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NHL Mailbag: Trade fever spreading across NHL

Trade fever is spreading quickly through the league.

Just about everyone is now looking at ways they can improve their teams or get maximum value out of the assets they will be able to sell off. It really seems like it’s always one trade (in this case, weirdly, maybe it was Jordan Weal) that kicks things off.

Let’s chew the fat:

Brodie asks: “How long is Chiarelli GM in Edmonton?”

It’s so weird to me that he’s being allowed to put up his first-round pick this year and maybe Jesse Puljujarvi to get a rental who MIGHT be able to get this team back into the playoffs. Like, why would this organization allow him to do that, right? The fact is that this is it for Chiarelli: Playoffs or pack up your office.

And if that’s the case, why is he allowed to sell off his potential successor’s assets? It’s a coin flip for me whether he makes it that far, or even if he’s allowed to keep his job if they claw their way in before getting absolutely smoked by Winnipeg, Nashville, or the top team in the Pacific.

I think he gets to May and gets fired, because either in or out, what’s the difference for this team’s long-term prospects with Chiarelli pulling the strings?

Peter Chiarelli could be a busy man ahead of the trade deadline. (Photo by Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)
Peter Chiarelli could be a busy man ahead of the trade deadline. (Photo by Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)

Sean asks: “For offsides challenges, should the NHL put a clock on possession in the zone and after three or five or 10 seconds you can’t challenge the initial offsides? If not, what would you do?”

Probably five or 10 seconds, yeah. If it’s a situation where you get into the zone, the other team can’t clear for 45 seconds, but then it turns out the linesman missed an offside, it’s dumb to put that much time back on the clock, full stop.

I mean, in theory you shouldn’t be able to make offside reviewable at all because a linesman really only has one job and if he can’t get it right, that’s on him. But that’s not how it works in this league for understandable reasons. It’s also a situation for me where if you’re spending seven minutes trying to figure out whether a guy’s skate blade was off the ice by a quarter-inch 14 seconds before the goal, you’re slicing things a little too thin.

Absolutely put a two-minute time limit on all goal reviews, and if the refs can’t get it right with the help of the war room in that time, then that’s close enough to a goal (or no goal) for me.

Matt asks: “What’s going on with Laine?”

He’s flat-out not having a good season, is what’s happening. Underlyings stink, he only has 33 points (albeit with 25 goals). Apart from that one insanely hot stretch where he had 13 goals in in six games, he’s got 12 in 40. And that includes a hat trick one night, so maybe we don’t even count that as much, right?

The good news is that he’s shooting the puck more than he did last season and he’s doing a lot of the good stuff, like getting to the net more every hour, creating more rebounds, etc.

One big change I’ve noticed is that he’s not playing with Nik Ehlers as much as he did last year, so maybe that’s a factor, but I don’t know if that accounts for the decline in his production that much; indeed, his on-ice shooting percentage is down significantly at 5-on-5, but basically the same on the power play, where he’s getting more time than ever.

A thing I’m wondering, then, is whether that “no one can figure it out because of the release” shot of his has been, well, figured out a bit. Probably worth a more in-depth look.

Adam asks: “Given that they seem to be the best team in the league by a decent margin, is ‘do nothing’ a prudent strategy for Tampa at the deadline?”

It depends on the prices and what they want to make available in trade, but yeah, I mean no one would blame these guys for sitting on their assets. Seeing a lot of predictions lately that this will be a buyer’s market — that is, more teams selling than shopping — and if that’s the case then yeah you definitely kick the tires where appropriate.

But if they don’t do anything because they don’t like the asking price (who would cut this team and a rookie GM a break on a deal right now?) then I’m not gonna be too mad at them.

Samuel asks via email: “If you’re Joe Sakic, would you do Kevin Hayes ($5m) + Zuccarello ($4.5m) for Cale Makar + Colin Wilson ($3.9m)?”

No.

Wilson-for-Zuccarello is a pure rental situation and I wouldn’t want to be the team that’s being counted on to re-sign a 31-year-old guy like Zuccarello, who hasn’t had a great season already. So then it’s Hayes, who I quite like, for Makar, who should be untouchable for that organization. It’s a no from me on that swap, even if you have assurances that you can sign Hayes long-term.

Plus, like, why are you mortgaging your future like that when you’re basically the Stars with a better first line? This team isn’t going on a run, so you might as well keep your future All-Star defenseman.

Will asks: “Would you fire Rob Blake now, at season’s end or give him more time?”

It’s an interesting question because the team’s problems aren’t Blake’s fault. Do you trust him to bring you through a rebuild, especially if he really won’t trade Quick, Doughty, or Kopitar to improve the team’s future?

I just don’t have the track record on him to know if he was brought in to be a manager of an existing group or to try to continually improve it without going fully in the tank. You can maybe bring in a GM to run your full rebuild if you want to go that route, but maybe Blake would be good at that too, I dunno.

Point is, I wouldn’t fire him just to fire him because of contracts Dean Lombardi gave out four years ago, y’know? On the other hand, that Willie Desjardins hire… yeesh.

Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports hockey columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

All stats via Corsica unless noted otherwise. Some questions in the mailbag are edited for clarity or to remove swear words, which are illegal to use.

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