Other than the fact that it’s a reliable harbinger of Canadian spring, the NHL trade deadline is one of the more overblown points of the season. First, it’s unlikely that anyone’s moving a really high-end player. Teams that are in the playoffs are keeping their difference makers. Teams that aren’t tend to want to keep them too, regardless of whether it makes any sense in the broader context of where the team is and what it should be trying to accomplish. The league’s balance of power is unlikely to tip at the trade deadline.



A lot of the trades that are made, they sometimes don’t even seem like they’re particularly aimed at upgrading anything. Kyle Quincey for Dalton Prout? Dwight King for a conditional fourth round pick? Does it alter the balance of power in the slightest? No? Who cares.



Where the trade deadline can produce interesting trades is when a team uses it to go after an area of their team that’s...