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It’s the Final Countdown. We’re fewer than 48 hours away from the NHL’s March 3 trade deadline. We’ve had you covered over the last two months with at least one trade-focused story every day leading up to Deadline Day.

2023 Trade Deadline Countdown: 2 days

Upwards of 45 names have flown off our Trade Targets board in recent days. Rather than tell you who’s left, it’s maybe more valuable to sift through which teams are expected to be active over the last two days leading up to the deadline.

Let’s work through each Western Conference team using some grocery store metaphors:

Still Shopping

These teams are still moving about the store, wandering the aisles, ready to buy:

Colorado Avalanche
Top Objective: Impact Forward
Scoop: That the Avalanche dipped into the salary cap space required to activate Gabriel Landeskog before the end of the regular season leaves the door wide open for another significant addition. Colorado acquired center Lars Eller from Washington in exchange for a second-round pick on Wednesday. They have nearly $4.5 million in LTIR space left to burn. Eller fills a need at center; Jack Johnson was picked up for insurance on the back-end. That means there is plenty of room for a scoring winger to add some punch. The Avs still have all three of their next first-round picks, too.

Vegas Golden Knights
Top Objective: Scoring Winger
Secondary Objective: Goaltending Insurance
Scoop: Vegas added intelligent center and role player Teddy Blueger to their mix on Wednesday, to go along with Ivan Barbashev acquired over the weekend. They still have $5.06 million in Mark Stone’s LTIR space to spend. They could use a winger that could deposit the puck (See: James van Riemsdyk) and also a little goaltending help (See: Jonathan Quick). The Golden Knights were well down the track in trade talks with Columbus for Quick, but needed to clear up a few things on their salary cap before they could make that happen. Vegas isn’t likely to be adding players with term, looking mostly for pure rentals.

Winnipeg Jets
Top Objective: Gritty Defenseman
Scoop: So the Jets solved their first priority heading into the deadline by upgrading their scoring depth with Nino Niederreiter. Pierre-Luc Dubois and Mason Appleton should be back soon, only further aiding. Eventually Cole Perfetti could be back for the playoffs. That leaves defense as the next focal point. And man, would Ivan Provorov of the Philadelphia Flyers look good there. Provorov played his junior hockey in Manitoba for Brandon. He competes, he’s got a little snarl and he showed an offensive flair that made him a sought-after commodity. He’s an instant top pair defenseman – and the Jets know they need to trade for those as opposed to sign them.

Edmonton Oilers
Top Objective: Forward with a Different Element
Scoop: After shaking up their defense corps in a big way by subbing out Tyson Barrie for stylistic opposite in Mattias Ekholm, the Oilers now have a bit of salary cap space on their hands. Whether they decide to weaponize it or not will be up to the whims of GM Ken Holland. They have $1.3 million in space and could add up to a $5.2 million player, if his salary cap hit is run through a third-party broker. They could create even more than that by moving Kailer Yamamoto or Warren Foegele. That might not be necessary. The Oilers have too many skilled, one-dimensional forwards and could use someone with a little bite and nastiness. There’s plenty of those guys at $2.6 million or under that won’t cost an arm or a leg.

Dallas Stars
Top Objective: Secondary Scoring Threat
Scoop: Dallas owns one of the best lines in the league with Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz and Joe Pavelski. They drive and dominate play. After that, the Stars’ scoring sloughs off in a big way. Jamie Benn has had a strong bounceback season, but they’re asking a lot from some young players in Wyatt Johnston and Ty Dellandrea. The ability to slide Johnston down the lineup and move Tyler Seguin back to wing would be ideal. A prime candidate to help would be Philadelphia’s Kevin Hayes. But even with the Flyers retaining $2.5 or more million, the three years on his term might be problematic for Dallas. Hayes would provide some scoring punch as well as reliable, two-way play.

In The Checkout Lane

These teams have done the bulk of their shopping and are ready to checkout, save for any last-minute impulse buys near the register.

Minnesota Wild
Top Objective: Monitor the Market
Scoop: The Wild got out ahead of the deadline earlier in the week by trading for Marcus Johansson and Gustav Nyquist. It’s a worthy gamble on Nyquist, adding him for next to nothing, provided that he can make it back to play before the end of the regular season. They know Johansson and the predictability he brings to their lineup. Now what? The Wild have plenty of cap space to burn. They can only add pure rentals. And they aren’t thrilled with some of the prices, so they’ll sit tight, and aren’t expected to be as active as they were already.

Los Angeles Kings
Top Objective: Capitalize on ‘D’ Prices
Scoop: The Kings are well positioned to take a run. They score as well as anyone in the league. They’re young, their championship window is just beginning to crack open, they’re bursting with prospects, and they’re stalking the standings for the Pacific Division lead. Their coach, Todd McLellan, has also been critical of their ability to keep the puck out of their net. They’ve added Vladislav Gavrikov and Joonas Korpisalo, who should help. But with the prices paid for defensemen with term, they really should consider unloading a right-shooting defenseman – because they’re going to have to do it this summer, anyway.

Gathering Ingredients for a Weird Stew

Vancouver Canucks
Top Objective: Down for Anything
Scoop: No one is really quite sure what to make of the Canucks’ plan, other than that they’ve told teams that they’re willing to consider just about anything. (Anything means outside of Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes or Thatcher Demko.) They’ve essentially said: “Make us an offer.” That includes old guys, young guys, players with term. After using the assets from Bo Horvat’s trade to land Detroit’s Filip Hronek, it feels like a big salary dump is coming before Friday to finally get some flexibility. Hopefully whatever they’re cooking up tastes good when it’s all done. Judgment reserved until then.

