You like fireworks? The NHL delivered quite a display on Trade Deadline Day 2025. March 7 began with lots of meat left on the bone and many of the top targets not yet moved, so we saw a dizzying flurry of activity. In total, 21 trades went down Friday, compared to 23 last year, but the quality vastly outshone the quantity.

Now that all the trade calls have been filed to the NHL Central Registry…which teams made out the best and worst?

Welcome to 2025 Trade Deadline winners and losers.

First, a couple key disclaimers:

(a) The list factors in trades made in the past two months, which to me are “deadline deals” in spirit. Just because you got your shopping done before Friday doesn’t mean your upgrades count any less.

(b) If a team doesn’t appear on the list, it means I felt they did just OK in their deadline haul, not significantly great or poorly enough to warrant mention in here. A good example would be the Washington Capitals, who nabbed Anthony Beauvillier. They did just fine but, today, we focus on the teams that flourished or flopped significantly.

WINNERS

Boston Bruins

Just two seasons removed from setting an NHL record with 65 regular-season wins. Wow. It’s likely difficult for Bruins fans to process Don Sweeney taking a wrecking ball to his club Friday, trading stalwarts Brad Marchand, Charlie Coyle and Brandon Carlo. But it typically takes many years before a team realizes it’s on the downslope – look at the New York Islanders, for example – and Sweeney deserves credit for seeing the light early. He still has David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman as long-term pillars to build around, but Sweeney inched the team toward a better future with the assets acquired, including multiple first-round picks and Fraser Minten, not to mention Casey Mittelstadt, who, despite his warts, fills a specific need for Boston as a puck-distributing center. By not holding on for too long, Sweeney has the Bruins headed toward a valley but also closer to peaking again in a couple years while his star players are still in their primes.

Colorado Avalanche

The Avs paid dearly for Brock Nelson. But they’re a quintessential example of a contending team knowing precisely where it sits in its contention window. Cal Ritchie was undoubtedly Colorado’s No. 1 prospect and is one of the best in the league, but no prospect is a sure thing. The Avs had a hole at their No. 2 center slot and did what was necessary to fill it. The Avs also landed Ryan Lindgren to deepen their D-corps this week. Zoom further out this season and factor in the trade and subsequent extension for goalie Mackenzie Blackwood, and the blockbuster sending Mikko Rantanen to Carolina for Martin Necas and Jack Drury…and the sum of the parts feels like a team-wide upgrade. Chris MacFarland is one of the NHL’s most active and decisive GMs. That’s all you can ask for on a veteran team in win-now mode. As a cherry on top, he found a better stylistic fit for his third line by shipping out the all-finesse Casey Mittelstadt for a big, versatile veteran in Charlie Coyle. Tidy work.

Dallas Stars

What do Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Nathan MacKinnon have in common? They are the only players with more points than Rantanen in the past five years. Rantanen is a top-tier talent, a Stanley Cup winner who has a staggering 101 points in 82 career playoff games, placing him eighth in NHL history in postseason points per game, between Mark Messier and Bobby Orr. Factor in the eight-year extension for a future Hall of Famer, and Rantanen was worth pretty much any price Dallas could’ve paid. Logan Stankoven, two conditional firsts, and two thirds? Sure. Pocket change given what the Stars secured for their present and future on Friday. They already iced one of the Western Conference’s best teams before the blockbuster, and now they’ve vaulted to the top of the Stanley Cup contender crowd. Rantanen joins a top-nine forward group that includes Roope Hintz, Jason Robertson, Wyatt Johnston and more. Exemplary work from GM Jim Nill getting the contract hammered out to lock in the trade. As if Friday wasn’t already successful enough, the Stars also inked rising star Johnston to a five-year extension at an $8.4-million AAV.

