Wednesday FTB: What NHL teams will be sellers?

I had no idea what to write for the FTB, then I saw someone talk about a pipe dream trade the Leafs might be able to make from one of the teams below, and that was the inspiration I ran with.

Florida Panthers

The Florida Panthers have already started selling. Despite just spending a lot of money on Bobrovsky, and bidding hard for Panarin, this past deadline they traded away Trocheck for a bunch of smaller contracts to save $1.3 million. They traded Malgin for Marchment, an AHLer to save more on Malgin’s NHL salary. And there were rumours that part of their decision to part ways from Dale Tallon was to save on his salary too.

• Pipe-dream: Aaron Ekblad ($7.5 million AAV)
• More realistic option: Mackenzie Weegar (RFA)
• Completely random throw-in we won’t expect: Noel Acciari ($1.67 million AAV)

Dallas Stars

The owner of the Dallas Stars is Tom Gaglardi. Aside from owning the Stars, he is also President of the Northland Properties Corporation — a hospitality company in Canada. If there’s one industry that’s getting hit harder than any other because of the pandemic, it’s hospitality. Dallas is a team that wants to compete, as they were the 4th best team in the Western Conference, but maybe because of finances they look to shed some contracts around the edges.

• Pipe-dream: John Klingberg ($4.25 million AAV)
• More realistic option: Stephen Johns ($2.3 million AAV)
• Completely random throw-in we won’t expect: Roman Polak hahahaha can you imagine

Nashville Predators

Nashville is a team in an interesting place. As of now they have just over $9 million in cap space going into next year, with six UFAs off the books including Mikael Granlund and Craig Smith. They’re going to need to sign replacements, and while this year was rough for them they might still want to try and re-tool to be competitive considering they have several big and long contracts tied up in Ryan Johansen, Matt Duchene, Filip Forsberg, Kyle Turris, Viktor Arvidsson, Ryan Ellis, Mattias Ekholm and Roman Josi. So they might have some middling guys who they might be willing to part with to give them more flexibility.

• Pipe-dream: Ryan Ellis ($6.25 million AAV)
• More realistic option: Dante Fabbro ($0.925 million AAV)
• Completely random throw-in we won’t expect: Calle Jarnkrok or Rocco Grimaldi.

Minnesota Wild

Minnesota is also in an interesting spot. They also had a sort of rough year, but they were coming on strong late in the season despite being sellers at the deadline. There were rumours of other near-trades they didn’t quite pull the trigger on. They do have some interesting prospects coming, and might want to shed some contracts to get make room for them. Evolving Wild listed several such players as possibilities.

• Pipe-dream: Jonas Brodin ($4.16 million AAV)
• More realistic option: Greg Pateryn ($2.25 million AAV) or Matt Dumba ($6 million AAV)
• Completely random throw-in we won’t expect: Jordan Greenway or Eriksson Ek.

What do you all think? Is there a team you think would make sense as a trading partner with the Leafs? Is there a particular player as a pipe-dream or realistic trade option?

ONTO THE LINKS

The Maple Leafs need to get better | by Katya

Tick Tock | by Fulemin

The Chopping Block Roundtable Part One: Which Leafs Players Should Go? | by Meroutloud at TLN

Sheldon Keefe brought a new, flexible style to the Leafs’ bench. How did he do? | by Jonas Siegel at The Athletic

NHL PLAYOFFS

Last Night’s Results:

• Philadelphia Flyers beat Montreal Canadiens 2-0, take a 3-1 series lead
• Dallas Stars beat Calgary Flames 2-1, take a 3-2 series lead
• Washington Capitals beat the New York Islanders 3-2, avoiding the sweep and making the series 3-1.
• Chicago Blackhawks and Vegas Golden Knights are tied 3-3 as Vegas holds a 3-1 series lead.

Today’s games:

• Columbus Blue Jackets vs Tampa Bay Lightning, with Tampa leading the series 3-1.
• Boston Bruins vs Carolina Hurricanes, with Boston leading the series 3-1.
• Arizona Coyotes vs Colorado Avalanche, with Colorado up 3-1 in the series.
• Philadelphia Flyers vs Montreal Canadiens, with Philly up 3-1 in the series.

AROUND THE HOCKEY WORLD

Melnyk: Trading away top-five picks would be ‘nonsensical’ for Senators | by Emily Sadler at Sportsnet.ca

Struggling power plays plaguing the NHL postseason | by Travis Yost at TSN.ca

The USHL is targeting an early November start date for their 2020/21 season:

Some sad news from yesterday afternoon, as former NHL Jets great Dale Hawkerchuk passed away due to cancer.

I recognise this name!