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Which team was the biggest loser on deadline day?

February 26, 2020, 11:10 AM ET [23 Comments]
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In this edition of the hotstove, we share our choices for the biggest trade deadline loser.

Todd Cordell

The Florida Panthers. They only made one move of note on deadline day and, in my opinion, it was not a good one.

Florida dealt Vincent Trocheck to Carolina in exchange for Erik Haula, Lucas Wallmark, and two prospects.

The quantity is there. I don’t think the quality is. Haula is a useful player. He is also a 28-year-old pending UFA and has cleared 35 points once in his career. He’s not going to be a difference maker. Wallmark is an NHLer but he has averaged 27 points per 82 games since entering the NHL. He’s a depth piece. Chase Priskie is already 23 and a Hurricanes team looking for defense at the time had no problem parting with him. Meanwhile, Eetu Luostarinen ranked 9th on Charlotte in scoring prior to being moved.

I don’t think that’s close to enough for Trocheck. I realize his 2017-18 campaign (75 points) is probably an outlier. He is still very productive, though. He put up 53 points in 2015-16, 54 in 2016-17, produced at a 50 point pace in 2018-19, and is on pace for ~54 this season. Those are really solid outputs.

At 26, he still has plenty of good years ahead of him. He’s also signed for 2.5 seasons at a very affordable $4.75 million cap hit. That’s not a lot to pay for a quality 2C.

On top of all else, the Panthers did *not* manage to improve their somewhat suspect defense. I thought it was important for them to do that considering both of their goaltenders are at a .900SV% or less.

Sean Maloughney

For me it's 100% the Florida Panthers as Dale Tallon continues to be one of, if not the worst general manager in the NHL. I don't think anyone in the league misevaluates their own talent as bad as Tallon has in the last decade.... and this is coming from someone who had to write about Peter Chiarelli.

Trading a 26 year old Trocheck, a strong 2nd line centre and 55+ point player on a great 4.725 million dollar deal for the next two seasons for....

A fourth liner in Haula who will be a free agent this summer and the 24 year old Wallmark who has some okay numbers but is still nothing spectacular. Neither of these guys can come in and do what Vincent Trocheck brought to the Panthers. From Reilly Smith to Jonathan Marchessault the Panthers are bad at keeping good players and continued to miss the mark with the Trocheck trade.

Runner up is the New York Islanders for massively overpaying for Pageau then promptly signing him to a contract they are going to want to buy out in less than three years.

Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com

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