Edmonton Oilers

It doesn’t always have to be sexy. The Oilers may not have secured an exciting top-six forward, and the goalie market was too dead to offer any type of meaningful upgrade, but Trent Frederic is a good get for the bottom six, a bruising center who can chip in the odd goal. Jake Walman bolsters the blueline, too. On top of bringing a colorful personality to Edmonton, he’s quite an underrated scorer. Among 192 defensemen with at least 500 minutes played at 5-on-5 this season, Walman sits 12^th in the NHL in points per 60 minutes, between Shea Theodore and Dougie Hamilton – and Walman has done so playing on the NHL’s worst team. So while the Oilers may not have filled every one of their holes to perfection, they emerged from Deadline Week an improved team – arguably more so than anyone else in the Pacific Division.

Florida Panthers

Winners win, on the scoreboard, in the standings and in the arms race on Deadline Day. The Panthers already bolstered their blueline with Seth Jones last weekend and fortified their checking forward corps with Nico Sturm, but now Brad Marchand makes them that much better. He’ll paper over Matthew Tkachuk’s absence while he works his way back from his groin injury and, come playoff time, those two plus Sam Bennett give the defending champs an all-time trio of S.O.B.s to play against. Marchand, 37 this May, is clearly slowing down, but he won’t be asked to handle all the toughest assignments on his own as a Panther. He can settle in as a highly useful cog in a championship machine. Florida is the East’s answer to Dallas as the club that emerged from the Deadline as the clear favorite in its Conference.

Montreal Canadiens

The Habs made no trades of significance this week, holding onto pending UFAs Joel Armia and David Savard. They ended up signing popular trade target Jake Evans to an extension. The Habs have been bad enough for long enough. Their prospect pool is flush. They have multiple mega-prospects still on the way. So good on GM Kent Hughes for rewarding a team that has stubbornly remained in the Eastern Conference Wildcard race. It’s too early in the team’s ascension to have added, but merely not subtracting qualifies as a victory.

New York Islanders

Finally. Finally. This is a monumental shift for the Lou Lamoriello era. The elderly GM set aside the denial and “We like our group” rhetoric and evidently recognized that his team was going nowhere, headed for a probable playoff miss after two consecutive first-round exits. Or maybe he didn’t, judging by how hard he evidently tried to re-sign 34-year-old center Brock Nelson, not to mention holding onto 34-year-old right winger Kyle Palmieri. The Isles at least did the right thing with their best expiring asset, capitalizing on one of the most extreme seller’s markets in recent memory. Landing a first-round pick was a great place to start, but securing Colorado’s best prospect in Ritchie was a home run. He rates as a top-25 prospect league wide, per DFO prospect analyst Steven Ellis. The Islanders badly need foundational difference makers, and Ritchie should have every opportunity to establish himself as a key top-six forward next season.

Ottawa Senators

OK, Ottawa, we see you. It’s not that GM Steve Staios went wild with his spending, but the fact he made moves intended to help Ottawa win now represents progress for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2016-17. Dylan Cozens is younger and more durable than Josh Norris and carries a higher ceiling. Shaking lose the physical, speedy Fabian Zetterlund from San Jose close to the Deadline on Friday was a nice touch, too. Among the bubble teams in the East, Ottawa came out with the most improved odds to win a Wildcard. The Bruins, Flyers and Isles essentially bowed out of the race with their sell-off moves, and the Red Wings, Rangers and Canadiens more or less stood pat, whereas Ottawa got better.

San Jose Sharks

We need to start putting more respect on Mike Grier’s name. However the conditions play out on the Walman trade, we know San Jose has five first-round picks in the next three drafts. Considering it got Walman and a second-rounder from the Detroit Red Wings for nothing, it means Walman essentially yielded San Jose a first- and second-round pick. There will come a time when San Jose must transition out of Rebuild Phase 1 and stop throwing every veteran overboard – Walman could’ve still helped this team through 2025-26, and punting Zetterlund was a curious choice – but the Sharks wisely understand they’re still in scorched-earth mode. Walman, Zetterlund, Mikael Granlund, Cody Ceci out, a pair of first-round picks in, and the Sharks project to be swimming in cap space this summer to boot.

