Lindy Ruff and Kevyn Adamas of the Buffalo Sabres attend the 2024 NHL Draft at Sphere (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
With the NHL Holiday Roster Freeze beginning on December 19th, NHL executives are wondering what, if anything, New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury and Buffalo Sabres GM Kevyn Adams will do to save their sputtering teams.
“I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes, that’s for bleeping sure,” an NHL executive source opined to RG on Thursday morning prior to the Rangers trading forward Kaapo Kakko to the Seattle Kraken in exchange for defenseman Will Borgen, a 2025 third-round pick, and a 2025 sixth-round pick on Wednesday night.
“Obviously, we’re all competitors, but we’re also a fraternity, and a solid portion of us are probably former teammates or colleagues,” said an NHL executive on the state of both New York franchises.
“So, I don’t wish what those two guys [Drury and Adams] are going through.”
But now, as the Rangers have re-acquire from draft capital in the Trouba and Kakko trades, and the Sabers continue to fall down the NHL standings, other general managers are waiting for either club to snap.
“That said, we probably all seem like a swarm of sharks with blood in the water to Chris and Kevyn,” said a rival NHL executive on the subject. “We’re all scouting them and waiting to see what happens here before the Holiday deadline and into the Trade Deadline.”
Setting The Ground Work
If Drury didn’t find a dance partner in Seattle before the aforementioned deadline, he would had to wait until the NHL Roster Freeze is lifted at 12:01 a.m. ET on Dec. 28.
Later in the day on Wednesday but before the Rangers-Kraken trade, another NHL executive told RG that he believed there could be a flurry of action after the NHL roster freeze as the calendar year turns to 2025.
“I think the table is being set for some moves as we go into the New Year, I really do,” the well-placed source told RG. “ It’s not just teams talking to the Rangers or Sabres. If you look around the NHL right now, and the standings have never been tighter; the parity is so strong.”
The disappointment from contending teams and the parity in the middle of the conference tables has created some volatility in the trade market that we haven’t seen in many years. There’s been a notable uptick in trade chatter, and also in the number of deals completed between the start of the season at the end of the calendar year.
According to a well-placed NHL executive, this isn’t a coincidence.
Neither of these two NHL executive sources would confirm other players in the NHL trade sphere at the moment other than the Rangers and Sabres. But as the first source pointed out, there’s a bigger crop of talent available at this point than many probably expected.
“If you told me in September, I’d be hearing about some of the players I’m hearing about at Christmas or New Year’s, I’d say no way,” the source said. “There are just more teams that, for whatever reason, aren’t where they or a lot of us expected them to be, and that’s created a stronger market, I think - at least in terms of chatter so far.”
With the 4-Nations also taking place in February, expect talks to heat up after the Trade Freeze is lifted at the end of the year.
Marco D'Amico is a beat reporter covering the Montreal Canadiens and the NHL Draft, while also being a recurring guest on TSN690 and BPM Sports. His work primarily on NHL CBA breakdowns and prospect analysis, all while covering the Montreal Canadiens on a day-to-day basis.
