Remember how I said that according to my formulas the East right now is a sellers market with 9 buyers and only 7 sellers?….Well the West is keeping pace, with currently 9 buyers and only 5 sellers. As of mid December the NHL is definitely a Seller's Market.
And the East and West sound pretty even right?
Well in actuality it has been my experience that the actual trades come from the teams who are on the extremes. In my system that equates to the teams with Buyer/Seller Rankings above 10 or below -10: Those ranked as Likely-Strong Buyers/Sellers…
In the East that would give us 8 Likely-Strong Buyers vs 5 Likely-Strong Sellers. In the West, 8 Likely-Strong Buyers vs only 3 Likely-Strong Sellers.
So the West is actually MORE of a sellers market right now…
Why? Well, really it is pretty simple and being driven by two factors…
#1 Expectations: As of now there at the least 11 teams who feel they are playoff teams, but you can argue that every team with the exception of Arizona considers itself a playoff team.
#2 Everyone is STILL within Striking Range. As opposed to the East where the difference from the last playoff team to the last place team is 12 points, in the West that number is only 7.
So that brings us to:
Ek’s Buyer /Seller Rankings for the Western Conference
Very Strong Buyers (over 40) None at this Time
Strong Buyers (20 >40) Chicago 38.3 Minnesota 34.8 San Jose 26.7 Anaheim 22 Edmonton: 21.5 St Louis 21.1
Likely Buyers (10 > 20) Nashville 14.8 Calgary 12.6
Possible Buyers (under 10)) Los Angeles: 8.5
******BUYER/SELLER LINE*****
Possible Sellers (0> -10) Dallas -1.8 Winnipeg -6.7
Likely Sellers (-10 > -20) Vancouver -14.25
Strong Sellers (-20 > -30) Arizona -22.7 Colorado -25.15
So the NHL Buyers are Outpacing Sellers 2:1. \\ Does this mean we aren't going to see trades?
Not at all. We are going to have a busy Trade Deadline. This is only one indicator. Don't forget we have seen a huge uptick in player for player deals. (Subban for Weber, Hall for Larsson) Buyer/Seller tends to play more into the rental world. Also, the upcoming Expansion Draft throws a giant monkey wrench into everything!
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— Michael Augello (@MikeInBuffalo) December 12, 2016