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What the 2025 NHL trade deadline lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality. After all, it’s not often we have a prolonged drama like the Mikko Rantanen saga, which took several twists and turns before ending deep in the heart of Texas. And the Panthers’ stunning acquisition of Brad Marchand is one of the great buzzer-beaters in deadline history.
Now that the dust has settled — and knowing full well that the true winners and losers won’t be known until mid-June — let’s take a look at who improved the most, who took the biggest chances and who fell flat on their face on deadline day.
Winner: Florida Panthers
Imagine going up against a line with both Brad Marchand and Matthew Tkachuk on it. Good luck with that. Panthers GM Bill Zito made the most of the cap space Tkachuk’s groin injury opened up, snagging Marchand at the very last minute after adding Seth Jones earlier in the week.
Winner: Mikko Rantanen
Rantanen was a member of the Carolina Hurricanes for about six weeks. He spent his first week on the road. He spent the next two weeks with Team Finland in Montreal and Boston. He had all of six home games in Raleigh. It’s entirely reasonable that he wasn’t ready to commit the next eight years of his life to a franchise and a city he barely knows. And that he was pushing for a nine-figure deal, complicating matters further.
Winner: Dallas Stars
Jim Nill has painted himself into something of a corner, handing $96 million to Rantanen with Tyler Seguin coming off long-term injured reserve (LTIR) and Jason Robertson, Wyatt Johnston, and Thomas Harley all due significant raises in the next two years. Then there’s captain Jamie Benn, who is a pending unrestricted free agent. Whatever. He’ll get to that eventually, and given Nill’s history, he’ll surely make it all work. What matters is that this is now the Stanley Cup favorite, the best team in the NHL. Getting Rantanen – at significantly less than he’d get on the open market – is a massive coup for the Stars. The NHL’s center of gravity continues to shift south.
Loser: Carolina Hurricanes
There’s no spinning this as a positive for the Hurricanes. GM Eric Tulsky did well enough to salvage something tangible out of it – and if you go all the way back to the initial deal with Colorado, it might even be a net gain – but it’s a bad beat all the same. The Hurricanes gave up a premium talent with another year on a team-friendly contract in Martin Necas to acquire Rantanen, got 13 measly games out of him (won only seven of them), and then flipped him to Dallas for Logan Stankoven and two late first-round picks. Stankoven is an exciting young player, but will he even be at Necas’ level, let alone Rantanen’s? The fact is, this might have been Carolina’s best chance to break through in a wide-open Eastern Conference. Instead, they’re further from contention than they’ve been in years.
Winner: Mitch Marner
With Rantanen off the board, guess who’s the belle of the ball this summer in free agency? Get that bag, Mitch.
Winner: Colorado Avalanche
The trade deadline is typically an imperfect tool for filling holes, with teams scrambling and often settling to add something, anything, as the clock ticks down. There’s rarely a perfect fit out there for a team, and it’s even more rare for such a trade to happen. But Brock Nelson was the perfect fit for the Avalanche, giving them the second-line center they so clearly needed.
Loser: Chicago Blackhawks
Davidson, flush with cap space and desperate for a difference-maker up front, had his eye on Rantanen as an ideal linemate for Connor Bedard. Now that Rantanen is off the board, Davidson can only hope that Toronto doesn’t strike a deal with Marner – and that Marner’s up for a fixer-upper.
Winner: Tampa Bay Lightning
Some day, there will be a reckoning for Julien BriseBois and the Lightning, a day on which all their core players suddenly are tumbling down the aging curve and the cupboard is completely bare. But that day is not today.
Tampa has won 10 of its last 11 games and has muscled its way back into the true contender tier of the NHL. And when you have a chance to win, you go for it. BriseBois’ utter disregard for draft picks is almost comical at this point – Tampa has had one first-round pick in the last five drafts and has dealt away its 2025, 2026, and 2027 first-rounders (the last two with top-10 protection) – but it’s also the right attitude for a perennial contender.
Winner: Toronto Maple Leafs
The Leafs didn’t have the splashiest deadline – at one point in the day, while chaos swirled, you wanted to poke Brad Treliving with a stick and see if he was still awake. But Scott Laughton and Brandon Carlo are sneaky good gets who make Toronto a better defensive team, first and foremost.
Loser: Buffalo Sabres
As they hurtle toward a 14th straight spring without a playoff appearance, the Sabres had to do something. And they did something. But they did something that doesn’t really change anything.
Loser: Calgary Flames
For absolutely nothing, the Flames got 50 solid games from Jake Walman, a second-round pick (from Detroit as a cap-dump sweetener last summer) and a first-round pick (from Edmonton for Walman on Thursday). Steve Yzerman could never.
Loser: Edmonton Oilers
Dallas went out and added the best player available in Rantanen and locked him up long-term. Colorado went out and added the top rental available in Nelson. Edmonton added a solid second-pair defenseman in Walman and a third-line forward in Trent Frederic. If this is an arms race, Edmonton is losing. The Oilers are the defending conference champion and were the preseason favorites to win it all. Now, they look like the fifth-best team in the West. It’s foolish to ever doubt Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, but the Oilers have an uphill climb to get back to the Final.
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