, the Capitals picked up Rasmus Sandin (who, granted, has an extra year on his contract before hitting the market) and held onto other potential trade chips like Conor Sheary and Trevor van Riemsdyk. Washington seems to be trying to thread a needle of staying in the race this year, however unlikely their chances, while also retooling on the fly but not rebuilding. That’s probably the best tactic they can take, given that Ovechkin is 37 and the Caps have the oldest roster in the league, but the odds of it working are low — and even lower now, after these deadline moves.

The rest of the most negative net-GAR teams were predictable sellers, although it was interesting to see the Detroit Red Wings move their top player by GAR, Filip Hronek, while they’re still theoretically on the periphery of the playoff race. Detroit was able to get the Islanders’ first-round pick from the Horvat trade via the Canucks (another confusing team trying to buy and sell at the same time), so it was probably an offer Steve Yzerman couldn’t refuse — particularly after the Wings’ playoff odds dipped from 28% to 6% in the week before the deadline. But it pretty much seals another season of Detroit being the hottest young team to watch, only to miss the playoffs for the 7th year in a row.

All told, this deadline period saw 130 players get moved in 67 deals since Jan. 30, with some huge names counting among that group. That’s not too bad for a trade deadline that usually lags behind the other sports for excitement and impact.