The Weekly 5-on-5: A busy week

Alright, for starters… I apologize that this is coming out later than normal, but I wanted to wait until the trade deadline had passed so that I wasn’t posting information that became immediately out-of-date.

It was a really interesting week, with a ton of moving parts, so let’s get straight to it.

1. Evgenii Dadonov

This situation is wild, and I can’t get enough. Just before Monday’s 1 pm MT deadline, reports began to circulate that the Vegas Golden Knights were sending Evgenii Dadonov, along with his $5M cap-hit, and a conditional 2nd round pick in 2024 to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for injured defenseman John Moore, and Ryan Kesler. Well, Ryan Kesler’s contract. Kesler hasn’t played an NHL game since the 2018-2019 season, and his contract just sits on LTIR and doesn’t have any real impact on the team, other than they have to cut him a check for the rest of the year.

This was a move that the Knights were needing to make in order to free up enough cap space to be able to activate players currently on LTIR (namely Mark Stone and Alec Martinez) before the NHL playoffs began at the start of May.

Once word got to Dadonov, and his agent Maxim Moliver, that he had been traded to the Ducks, they immediately began to push back saying that Anaheim was on his 10-team No Trade List, a list he’s entitled to as part of the modified no-trade clause that’s included in his contract.

This is where things got interesting.

As the Golden Knights began to look into it, they claimed that their organization had no record of Dadonov having a M-NTC as part his agreement. They allegedly checked with the Ducks, and the league, who both said they also couldn’t find any record of Evgenii Dadonov having a M-NTC. So it began to look like an error on the player’s (and his agent) side, that maybe they hadn’t submitted his 10-team “no-go” list by the deadline listed in his contract, therefore voiding his right to veto a deal to the Ducks.

It was Patrik Berglund all over again.

Then, reports began to come down that Dadonov and Moliver were “adamant” that they had done everything correctly, and any error in the filing of the 10-team list was not on their end, eventually leading the NHLPA filing an official grievance with the league, stating that the trade was not valid.

Within hours, teams of lawyers began combing though all the paperwork involved with Dadonov’s tenure in Vegas in an attempt to find record of the list being filed, and filed on time.

Sure enough, they found proof of what Dadonov and his agent had been saying, they had done everything correctly.

Right now, it looks like the disconnect came when Dadonov was traded from Ottawa to Vegas in June of 2021, it appears as though details of the M-NTC weren’t made clear when he arrived in Vegas.

The situation is very fluid right now, and Dadonov’s future is certainly in flux. Keep an eye on this one as it continues to evolve.

2. Minnesota, out of left field

Ok, that last one was long, so I’ll try to move quicker here. I didn’t see this one coming in the days leading to the deadline, but with about 24 hours to go rumors made their way to twitter that the Minnesota Wild were persuing Marc-Andre Fleury. 

I didn’t think it would actually happen, as Fluery said himself he would not green-light a trade unless he felt the team had a true chance of winning, and Minnesota said they weren’t interested in trading high-value assets for rental players.

Sure enough though, Monday morning saw the deal become official as the Wild acquired MAF from Chicago in exchange for a conditional 2nd round pick in this year’s draft.

Minnesota made a subsequent move, sending goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen to the San Jose Sharks.

It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out, Fleury hasn’t been particularly great this season, and it’s rare that we see goalies join new teams this late into the season and have it work out. Fleury is a sure-fire Hall of Famer though, so it’s hard to argue that this didn’t make the Wild better.

3. Kraken take care of business

Well color me surprised. I’ve been pretty hard on Seattle and the way they seemingly mismanaged the expansion draft at pretty much every turn, and I’ve said several times over the last couple weeks that this deadline was a chance to redeem themselves. While it wasn’t “perfect”, I think the Seattle Kraken had a really, really good deadline.

Over the span of five days, the Kraken turned six current roster players into 10 draft picks and Daniel Sprong (8G, 14P in 47GP with WSH). That is not bad. While they didn’t manage to pull a 1st round pick, these assets should set them up nicely to start and build this team properly.

Kudos to Ron Francis and company.

4. Jake DeBrusk re-signs in Boston

This one was a major head-scratcher at first, but the more information that came to the surface, it started to make sense… in theory.

DeBrusk publicly requested a trade at the beginning of this year, saying that he was ready for a fresh start and a bigger role with a new team. The fact that he hadn’t been traded already to this point was a bit shocking to be honest, so when the Bruins announced yesterday that they had signed DeBrusk to a two-year contract extension worth $8M, I was blown away.

Come to find out, it appears that the Bruins wanted to try and up the value of DeBrusk by giving him some term, and other teams some certainty in what they’re acquiring. 

So that made sense, but then they didn’t trade him? I’m sure they’ll revisit moving him come summertime, but it has been just an odd string of events surrounding Jake DeBrusk all season.

5. Phil Kessel stays put

One team that legitimately surprised me with how much they *didn’t* do, was the Arizona Coyotes. They had a number of pending UFAs that made a ton of sense for them to flip for picks and prospects, and maybe at the top of that list was Phil the Thrill.

Kessel, who has had a bit of a down year, has two Stanley Cup rings, and a half dozen 30 goal seasons to his name. Conventional wisdom would suggest that this would be an easy flip. In fact, his was the one names pretty much everyone agreed would be on the move, basically since training camp opened.

