The

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He gives the Rangers a two-way option down the middle who lived up to his identity as a consistent forechecker during his time with the Kraken. Wennberg was one of the players who embodied how the Kraken, when they were at their best, aggressively forechecked to regain possession.

Wennberg will give the Rangers a two-way option down the middle who could be used on a line with

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Those factors contributed to Byram’s place being in question over the years. Byram projected as a top-pairing defenseman who could run a first-team power play and log more than 20 minutes per game. That promise is what made him so enticing, but it’s also what made him something of a bizarre fit in Colorado.

Everything he did during the Avalanche’s Stanley Cup run in 2022 reinforced why he was so valuable to title aspirations. But his place within the Avs’ defensive dynamic meant the club would have to face the eventual reality that they’d have to move on from Byram at some point due to salary cap constraints, a lack of opportunity or both.

Getting a deal done for Sean Walker earlier on Wednesday allowed the Avalanche to trade Byram and get the second-line center they’ve coveted in Mittelstadt.

Finding a second-line center has arguably become the biggest challenge facing this iteration of the Avs. That was the case before they traded for Nazem Kadri back in 2019, and it had been the case since he left in free agency more than a year ago.

Adding Mittelstadt gives the Avalanche more than another second-line center. He gives them a 25-year-old second-line center who will be a restricted free agent this offseason (and thus under some team control), a boon for a team that’s always trying to corral cost in a championship window. What also helps the Avs is that trading Byram means they get an additional $3.85 million off the books for next season which should help with re-signing Mittelstadt.

Mittelstadt made progress season, scoring 15 goals and 59 points in 82 games. That trend has continued into this season with 14 goals and 47 points through 62 games. He’s projected to finish with 19 goals and 62 points, although his scoring rate could increase considering Mittelstadt will now play for one of the NHL’s most prolific teams.

The Edmonton Oilers have acquired forwards Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick in a three-way trade with the Anaheim Ducks and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Ducks retained 50% of Henrique’s salary in trading him to the Lightning for the reserve rights to goaltender Ty Taylor. The Lightning retained 50% of Henrique’s remaining salary in trading him to the Oilers for a conditional 2025 fourth-round pick, which moves to the 2026 draft if the Oilers win the Stanley Cup this season.

The three-way trade was completed by the Ducks trading Carrick with 50% of his salary retained, Taylor, and a 2024 seventh-round pick to the Oilers for Edmonton’s 2024 first-round pick and a 2025 conditional fifth-round pick, one that becomes a fourth-rounder if the Oilers win the Stanley Cup this season.

With Elias Lindholm and Sean Monahan off the board, Adam Henrique became the top center available with an expiring contract, and kudos to the Oilers for landing him at the right cap price.

At the end of the trade, the Oilers get Henrique with a $1,456,250 cap hit and Carrick with a $425,000 cap hit, thanks to retention by the Ducks and the Oilers.

The 33-year-old Henrique is an effective player in the middle, but he’s also one of those jack-of-all-trades veterans that a team with championship aspirations covets. He can play on the wing. He can give you power-play or penalty-kill minutes — the latter being more important than the former for the Oilers, as their penalty kill is 14th in the NHL and their power play has Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. He can win faceoffs. He’s both a 200-foot player and someone that can be effective at the net front.

Henrique’s playoff experience is quality over quantity: Only 28 games, but 24 of them were a run to the Stanley Cup Final with the New Jersey Devils in 2012 that included his series-clinching overtime goal against the New York Rangers in the conference final.

Giving up the first-rounder was expected given the market, and even more so when a decent depth forward like Carrick comes with him. He’s a tenacious forechecker who can create loose pucks for the Oilers’ skill players and he’s not afraid to drop the gloves when necessary.

GM Ken Holland indicated that with the Oilers playing as well as they have been, he was looking for tweaks rather than monster moves at the deadline. He declared he wasn’t in the goalie market. He opted not to trade a first-rounder to boost the team’s back end, but the trade did leave Edmonton with the flexibility to do so — especially if they’re willing to trade a roster player. As it stands, PuckPedia believes the Oilers will have $1.22 million in open space on Friday.

Henrique is very much a welcome edition, but the trade is a double that could be legged into a triple rather than a home run. He was the best center available, and an Oilers team with its eyes squarely on the ultimate prize landed him and kept him away from potential opponents in the process.

The Colorado Avalanche acquired defenseman Sean Walker and a 2026 fifth-round pick, sending forward Ryan Johansen and a 2025 first-round pick to the Philadelphia Flyers. The first-round pick is top-10 protected.

This is an early favorite for the best deal ahead of the deadline, and it turns out it was just the start for the Avalanche. It initially looked like they were getting another top-four defenseman in Walker who would have been used either on the second or third pairing. That changed with the Avalanche subsequently trading Bowen Byram to the Buffalo Sabres for Casey Mittelstadt.

Adding Walker, who was one of the most attractive defensemen on the market, gives the Avalanche three right-handed shots on the back end that they can use throughout all their pairings.

Part of the Avalanche’s success has been the ability to control possession and facilitate play. Walker gives them another puck-mover who can do just that, and is also an option on their penalty kill. Walker was among the leaders of a Flyers penalty kill that ranked first in the league and will now seek to provide similar results to an Avs kill that is ranked 11th.

This gives the Avalanche a D group that features

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They decided on Mantha, which could prove to be a rather prudent decision.

