MTPS: Winners and Losers of the Dead 2026 NHL Trade Deadline
After weeks of hype, the trade deadline came and went with far less drama than expected. We break down the few real winners, the many losers, and why the Rangers’ deadline is still incomplete.
We'll get into the full winners, losers, and the WTF section in a minute. But before we do, the biggest loser of the trade deadline is the NHL as a whole.
As Jake laid out, they put in place several rules to try and make it more difficult for teams to circumvent the salary cap, and the unintended consequence of that was a dud of a trade deadline. For a league that doesn't see very many star players reach free agency, they needed a big deadline to create some juice. Instead it was a lot like the Green Lantern movie—a lot of build up and not much payoff.
Will the NHL learn from this and adjust the rules as they move forward? Maybe. I'm sure their partners at TSN/ESPN weren't exactly thrilled with the time they wasted covering the deadline. Talk about the definition of a meeting that could have been an email.
Anyway, here we go:
The Winners
Were there winners? There were.
Were there a lot of them? There were not.
Anaheim Ducks
Snagging John Carlson from the Washington Capitals gives them a really unique defense group. On the left, you have no one older than 24 (Jackson LaCombe), and on the right no one younger than 32 (Jacob Trouba). Carlson adds more than just age symmetry; he brings a whole lot of talent coupled with playoff experience. The Ducks are a team who thrive on the rush and Carlson is a master when it comes to making outlet passes to spring forwards on the rush. Adding him to the lineup also allows the Ducks to slide Jacob Trouba to a more sheltered third pair role.
The Ducks also conducted two other tidy bits of business inking pending unrestricted free agent Ryan Poehling to a four-year contract extension and dealing away Ryan Strome.
Acquired in the Trevor Zegras deal with the Philadelphia Flyers, Poehling has settled in nicely as a bottom-six forward. Strome had been insanely consistent since signing a five year deal with the Ducks in 2022. How consistent? Well, in each of his three previous seasons he recorded exactly 41 points. (What? I didn't say he was good, just consistent.) Anyway, Strome had completely fallen out of the lineup with the Ducks and they were able to flip him to the Calgary Flames who will use his $5 million cap hit next year to help them maintain cap compliance as they look to continue dealing away veterans this summer.
