B/R NHL Roundtable: GMs under pressure to do business at the 2023 close

B/R NHL Roundtable: GMs under pressure to do business at the 2023 close

0 out of 5

Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images

It’s officially trading season.

The New York Islanders’ blockbuster deal with Bo Horvat signaled the unofficial kick-off for the wildest period on the NHL calendar: the run-up to the NHL trade deadline, which is March 3 this year.

Each competing team’s general manager will be looking for the final piece of the puzzle to promote them to a Stanley Cup parade in June. A cup win means eternal praise from fans and peers alike, while an empty deadline could mean one step closer to the unemployment line.

With that in mind, the B/R NHL staff has called another roundtable to determine which GMs are in the hot seat to finalize a deal that could put the team on top.

Do you disagree with our team’s opinion? Share your thoughts in the app’s comments section!

Ron Hextall, Pittsburgh Penguins

1 out of 5

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When Ron Hextall was fired by the Philadelphia Flyers, he spoke of wanting a replacement who had “a tendency to act.”

In other words, they didn’t like his methodical, patient approach to moves and building a roster.

Pittsburgh is beginning to figure out what that process looks like. Hextall just isn’t very aggressive in trading play, but he’ll need it in the coming weeks because the penguins need some help.

When they decided to re-sign Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell for another run last season, they made it clear that this is not a team looking to rebuild. You still want to fight, and now you want to fight.

The top two lines are excellent and Tristan Jarry was very good in goal when he was healthy, but the Penguins’ biggest problem was their unproductive bottom six forward groupings. They’ve been outperformed and outperformed by a wide margin this season when neither Sidney Crosby nor Malkin are on the ice, which won’t get them very far in the playoffs.

Hextall doesn’t have much to trade within the farm system, but he does have a first-round choice in 2023. He seems reluctant to trade this choice, but it has more value to the penguins as a commodity in the short-term than it does in the long-term as a future choice. If they make the playoffs, that pick is between 17 and 32, which is typically only a 50-50 percent chance of landing an NHL starter and typically only a 15-20 percent chance of landing a top line -Player to land. If anyone can get them to give Crosby, Malkin and Letang a better chance of making another run this season, they have to do it.

— Adam Gretz

Ken Holland, Edmonton Oilers

2 out of 5

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TSN and The Athletic’s Pierre Lebrun continued have you back podcast in late January and pointed out that Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland likes to see “part of his legacy” in not trading his first-round pick every season and “replenishing” the organization.

This ethos from Holland is nonsense.

Connor McDavid, now 26, has won a total of three playoff series in his last seven seasons with Edmonton. For Leon Draisaitl it’s three playoff series in nine years. No one has outwardly called for a swap or indicated anything, but they won’t put up with mediocrity forever. Don’t be fooled by last season’s performance in the Western Conference Finals; The duo had to drag the rest of the team that far.

Mediocrity is where the Oilers sit once again. They are third in the Pacific Division and sixth in the Western Conference on points. As expected, the offensive performance is among the best in the league, but once again it comes from the team’s top players. Head coach Jay Woodcroft has virtually no help in the bottom six and especially on the wings.

But if the Oilers see an early exit from the playoffs, it will likely come from their inability to keep the puck out of their own net. They have the 10th worst goals compared to average when losing a man and it’s not just because of the goalkeepers.

They’re average defensively, and while Stuart Skinner has played admirably at the net, he won’t save the team in a seven-game streak against the Stars, Jets or Avalanche. Veterans Cody Ceci, Brett Kulak and Ryan Murray failed to add stability to the third defensive pairing.

There’s no youth movement Holland could see through that would make Albertans forgive him if he bursts the competitive window for arguably the league’s top two attacking players.

This is not the time for austerity. McDavid and Draisaitl need help now.

— Adam Herman

Kyle Davidson, Chicago Blackhawks

3 out of 5

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First of all, the Chicago Blackhawks will not win the Stanley Cup this season.

Unlike the GMs on this list from Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Toronto and Las Vegas, Kyle Davidson doesn’t seek deals that position his team for a deep playoff run and/or championship save.

But that doesn’t make his role any less important to the franchise this winter.

Though the Blackhawks are steeped in title tradition and have bars full of banners hung by old-school greats like Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita, as well as newer-school superstars Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, perhaps no team in the league needs more a top-to-bottom overhaul.