Vegas is banking on the notion that Mantha can be a success similar to what they found in Barbashev. It’s entirely possible, considering the Golden Knights have seen it before with Adin Hill, Jack Eichel, Alex Pietrangelo, Barbashev and Stone, among others; these outsiders all assimilated and carved a place within the lineup.

Mantha also fits within the Golden Knights’ premise that the sum is greater than the whole of its parts. He’ll be the ninth player on their roster who has more than 10 goals this season, and the 12th player who has more than 20 points. Remember, Mantha’s third 20-goal season came while playing for a team that was last in the Eastern Conference in goals.

While Mantha fills a need, an argument can be had that the strongest part of this deal for the Golden Knights is the price tag. Having the Capitals retain 50% of Mantha’s salary means they’ll have $4.426 million in deadline cap space left, according to Cap Friendly.

Then there’s this: The Golden Knights didn’t have to part with any of their first-round picks to get this one over the finish line. Between that and the cap space they have available, it leaves the Golden Knights with the ability to create an attractive package should they seek to add more help between now and Friday’s deadline.

The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Ilya Lyubushkin from the Anaheim Ducks in a three-team trade that also involved the Carolina Hurricanes. The Leafs received Lyubushkin and the rights to prospect forward Kirill Slepets, with the Ducks receiving the Leafs’ 2025 third-round pick while retaining 50% of Lyubushkin’s $2.75 million salary.

As for the Hurricanes, they received the Leafs’ 2024 sixth-round pick for serving as a third-party broker that will pay 25% of Lyubushkin’s salary.

Seriously, it’s like Lindholm was made in a lab for this Vancouver team. He can play on a power play that’s already in the top 10 (25%) in the NHL. He can bolster a penalty kill that’s middle of the pack (80%). He’s a tremendous 5-on-5 defender, in particular in puck recovery. He was second for the Selke Trophy in 2021-22, although that might be because he scored 42 goals along with playing stellar defensively. The Selke is funny like that.

He’s also insurance against the Canucks losing one of their vital players to injury at any point down the stretch. The most important number for Vancouver this season is 49, or the number of games J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes and Brock Boeser have played — in other words, all of them.

What do the Canucks bring to Lindholm? A chance to get back to the offensive force he was two years ago. One of the most desirable attributes in an NHL player is to thrive with high-end talent. Lindholm’s offensive apex came while playing on a line with Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau. His scoring dropped by 18 points after they left Calgary, propped up by his chemistry with Tyler Toffoli. Then Toffoli was traded to New Jersey, and Lindholm’s productivity fell off a cliff this season to under two points per 60 minutes (1.9) in all situations.

Vancouver can slot Lindholm with Miller, who had 67 points through 49 games. Or on a line with Pettersson and Boeser. He can play on their first power-play unit. It’s like going from an offensive boxed lunch in Calgary to a veritable buffet in Vancouver.

Given the Canucks’ cap situation next season, one assumes Lindholm is a rental. If that’s the case, fine: Lindholm is an outstanding acquisition, a nitro boost to a team already cruising at the top of the conference. But it did come at a cost.

There were two trades last season that might have informed this one.

When the Canucks traded center Bo Horvat to the Islanders, they received a roster player (Anthony Beauvillier), a top prospect (Aatu Raty) and a conditional first-round pick in 2023 that they flipped for defenseman Filip Hronek. Horvat ended up signing an eight-year extension with the Islanders a few days later.

The Blues traded center Ryan O’Reilly to the Maple Leafs last season in a complicated three-way trade with Minnesota that included salary retention. In the end, the Leafs gave up two prospects, a first-rounder, a second-rounder, a third-rounder and a fourth-rounder. O’Reilly left as a free agent for Nashville.

So how did the Flames do within that context? Pretty good, actually, especially considering they didn’t retain any salary.

Andrei Kuzmenko needed to get away from coach Rick Tocchet, who wanted him to play “the right way” and wasn’t going to give ice time to a player he believed was a defensive liability during this outstanding season for the Canucks. It didn’t matter that he had 39 goals as a 26-year-old rookie last season. He had to earn his time with the team’s top players and Tocchet felt he hadn’t.

So it’s off to Calgary, where he’s signed through next season at a $5.5 million average annual value. He had the Flames on his no-trade list. GM Craig Conroy and coach Ryan Huska sold him on the promise that Kuzmenko would be placed in offensively advantageous situations. Perhaps he and Jonathan Huberdeau could find some mutually beneficial chemistry.

It would be absolutely shocking if the name Yegor Sharangovich didn’t come up. The Flames acquired him from the Devils in the Toffoli trade, gave him almost three minutes more ice time a game, and watching his offense blossom to the point where Sharangovich (20) has one fewer goal than Toffoli (21) this season.

If Kuzmenko can’t recapture the magic, he’s a free agent in the summer of 2025.

Of the two prospects, Brzustewicz is more intriguing than Jurmo, although the latter defenseman has improved this season while playing in Finland. Brzustewicz is a puck-moving blue-liner who could top out at 100 points this season with the OHL Kitchener Rangers. There have been lingering questions about his ability to be an all-around player at the NHL level, but it’s hard to ignore that kind of offensive spark.

The Flames pulled a first-rounder for Lindholm too, albeit one that could practically be a high second-rounder given how good the Canucks are. That fourth-rounder turns into a third-rounder if the Canucks make the Western Conference final.

It’s a potentially impressive haul for (yet another) free agent who wasn’t signing back in Calgary. For a franchise that’s still reeling from those defections, it’s another strong step toward whatever the next phase of the Flames ends up being. — Greg Wyshynski