In the Candy Aisle

Seattle Kraken
Top Objective: The World is Ron Francis’ Oyster
Scoop: The Kraken are truly in a no-lose situation this deadline. Depending on where you look, they have somewhere between a 77 to 86 percent shot to make the playoffs in their second year of existence. They vastly exceeded expectations this season. They could both buy and sell, the NHL’s version of Seinfeld’s Vandelay Industries, where they’re importers and exporters. They could add to improve their chances. Or they could seize on the high prices being paid these last couple weeks and move on from a series of players such as Carson Soucy, Will Borgen and Morgan Geekie, and likely still not significantly impact their playoff chances. It’s an envious place to be.

In the Discount Aisle

Calgary Flames
Top Objective: Be the last dog at the dog bowl
Scoop: It’s been eerily quiet in Calgary as general manager Brad Treliving has used every possible moment to monitor the market and see what happens. Deep down, he probably knows this Flames team isn’t good enough to be a true Stanley Cup threat this season. But they aren’t that far out of it just yet. And with so many teams done the bulk of their shopping, there may be some real value additions that won’t cost a whole lot. See: Carolina’s last-minute spend for Max Domi last deadline. If Calgary can improve on the margins without spending, maybe the Flames can catch fire and sneak in. It won’t be possible if they don’t get more stops.

Approaching Expiration Date

Anaheim Ducks
Top Objective: Move John Klingberg
Scoop: We figured this would be a rather quiet trade deadline for GM Pat Verbeek after selling off so much last year. But he’s still got Klingberg to move, and that hasn’t happened yet. The third-round pick price paid for Shayne Gostisbehere, who has had a much better season that Klingberg, on Wednesday definitely did not help. Gostisbehere also earns $2.5 million fewer dollars on the salary cap. Feels like Anaheim’s gamble on Klingberg has backfired spectacularly. Outside of him, there are few other pieces to try and move, such as injured center Adam Henrique or power play specialist Kevin Shattenkirk.

Chicago Blackhawks
Top Objective: Find Warm Bodies
Scoop: The great exodus has continued in Chicago. Patrick Kane joined Sam Lafferty and Jake McCabe on their way out this week. Jonathan Toews will follow in the summer as a free agent. That leaves pending UFAs Max Domi and Andreas Athanasiou as the last remaining trade chips. At some point, the Blackhawks will need to turn an eye towards next season and making sure they’ll have enough players to ice a lineup. That is a real consideration, particularly when you look at the skeleton roster that is left.

Arizona Coyotes
Top Objective: Listen for Opportunity
Scoop: Now that our long, international nightmare is over and Jakob Chychrun has been moved to the Ottawa Senators, the Coyotes can breathe a little sigh of relief. It wasn’t pretty. GM Bill Armstrong’s asking price buckled like my will when passing a fast food restaurant. But the Coyotes have two strong No. 1 draft picks this year amid a deep crop. There is pending UFA Nick Bjugstad to move. There may also be some other opportunity to trade high-priced players with term, such as Nick Schmaltz and Lawson Crouse, for monster returns given the market conditions. But those might also wait until the summer.

Nashville Predators
Top Objective: Sell, sell, sell
Scoop: Outgoing GM David Poile ripped off the band-aid first with Nino Niederreiter, then Tanner Jeannot, Mattias Ekholm and Mikael Granlund followed. There might not be anyone left to sell beyond Dante Fabbro on the back-end. And Fabbro certainly isn’t a guarantee to go. It’s either ironic or exactly by design that the Predators see fit to pull themselves out of the NHL’s murky middle as Poile heads toward retirement after 39 consecutive years in the GM chair. Either way, it seems Poile is setting up successor Barry Trotz with some serious draft capital to either rebuild or retool on the fly.

San Jose Sharks
Top Objective: Create cap flexibility
Scoop: It’s been interesting to watch the Sharks navigate the trade deadline. They’ve traded away sniper Timo Meier, of course, but they’ve also oddly added salary – such as cap dump Vladislav Namestnikov for Mikey Eyssimont on Wednesday. They’ve got nearly $67 million committed to the cap already for next season with as many as seven roster positions to fill. That’s a lot. They can move UFA Nick Bonino. But they’d do really well to begin laying the ground work to move out contracts like Kevin Labanc, Nico Sturm and Mario Ferraro – to say nothing of some of their salary cap anchors that appear to be untradeable.

St. Louis Blues
Top Objective: Move a Defenseman
Scoop: GM Doug Armstrong has been one of the rockstars of the deadline, joining Washington’s Brian MacLellan with a decisive selling posture that has yielded significant returns. They’ve gotten back two 1sts, a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and recent first-round pick Zach Dean in exchange for Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Niko Mikkola and Ivan Barbashev. They might be able to get a little something for goaltending insurance piece Thomas Greiss. But the real focus should be on if they can entice someone to take on one of their term-laden, top-four defensemen (Colton Parayko, Justin Faulk or Nick Leddy), all of whom have full ‘no-trade’ clauses. That would put this deadline over the top, and Armstrong in position to pounce this summer for immediate help via the assets now in his arsenal.

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