Last year, it was Wild GM Chuck Fletcher who made a big push at the trade deadline. Minnesota was one of the regular season’s best teams and the Ryan Suter/Zach Parise window is starting to close. The timing was right and he sent a big package to the Arizona Coyotes in return for Martin Hanzal.



As we know now, it didn’t come with a payoff. Neither did Washington’s trade for Kevin Shattenkirk. So as trade deadline season begins, you can’t help but wonder what kind of impact that will have on the market this year. Last year’s draft wasn’t considered a great one, so there might have been more willingness to move a first-round pick. That’s not the case this year, as evaluators seem to be approaching the 2018 draft with more optimism.



So will that mean a quiet trade deadline in 2018?



“It depends on who is available,” said one GM on Tuesday. “Does one team decide they’re going for...