The rumor is that Arizona ran out of their ability to retain salary on players, and Kessel’s cap hit was just too much for contending teams to take on. He’ll for sure be on the move this summer, but you feel for him. Bit that he won’t get a chance to make a run at the Cup the year.

Alright, let’s get to the Avs. My colleague AJ Haefele has done fantastic deep dives into all of the moves that Joe Sakic made at the deadline and the players he’s acquired, so I’ll be keeping this a bit more brief, but make sure to go check those out. Here’s how I saw the Avs’ moves, from my perspective.

Artturi Lehkonen and Andrew Cogliano

After making two moves earlier in the week, we knew that the Avs still had something in mind for deadline day itself. When Claude Giroux officially went off the market by going to the Florida Panthers the day before, the main focus for the Avalanche became Artturi Lehkonen, a great two-way forward who fits their identity and can really help bolster their middle-six.

Lehkonen fills a need, gives you a boost in talent in the middle six, and perhaps most importantly he is an RFA at the end of the season. Meaning, he’ll be back next season. Acquiring Lehkonen did not come cheap, as Montreal made it known that they were more than happy to keep him. Justin Barron and a 2024 2nd round pick, that’s what Colorado was forced to part with to get their guy. 

The 2nd round pick, I couldn’t care less about. That’s a lottery scratch ticket that, at absolute best, would be making an impact on your roster in 2026. So who cares. Losing Barron hurts. He’s a dynamic defenseman that had a home on Colorado’s blue line within the next two seasons, but Joe Sakic isn’t worried about two seasons from now at this moment, he is concerned with winning now, right now. If he believes that Lehkonen can be that much of an impact on this team, in this playoff run, then the price is pretty irrelevant.

I love this move.

They also brought in Andrew Cogliano, a well-seasoned NHL veteran, and supposedly a phenomenal presence in the locker room. Cogliano has been to the conference finals four times, and was part of the Dallas Stars team that made a run to the Cup Final in the 2020 Bubble.

The Avs gave up a 2024 5th round pick for Cogliano. Aka… there’s no way anyone can not like this trade. You can never have enough depth, and this is someone who understands where this Avalanche team is at mentally, after coming up short the last couple of playoffs.

For the cost, I like it.

Joe Sakic made sure to let us all know, that even with these two moves the Avalanche were cap compliant and wouldn’t need to place anybody on LTIR to make the money work. He had a smile on his face when he said it so we all picked up on the ever so slight bit of shade he was throwing here.

Josh Manson and Nico Sturm

Short and sweet here, as there’s been a lot of talk already about what these guys bring to the Avs.

Joe Sakic said they wanted to get as many trades done as possible ahead of the deadline, and that’s what they did here. Both of these players gave the Avs something that they didn’t have before in certain parts of their lineup. Both Manson and Sturm add size, heavy play, and a bit of a mean streak, while still having some offensive upside. 

Manson cost you nothing more than a draft pick and prospect far from the NHL, so I’m all about it. For Sturm, as much as it sucks to see a guy like Tyson Jost go (more on that in a minute), this move was a pretty clear upgrade, in terms of filling a need. Even if you say that Sturm and Jost have the same upside, Sturm just gives you a different dynamic with his size and strength, I think he’ll be perfect in that bottom-six.

Overall, I think the Avs had a great deadline. Didn’t land the big name, but made sizable moves that dramatically improved the team. They’re ready for the playoffs.

Claude Giroux

I just want to clear a couple things up here with this whole situation. For more than a month we heard, from all corners of the NHL that the Avs were in on Claude Giroux. Then, once he was dealt to Florida, a single report came out saying the Flyers never engaged in talks with anyone else and everyone ran with that.

That is not true. Here’s how, to my understanding, it went down. Based on conversations I’ve had over the last 24 hours, and reports that have been out online from folks who are very plugged in, and hearing from Avs’ GM Joe Sakic, the Avs engaged in talks with Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher and made it known that they were very interested in acquiring Claude Giroux, and even went as far as to let the Flyers know what they’d potentially be willing to give up to get him.

However, the Flyers knew that Giroux’s preference was Florida, and they made that known to the Avs. Not necessarily saying they’re out of it, but just basically telling them that Claude has full control and they were gonna do what best fulfilled his wishes.

Sakic said after his 1,000th game, it was made clear that a deal would be done with Florida, so the Avs didn’t engage much further beyond that.

The Avs made an offer that was appealing to Philly, but ultimately the Flyers did right by their long-time captain and took a (way) lesser deal send him to south Florida.

Ryan Murray

Ok, ok. Enough trade deadline stuff. A quick update on Ryan Murray. 

Murray blocked a shot on his first shift of the game on Monday against Edmonton, he finished his shift and went immediately down the tunnel.

It was announced during the first intermission that he wouldn’t return. Jared Bednar told media after the game that it probably wasn’t a good sign that he was unable to come back to finish the game, then told us at practice the next day that he does indeed have a fracture and he would be out “weeks, not months”.

A tough break for a guy who works hard and was really settling into his role and playing some good hockey. Bednar said they’re hopeful he’ll be back before the playoffs. 

Tyson Jost

Just one final note on Tyson Jost. I’m genuinely bummed it didn’t work out in Colorado. There was maybe no one easier to root for that Jost. Worked his ass off every day, is a hockey junkie, and gave everything he had to this team and organization every single day. Getting to cover him (on and off) for the last five years has been a pleasure, Jost will have a long NHL career.