Seattle Kraken

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: unexpectedly making the playoffs in 2022-23 set Seattle back. It elevated expectations way too early for a franchise in its second year of existence. After a playoff miss in 2023-24, GM Ron Francis doubled down on mediocrity for a team with no stars, handing out lucrative seven-year deals to Brandon Montour and Chandler Stephenson. The past week signalled more of a reality check. The Kraken turned Brandon Tanev, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Yanni Gourde into two firsts and two seconds, among other pieces. Not only do those deals add many arrows to Seattle’s Draft quiver, but they also remove some effective roster players from the NHL lineup. That will help Seattle sink toward a better draft position while also opening up roster spots for the kids. The Kraken are a long way from building a high-ceiling roster, badly in need of additional elite prospects, and the Trade Deadline inched them in that direction.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Not only does GM Julien BriseBois give 0.0. f—s about draft picks, he flexed even harder by publicly stating, “Ultimately, the calculation is that trying & failing will yield less regret than failing to try.” He gets it. The Lightning are a model franchise partially because they don’t hesitate when they see an opportunity. That’s why they traded two first-round picks and a second-rounder the Seattle Kraken this week for Oliver Bjorkstrand and a Yanni Gourde reunion, instantly patching up Tampa’s top nine. The Bolts understand that foundational pieces Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman and Andrei Vasilevskiy have crossed into their 30s and that this generation of the franchise only has so many years left to be competitive. BriseBois also clearly recognized that his team is a legitimate Stanley Cup threat this season, leading the league in goals and sitting top five in scoring defense, so he shot his shot. There’s a reason Tampa has played in three Stanley Cup Finals and won two this decade; they opt not for half measures.

Toronto Maple Leafs

The Leafs needed a third-line center and a top-four defenseman, and the desperation of their contention window called for GM Brad Treliving to behave more aggressively than he ever has at the Deadline. Mission accomplished. Center Scott Laughton and D-man Brandon Carlo fill Toronto’s exact needs and justify the price of including a first-round pick (one of them conditional) in each trade and, in the Carlo deal, prospect Fraser Minten. The trades are especially worthwhile because Laughton (one more season after this one) and Carlo (two more) are both cost controlled at bargain AAVs with salary retention happening on each trade. Yes, the Panthers look scary after today, but the Leafs did everything they could to keep pace. The race between Toronto, Florida and Tampa to not finish second or third in the Atlantic carries high stakes.

NOTABLE IN MURKY MIDDLE

New Jersey Devils

The Devils warrant singling out simply to express that their quiet day was understandable. They’ve lost superstar Jack Hughes to a season-ending shoulder injury. They’re still strong enough to contend for the playoffs but not enough to go deep, so GM Tom Fitzgerald was wise to avoid turning buyer or seller.

Vancouver Canucks

The popular reaction may be to declare the Canucks losers. They didn’t trade Brock Boeser. They also did nothing with more than $13 million of accrued cap space. If Boeser doesn’t end up re-signing, than we’ll look back on March 7 as a disaster, sure. But it feels premature to declare Vancouver a Deadline loser right now. The minute Boeser does sign an extension, everything makes more sense again. And if anyone is impatient about Elias Pettersson staying put: a player of his talent level, with as many years left on his contract, makes for a better offseason trade candidate when the list of suitors should theoretically be much longer. Maybe it would’ve been wise to sell off Pius Suter, but, hey, despite the injury woes, the Canucks are just one point out of a playoff spot with a game in hand, so he’s perfectly OK to retain as an own rental. The overall point: while the Canucks may need an overhaul, by no means did it have to happen on March 7, 2025. The offseason will do.

Vegas Golden Knights

What happened to that “Hi” tweet? Nothing came of it? Oh Well. Honestly, Vegas did fine at the Deadline, deepening its forward group by bringing Original Misfit Reilly Smith back. But it feels weird to see them “only” make that one noteworthy deal. We’re just so used to seeing the Golden Knights as the big stack at the poker table. That said, they didn’t fare poorly enough to warrant loser designation.

