Trade deadline winners and losers

In the words of comic book guy, “Worst. Deadline. Ever.”

It was a very slow day with only 16 trades completed. The final hour gave up the biggest names as GMs across the league put in their final offers on different packages.

The biggest trade of the day saw Dustin Penner sent to LA for Colten Teubert, a first-round pick and a conditional pick. Quite a bit to pay, but likely the right price for the Kings.

Today’s winners include the Kings, Capitals, Bruins and Penguins. Mind you, this includes pre-deadline trades too.

The Kings addressed the need for additional offense by snagging Penner and they were able to do it by unloading pieces they could afford to lose. Sure, Teubert is a great prospect, but Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson are going nowhere fast.

The Caps may have had the best deadline day. They picked up Dennis Wideman and Jason Arnott for a fair price. It is going be to tough to lose David Steckel’s faceoff ability for a rental, but you can find your new center on July 1. After all, the point is for these trades to put them over the top. By getting Marco Sturm on waivers there is a good chance they have secured the needed scoring depth to move past the second round in the East.

Pittsburgh, on the other hand, probably had the best trade season. They gave away a bag of pucks to get Alex Kovalev. Now, he may continue to loaf, but he also may catch a spark in a familiar city while playing for a competitor. Meanwhile, pulling James Neal will be a big pick-up for this team. Just think of what Chris Kunitz has done for them, now multiply it. Neal will ride around with Sid the Kid and score a ton of goals. Matt Niskanen is strong enough to bolster a top six that may have been a little shallow at times.

Of course the Bruins made the biggest splash by getting Tomas Kaberle and sending off Blake Wheeler and Marc Stuart. Boston made nine trades this year, a number of them minor-league deals, but have brought in some strong talent. Lost in the Kaberle shuffle is Rich Peverly, a speedy forward with offensive upside. Chris Kelly also offers quite a bit in a third-line role.

Todays losers include the Wild, Blackhawks, Lightning and Panthers.

The Wild were about 15 minutes from not making a single trade all season. Then they made a minor-league deal. Same difference. It will be mighty tough to compete out West when your rosters stays the same and your competitors build.

I was tempted to place the Ducks in this group because they made the most trades all year but didn’t really make any noticeable changes. However, the Blackhawks trade season was strange and disappointing. It looks like Michael Frolik will be a flop, especially for what they paid and Chris Campoli has a bit of upside, but I feel you want a stronger in-zone guy than a puck mover at this point of the year. Lastly, they gave Brent Seabrook a TON of money. Now, he deserves every penny. However, the ‘Hawks are stuck with over half of their payroll tied up with 10 players (my numbers are a bit off there). They are in worse shape than the Penguins are (Sid, Geno, Staal, Orpik, Fleury) in terms of paying too many stars. It will be a tough offseason again in Chicago.

The Lightning made some heady moves this year. Namely, bringing in Dwayne Roloson and clearing some space by shipping out Dan Ellis. However, is Roloson the answer? Also, with all of you goalies contracts expiring, what is the next move? Eric Brewer was a great acquisition. But having that be your only move is a tough one. I think they needed to do a bit more if they expect to move past the first round.

The Panthers are certainly looking uphill at the Eastern playoff picture. However, I don’t think they needed to sell off their entire team. I wonder if the only reason the Stephen Weiss, David Booth and Tomas Vokoun remain is because the Panthers didn’t get enough in return. It started early with Frolik and ended today with McCabe, Dvorak and Wideman all going out the door. What makes it worse is that the return they got is probably not going to bring the results they need for success.

Just about every other team had a fair bit of success in what ended up being a very dry market. Next year may wield a much more exciting deadline. However, if parity continues, you may have no need for TradeCentre at all.