Some random thoughts on trade deadline things:

The Leafs should be prepared to use salary retention to trade pending UFAs. Thinking about this brings back really fond memories of the personal affront taken when the Leafs retained on Phil Kessel in trade. It's a trickier question if they consider retaining on someone with some term. That's dead cap you can't shake, and considering cap space is their only meaningful asset, it's likely not worth doing.

Now here's a clever scheme. You can't use a third-party team to do double salary retention, but you can use a third-party team to do the only retention on a deal. I am confident in the names of at least five teams that have figured out the thing that just dawned on me.

Let's say the Burlington Trash Pandas want to trade Kevin Ooffa to the Vegas Golden Knights. Kevin has a big salary but the Pandas have used all their retention slots selling off other guys. So they trade Kevin to the Leafs for a token AHLer. Then the Leafs trade Kevin to Vegas, retaining 50%, and Vegas gives the Leafs a giant pile of picks that Vegas consider to be junk. Then Toronto swaps those picks, minus their cut, to the Pandas for a different token AHLer. This scheme is way, way cleverer if it could be done on a player with term. Which Toronto shouldn't do. (I did read the no retention clause in the new CBA, and this should work unless they snuck in some other wording somewhere to prevent it.)

If you've been on Mars for a vacation, the Leafs last-minute scratched Scott Laughton, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Bobby McMann last night.

Holding players out for "roster management" reasons used to be very rare. It's become more common as deals get finalized. I don't think that situation where the Nashville player was yanked out after a few seconds of the game is a good outcome. The flat cap was the culprit in the past, where there wasn't room for a lot of teams to have extra players on hand who could play like the Leafs did last night.

As for the rest of the Leafs situation, I'm going to repeat something multiple reporters have emphasized.

No one knows what the Leafs management are going to do tomorrow, next week or in the summer. You can totally wait for the future to arrive before you formulate your take on things.

And now the news... (you need to hear that in olde time announcers voice):

There were a lot of trades, and if you want details there are lots of options. You can go to social media and try to infer the deal from all the yelling, or you can just read the details on PuckPedia, TSN or Sportsnet.

I guess the Tyler Myers to Dallas deal is the biggest post-break deal. Maybe the Colton Parayko to the Sabres is the same level – if that happens. Or maybe the MacKenzie Weegar deal to Utah. I sense a theme here.

I assume that by the time I turn off the computer, this will be totally outdated information, so click the links.

Sherwood signs 5-year, $28.75 million contract to remain with Sharks | NHL.com
30-year-old forward could have been unrestricted free agent after this season
NHL logoNHLMedia
Panthers exploring trade market for goalie Sergei Bobrovsky
Sportsnet.caSportsnet Staff

Oh, here's a highlight:

Okay, and one more, because:

He worked for it:

Someone wants an NHL stint:

Maybe he'll get one! I really like him, and while he needs to keep his AHL playoff eligibility, he'd be fun to watch in a few games.

Sources say:

There was a bit on Insider Trading where the Oilers were linked to Nic Roy, but Pierre LeBrun said no actual offer had been made. The Oilers seem full up now, though.

And that's the stale dated news. See you tomorrow.

From The Branches