Teams Looking To Be Active Now That Holiday Freeze is Lifted
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period joined the Full Press Hockey Podcast and was asked by Vox Media NHL Analyst Bruce Zeman about when trade activity could pick up around the NHL.
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** NHLRumors.com transcription
Bruce Zeman: “Dave we talked about the holiday freeze in Ottawa, what can we expect around the league once the freeze is lifted? What are you hearing?”
Dave Pagnotta: “Well, there’s a lot of talk. There’s been a lot of talk kind of leading into this. I think St. Louis wants to. Like St. Louis has been looking to do something before they made their coaching change with Craig Berube and you’re going to hear once we go into the new year, you’re going to hear more Torey Krug‘s name and Colton Parayko‘s name. They both have full no-trade clauses.
We know Krug exercised his in the summer preventing a deal from Philly but there’s gonna be a little added pressure applied I think to the guys with those no-trade clauses. Justin Faulk is another one. They like him, they’re probably going to stick around with him. But last season they explored moving Krug before the offseason and they explored moving Colton Parayko as well, so I’m looking at St. Louis in potentially doing something blockbuster-esk as big as you can midseason in the cap era, but they’re looking around.
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Goaltending market is going to shape itself out at some point. And that’s what a lot of people are looking at the New Jersey Devils. They got that cap space with Dougie Hamilton. How are they going to utilize that space? Are they going to go after guys with big deals, you’re probably not just getting one guy at $9 million, you’re going to look and probably fill some holes.
Whether it’s on the blue line, whether it’s a middle six guy to add further depth to the club, or adding a goaltender and addressing that with the extra $9 million this year. That’s great. You can take on John Gibson $6.4 million cap hit because everyone keeps tying New Jersey for good reason to the, to the Ducks but what about next season and on? They got to worry about even with the cap going up they gotta worry about all that. So you’re probably gonna move out one of the goaltenders anyway but if you do make a big goalie move, but at I’m looking at the goalie market.
I’m looking at teams like St. Louis, like Calgary, Colorado and Boston, two teams that are looking to add and kind of see how the rest of the league kind of shapes up. I’m not expecting a flurry, Bruce, of activity right after the freeze lifts. I think maybe a couple little moves here and there until we get towards like middle of January, when when I think things will begin to pick up because the teams that are right up there. They know that Colorado knows they’re not the only team that would love to get their hands on Elias Lindholm for example.
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Boston’s there, there’s a couple other teams that are going be poking around. Do you want to wait to the deadline and maybe push yourself out of the market because maybe all of a sudden Calgary says well, now I want this price, or you’re gonna pay a little bit extra right now to get him to get him away from the competition as well. And some teams that look to do that.
Usually, it’s the middle of January, where that kind of happens about six, four to six weeks out of the trade deadline is usually when those teams try to make a big splash so we’ll see kind of how that goes or it’s right after All-Star like when Toronto brought in Ryan O’Reilly and whatnot.
I was in Raleigh, that was during the outdoor game. And that was right after. So I could see that that four to six-week window ahead of the trade deadline being when the point in which activity really starts to pick up.”