LOSERS

Buffalo Sabres

You can just feel the desperation emanating from GM Kevyn Adams’ office in Western New York with his team floundering, headed toward an NHL-record 14^th consecutive playoff miss. Earlier this season, he infamously lamented his team’s struggles attracting free agents to a market devoid of palm trees. The last couple of days have reeked of just doing something to do something. He committed $8.75 million in combined salary on two-year extensions for middle-six forwards Jason Zucker and Jordan Greenway. The blockbuster deal sending Cozens to the Senators also felt kneejerk in nature. Josh Norris, the primary piece coming Buffalo’s way, is a more consistently proven goal scorer than Cozens, who has enjoyed one good season, but Norris has an alarming history of major shoulder injuries and is two years older, not to mention slightly more expensive. It feels like breaking even would be Buffalo’s best-case outcome here. They surrendered the upside and increased their downside with the Norris deal, and the extra piece kicked in, blueliner Jacob Bernard-Docker, is not a difference maker. He’ll top out as a third-pair type. The Sabres are lost as a franchise, as it’s debatable at best whether they turned their most coveted trade asset into a sufficient return – especially when the Sabres kicked in a second-round pick. Woof.

Carolina Hurricanes

We can set aside Rantanen, line up all the pieces traced back to the Martin Necas trade, and the Hurricanes look OK. Out went Necas, Jack Drury, a 2025 second-round pick, a 2025 third-round pick and a 2026 fourth-round pick; in come Taylor Hall, Logan Stankoven, Nils Juntorp, conditional firsts in 2026 and 2028 and thirds in 2026 and 2027. Stankoven is a promising young player whose tenacious game should vibe beautifully with fiery Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour. But even when we factor out Rantanen’s dominant scoring, Necas sat top-10 in points for much of this season. His offense has not been replaced in the net gains. I assumed the Canes were preparing to flip one or both of the first-rounders they got from Dallas, but nothing materialized from GM Eric Tulsky. Carolina still looks like the second-best team in the Metro Division, but after the Panthers, Leafs and Lightning loaded up, Carolina lost ground in the big picture of the Eastern Conference.

Detroit Red Wings

It’s not even that Detroit got left in the dust by the top teams in its division in Florida, Toronto and Tampa. Even worse news was the Wings watching the Senators get serious and make noteworthy moves for Cozens and Zetterlund. The Wings were a deer in the headlights aside from a head-scratcher trade adding Petr Mrazek to a goalie stable that already has Cam Talbot and Alex Lyon. One point back of Ottawa, the Wings totally whiffed on Friday. It was a disastrous day for GM Steve Yzerman. Arguably no fan base should feel more disappointed than Detroit’s. The second-longest playoff drought in the NHL could stretch from eight to nine years.

Los Angeles Kings

Ouch. The Kings are currently tracking to relive the nightmare and face the Oilers in Round 1 of the playoffs a fourth consecutive season. You’d think that would spur GM Rob Blake toward making a bold move, but the Kings were dead quiet aside from landing underachieving winger Andrei Kuzmenko from the Philadelphia Flyers. The Kings needed much more of a needle mover to boost one of the league’s most anemic attacks. Instead, they’ll once again have to rely on their team defense and goaltending to advance in the playoffs. That wasn’t enough last season, and there’s little reason to feel confident this time around. This is a good hockey team – but that’s precisely why Friday was a disappointment.

Winnipeg Jets

Is it unfair to declare the Jets a loser? After all, they deepened their D-corps with Luke Schenn, and they landed one of the more coveted checking forwards on the market in speedy Brandon Tanev. Sorry, but this team needed a second-line center more than anything and didn’t come away with one. Even worse: their divisional rival Avalanche landed not one but two centers who would’ve addressed the Jets’ need in Nelson and Coyle. The Jets have been the NHL’s top juggernaut this season, but how seriously can we take a team with Vlad Namestnikov as its second-line center? Compare that to what Dallas’ forward group looks like with Rantanen added, too. The Jets improved their team Friday, but their direct divisional competition gained ground on them.

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POST SPONSORED BY bet365

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