Winners and losers from the 2024 NHL trade deadline

Now that the 2024 NHL trade deadline has passed, teams are — for the most part — locked into their respective rosters for the rest of the season.

The Vegas Golden Knights kept the deadline interesting all the way up until the final seconds (literally) as they pulled off a last-second blockbuster, and several other teams made multiple transactions as they shored up their roster for the stretch run.

Here are the winners and losers of the 2024 NHL trade deadline:

Winner: Vegas Golden Knights

The defending Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights is in fourth place in the Pacific Division and they occupy the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. So, how do they bolster their chances of another Cup run? They add Noah Hanifin, who was one of the top available defensemen on the trade market, and Tomas Hertl, a high-scoring top-line center.

Landing Hertl cost Vegas a lot (the team gave up top prospect David Edstrom and a 2025 first-round pick), but he’s the kind of game-changing forward that puts Vegas on level ground with the rest of the elite teams in the West. The 6-foot-3, 205-pound Hanifin bolsters what many believe to be the deepest defensive group in the NHL, and he shores up the left side of Vegas’ defense while bumping really good defensemen down a spot, ultimately strengthening all three defensive pairings. 

Winner: Colorado Avalanche

Colorado has been one of the busiest teams in the league over the last few days. The Avs added a second-line center in Casey Mittelstadt, a top-four defenseman in Sean Walker and a physical depth forward who can kill penalties in Yakov Trenin, plus they shipped off underperforming forward Ryan Johansen and his $4.5M salary, and it didn’t cost them their 2024 first-round pick.

Colorado was already the highest-scoring team in the NHL (3.7 goals per game), and it improved its offense. It was a middle-of-the-road team defensively (3.05 goals allowed per game), and it improved there as well. The Avalanche are just two points behind the Stars in the Central Division, and there’s no question they improved more than their division counterparts. 

Loser: New Jersey Devils

It was no secret the Devils were looking to upgrade their goaltending in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline. The team reportedly made unsuccessful runs at both Calgary’s Jacob Markstrom and Nashville’s Juuse Saros, but ended up settling for Montreal’s Jake Allen.

While Allen has a track record of dependability with plenty of starting experience that could come in handy in the playoffs, he’s not the caliber of netminder that can raise the Devils from the dead (they’re six points out of the final wild-card spot in the East with 19 regular-season games left) and salvage their disappointing season.

While New Jersey did get a second-round pick in 2025 plus a third-rounder in 2024 for forward Tyler Toffoli, the return wasn’t anything spectacular for a player of his caliber. Given Toffoli’s scoring prowess (he’s got 26 goals in 61 games this year and he scored 34 last year) plus the Winnipeg Jets’ desire to upgrade their offense to keep up with Central Division heavyweights Colorado and Dallas, who rank first and second, respectively, in the NHL in scoring, the return should have been a little better. 

Winner: Carolina Hurricanes

Sitting in second place in the Metropolitan division, the Hurricanes loaded up for an extended playoff run by adding scoring forwards Jake Guentzel and Evgeny Kuznetsov, and it only cost them Michael Bunting, three B-level prospects, conditional picks in the first and fifth rounds of the 2024 draft, and a 2025 third-rounder.

Guentzel is a point-per-game player this season (22 goals, 52 points in 50 games), and he’s scored 35 or more goals and 70 or more points in three of the last five seasons. Kuznetsov is a playmaking center with four 20-goal, 70-point seasons under his belt, and he’s just two seasons removed from a 24-goal, 78-point year.

Loser: Pittsburgh Penguins

Many are in agreement that the return for Guentzel, the No. 1 target on most trade boards, was underwhelming. Michael Bunting is a solid depth forward, but his production has tapered off since his 63-point season in 2021.

While fine players, the prospects Pittsburgh got back — Vasili Ponomaryov, Ville Koivunen and Cruz Lucius — were the No. 6, 7 and 9-ranked prospects in the Hurricanes farm system, according to The Athletic, and none were the A-level players the Penguins were asking for in return for Guentzel, one of the NHL’s top scoring wingers over the last five seasons. Given how long Pittsburgh dragged out the trade, the return was a letdown.

Loser: Arizona Coyotes

This one may just be nit-picking, but some of the returns the Coyotes got relative to what they gave up seemed a bit lopsided. Arizona got a 2024 sixth-round pick for forward Jason Zucker, a five-time 20-goal scorer who immediately bolstered the Nashville Predators bottom six, a 2027 fourth-round pick for defenseman Troy Stecher, a player who filled a big need for the Edmonton Oilers, and a 2027 fifth-round pick for defenseman Matt Dumba, who was one of the top available defensemen on the trade market.

Sure, the Coyotes aren’t going to make the playoffs this season, so selling off depth pieces was the right thing to do. But given all three players they dealt filled a big area of need for playoff teams, getting back two draft picks they can’t even use for another four years plus a sixth-rounder this year seems like a bit of a disappointment.