2026 NHL Trade Deadline winners and losers, including New York Rangers
The 2026 NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone, which means it’s time for history to determine how it all plays out.
We may not know for years who the true winners and losers of this year’s deadline are — but we can make some snap judgments in the meantime. There was a dearth of deals Friday, perhaps due to more teams still in the playoff hunt than not. Also, the biggest trade of the season took place in December when the Quinn Hughes-to-Minnesota blockbuster went down.
But for now, here are the winners and losers of the deadline based on the past week.
2026 NHL Trade Deadline Winners
Bill Guerin and Minnesota Wild
Between the Hughes trade, his roster assembly of the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team and the haul he brought in last week for the Wild, the 2025-26 season may be Guerin’s breakout as an impact executive.
Minnesota is a playoff lock but now has the possibility of passing the Dallas Stars for second place and home-ice advantage in the Central Division. Guerin acquired depth center Michael McCarron from the Nashville Predators, scoring wing Bobby Brink from the Philadelphia Flyers and playoff experience/grit in Nick Foligno from the Chicago Blackhawks. He also didn’t give in to the hefty asking price from the New York Rangers and passed on center Vincent Trocheck. Time will tell if that was a wise decision.
The Wild haven’t won a playoff series in more than a decade, and they still undoubtedly will have to go through the Colorado Avalanche — who are the odds-on favorites to win the Stanley Cup. But Minnesota has elite young talent in Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, and Hughes, and Guerin put his best foot forward to try and get the Wild over the hump in the Western Conference.
Colorado Avalanche
The Avalanche finally found the replacement for Nazem Kadri they have been searching for since the gritty center left in free agency to the Calgary Flames after winning the Cup in 2022. Only in a wild twist, that center was Kadri, who was acquired from Calgary for forward Victor Olofsson, the rights to Max Curran and two picks, including a 2028 first-rounder.
It’s a high price to pay for a 35-year-old with three more years on his contract, albeit one who has put up 0.67 points per game.
But the Avalanche have been the League’s best team all season, and this deal, coupled with the trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs for center Nicholas Roy, absolutely makes them loaded down the middle and gives them elite depth.
The Avalanche also benefitted by the fact that none of the other top contenders — the Carolina Hurricanes or Stars, for example — made a blockbuster to close the gap on Colorado.
New York Islanders
The Islanders’ playoff spot is suddenly in peril, since they lead the ninth-seeded Columbus Blue Jackets by just four points for third place in the Metropolitan Division. The Blue Jackets have two games in hand, so if they pass the Islanders, the Elmonters are in danger of missing the postseason, since there are a slew of teams with similar point totals in the wild-card mix in the Eastern Conference.
But the Rangers’ biggest rivals loaded up for a run in the wide-open Eastern Conference with their acquisition of Brayden Schenn from the St. Louis Blues. Schenn has 12 goals and 28 points this season — but more important, he’s about a 0.5 point-per-game player in the playoffs, including his 2019 Stanley Cup win with the Blues.
Sure, Isles GM Mathieu Darche parted with a lot — a first- and third-round pick in this year’s draft and goalie prospect Marcus Gidlof — but he also convinced Schenn to waive his no-move clause and will have the veteran for two years more after this season. In addition, he got the Blues to take forward Jonathan Drouin, a free-agent signing that didn’t work out.
After adding Schenn’s grit, leadership, and two-way skill set, they signed veteran center Jean-Gabriel Pageau to a three-year contract, eliminating a potential headache this coming offseason.
With added offensive punch, and superstar goalie Ilya Sorokin in the midst of a Vezina Trophy-worthy season, the Islanders appear extra dangerous this spring.
2026 NHL Trade Deadline Losers
Chris Drury
Sure, Chris Drury got a solid prospect in Liam Greentree from the Los Angeles Kings in the Artemi Panarin trade. Landing Jacob Battaglia for disappointing 2021 first-round pick Brennan Othmann isn’t so bad. Lower-level prospect Aidan Thompson, acquired in a minor-league swap with the Chicago Blackhawks, did impress in his debut with the Hartford Wolf Pack this past weekend.
But when Drury released the now-infamous Letter 2.0, it should have opened him and the Rangers for business beyond simply moving the expiring contracts of Panarin and defenseman Carson Soucy, and taking fliers on some young players like Battaglia and Thompson.
Instead, Drury offloaded just one NHL player this week — potential Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award favorite Sam Carrick — plus Othmann and Derrick Pouliot, in a deal that reminded Rangers fans that he was in the organization.
Time will tell if Drury made the right call by not dropping his asking price and keeping Trocheck, at least for now. If not for Trocheck’s 12-team no-move list, it might have been him going to Colorado for a prospect and two high picks (and maybe even more) instead of Kadri. But Drury included that clause when he signed Trocheck as a free agent in 2022, and the 32-year-old used it to his advantage ahead of the deadline.
But this retool just got a lot harder, since there are still veterans blocking spots that kids like could have filled the rest of this season. Plus, the Rangers didn’t acquire nearly enough of those NHL-ready prospects they said they wanted, and only added two third-round picks and a sixth-rounder in this year’s draft. However, their bloated draft capital — they have 11 picks this year — may come in handy by allowing Drury and the Rangers to swing more trades this offseason.
If nothing else, the optics stink here. But Drury can still reverse perception in the offseason. Yet with his track record, it won’t be easy.
Alex Ovechkin
This may be Alex Ovechkin‘s last year in the NHL, but even if it is not, the Capitals superstar called Friday “the saddest day of his career,” after Washington traded defenseman John Carlson to the Anaheim Ducks in the wee hours of Friday morning.
The Capitals got a first-round pick for Carlson, but they are only four points out of a playoff spot, and this white-flag waving from general manager Chris Patrick could put render irrelevant what may be Ovechkin’s final month in the NHL.
Buffalo Sabres
Give Buffalo credit for trying. The Sabres haven’t been to the since 2011, so with that dubious streak poised to end, GM Jarmo Kekäläinen went all in to try and boost their chances of going from out of the playoffs to the Stanley Cup Final in Year 1.
But the deal for defensemen Logan Stanley and Luke Schenn doesn’t exactly do that, and both players will be eligible to become free agents July 1. What’s worse, Buffalo may have also set itself back by dealing two picks and two players, including minor-league scoring wing and 2021 first-round pick Isak Rosen.
Stanley is huge and already surpassed a career high for points in a season this season (21), and getting Carrick from the Rangers adds grit on the ice as well as experience and leadership in the locker room. But the prices were high this year, and Kekäläinen’s willingness to pay could be long remembered if the Sabres are one-and-done in the postseason.
Speaking of optics: Though the Sabres are the hottest team in the NHL right now, it didn’t look great that defenseman Colton Parayko opted not to waive his no-trade clause to go to Buffalo and chose to remain with the Blues, who were sellers ahead of the deadline.