Not only has Chicago not won a full-fledged playoff series since winning its third trophy in six seasons in 2015, but it also entered Tuesday’s games bottom in the eight-team Central Division and finished last overall with Columbus in the league.

This is now known as the Connor Bedard Territory.

Whether the ping pong balls will drop well for the Blackhawks remains to be seen, but whether or not they secure the latest Canadian uber phenomenon, they’ll still need a few other bodies capable of shooting solo, to pass and score .

This is where Kane and Toews come in. Yet again.

Both three-time Cup winners are entering the final months of their eight-year, $84million deal, which they signed in the summer of 2014, and neither is likely to spend a third straight Spring – and fifth in six years – helping other teams watching them play For a trophy, they’re still skilled enough to chase them.

Although the flipping of one or both future Hall of Famers would cause an enthusiastic fanbase to shiver, it would also return a plethora of NHL-ready players and draft picks that would allow Davidson to accelerate a rebuild he committed to at the Acquired as a full-time GM early last year.

On the other hand, keeping them just for sentimentality and watching them go for nothing over the summer would be exactly the kind of action — or inaction — that would seal a failed tenure in the front office.

In other words, it’s easy:

Now everything has to go. Or it will be Davidson who goes later.

– Lyle Fitzsimmons

Kyle Dubas, Toronto Maple Leafs

4 out of 5

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Kyle Dubas took over as general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2018. They’ve made the playoffs every year since then, finished atop the Canadian Division in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, and set a franchise record last season with 115 points.

However, the Leafs didn’t even get out of the first round in each of those postseasons.

Dubas felt the heat of Leafs Nation after his club gambled away a 3-1 lead against the modest Montreal Canadiens in 2021, but team president Brendan Shanahan backed him. Shanahan also stuck to his GM after being eliminated in seven games against the Tampa Bay Lightning last year.

The Leafs are among the top three teams in the Eastern Conference this season. Still, the ghosts of past playoff failures hang over this franchise.

Another first-round elimination, regardless of opponent quality, could cost Dubas his job. That’s why he needs to get it right at this year’s trading close.

Dubas was active leading up to earlier deadlines. Since 2019, he has added Jake Muzzin, Jack Campbell, Kyle Clifford, Nick Foligno, Riley Nash, Ben Hutton, Ilya Lyubushkin, and Mark Giordano, among others.

However, none of them moved the needle for the leaves. Only Giordano and Muzzin remain of that group, with the latter likely sidelined for the season with a cervical spine injury.

With $1.9 million in projected space for trade deadlines, Dubas has limited room to expand his list. Still, he has shown creativity when negotiating previous deadline deals, such as using the San Jose Sharks as a third-party broker to acquire Foligno from the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Whatever Dubas has planned by this year’s deadline, he needs to hit the jackpot. Another first-round elimination could spell the end of his tenure at Toronto.

— Lyle Richardson

Kelly McCrimmon, Vegas Golden Knights

5 out of 5

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If you thought the Vegas Golden Knights had a lot of pressure to stay in last season’s playoff race, oh boy. It could be really interesting by the deadline this year.

For a good portion of the first half of the season, the Golden Knights went neck and neck with the Boston Bruins at the top of the NHL standings as one of the elite teams. After all, they had a healthy line-up for the first time in a while, with Jack Eichel and captain Mark Stone showing why they are among the best players in the league. Unfortunately, history repeats itself.

Vegas lost Eichel for a period with a lower body injury and Stone is out indefinitely after undergoing his second back surgery in as many years. This is not good. Since returning from injury on Jan. 5, Eichel had five points in 11 games prior to the All-Star break. He had 29 points in 27 games before getting injured, but he’s been without Stone for who knows how long.

To make matters even more awkward, the Knights have all been without defensemen Alex Pietrangelo, Shea Theodore, and Zach Whitecloud for extended periods this season. After all, goaltender Logan Thompson has more than made up for Robin Lehner’s season-long absence following off-season surgery.

The Golden Knights are expanding their use of long-term injured reserve to the point where they may be the NHL’s first team spend $100 million in a season when Stone lands on LTIR. Considering how awkward things got last season when they missed the playoffs, GM Kelly McCrimmon can’t afford to miss for the second year in a row.

— Joe Yerdon

Source: bleacherreport.com