Senators, Golden Knights among losers after NHL trade deadline

The Senators continued to mismanage assets while the Golden Knights failed to dig themselves out of their hole at the trade deadline.

Video Transcript

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Let's move on to the losers. And we've got to go with Nick Paul's former team, the Ottawa Senators. It's been a comedy of errors for the Pierres this season. I've said it many times. We've got to get cameras on these guys.

Even if what's happened has been sort of trivial, we're talking about mistakes made around the ninth-, 10th-best forwards on the teams. Like, it's not a big deal. But they've shown nothing this season but questionable asset management.

The biggest laugher of the day was Travis Hamonic for a third-round pick, when earlier in the season he was on waivers. You could have had him for free. Could have had him all year for free, and next year for free.

And instead, you invested a third-round pick into a player whose performance is waning, but also has very-- like, lots of noise about-- questions about his-- or lots of questions about his conduct in the room, or how he's received by his teammates. So not a good look on the Senators. And he's going to be around next year when you're trying to add the new guys into the lineup who are impressionable.

Like, it just doesn't make that much sense to me. Or any sense at all, really. And then they went out and they got really excited. Right?

We saw the Pierres were really excited at the start of the season. They think that the rebuild is over. They're ready to contend.

They go out and get Zach Sanford in a trade. And then because it didn't work out, he's a pending UFA, they trade him for a fifth. So he was acquired for less, and now they trade him for a fifth-round pick.

Like, it's just another example of value-cratering for players in Ottawa. Like, you come to Ottawa, and you're worth-- you're like a car coming off the-- out of the showroom. Immediately you're worth less if you end up in Ottawa.

It was a short-sighted move in the first place. They weren't ready. And now forever it's on record as a net negative one. It just didn't make sense. And unfortunately, the Hamonic acquisition makes less sense.

So the Canucks, also losers, I think. I mean, it's easy to make the comparisons between Kent Hughes and Patrik Allvin. But one of the rookie general managers certainly had a better day. And that was Kent Hughes.

It is hard not to conclude that Vancouver overplayed its hand with Tyler Motte. This was a guy who was generating a lot of interest in the trade market, and wound up going to the New York Rangers for a fourth-round draft pick. Able to take advantage of Ottawa in trading Hamonic there soothes the pain a little bit.

But this team-- you know, It's hard to argue that they made-- that they took positive steps today. Like, Luke Schenn still being on the roster after himself generating some buzz in the market-- he's going to be around next year. and you could use him next year. But wouldn't it have been better to get an asset and start flipping this roster over?

J.T. Miller? I mean, he's lost some value on the trade market, because now he's only available for one postseason run if you trade him this summer or sometime this next-- sometime next year. You had the chance to give a team two postseasons of J.T. Miller, but you wanted to keep him around.

And that's fine, I guess. Maybe you can extend him, and maybe that'll work out. But it seems like this-- they've got to start over a little bit.

And J.T. Miller was one guy who made all the sense in the world to bring back something real in return. And they didn't do it. Same with Conor Garland.

Like, there's more run on his contract. But if you wanted to get out from underneath it, I think they probably had the opportunity to, and they didn't. This team needs to turn over the roster.

And Hamonic and Motte for-- you know, decent for Hamonic. Not so much for Motte. That barely serves as a start. It's barely a starting point. A couple extra picks in the draft this year.

Another loser is the Carolina Hurricanes. I feel like they were waiting for something to fall in their laps. And how Max Domi performs in a Carolina sweater will determine if that was the right strategy.

They're really-- like, Max Domi is a big name. But he's got a bigger name than he has in terms of his impact. Right? Bigger name than he is an impact player.

They're the one team, if you don't consider him a splash, that didn't make a splash. Right? Like, he projects on this team to be a fourth-liner. Maybe, pairing with Jesperi Kotkaniemi, they could serve as some sort of, like, fourth-line mismatch for the Hurricanes, who might have a better and more energetic fourth line than most other teams who bring energy, and not necessarily scoring punch.

But, you know, this isn't a player who really moves-- or moves the needle for this team. And they're fading a bit in the standings. And they didn't really react. And maybe that's a good thing. But it could also be that they're slipping behind teams like Florida and Tampa Bay, who went out there and got better.

It is interesting that Carolina gave a max extension, or a max term extension, to Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Because, you know, what's more likely to be true, when suggesting that Domi could have a big impact, is that the cost on Kotkaniemi to Offer Sheet him last year is what forced Don Waddell to kind of be conservative here while everybody else was out there improving. So they doubled-down on the Kotkaniemi thing.

I'm not saying that's optics. They got him for less than $5 million. It may turn out beautifully, because this is still a young player.

But, you know, they're a great team this year. And there are other great teams, and other great teams that were far more purposeful here in their trade deadline strategy. We'll see how that all works out for Carolina.

The last loser is the Vegas Golden Knights. Officially now, I think, this team has bit off more than it can chew. It looked like they failed to move Evgenii Dadonov, who was the single most questionable addition of the entire offseason last offseason, and a perfect illustration of Vegas' hands are completely tied.

Like, they can't do anything, because they can't even move this player who they don't want anymore, and is kind of tying up their cap. They did eventually move him after the buzzer, it seems, to Anaheim. And because of that reason, he's not going to be available for any postseason run for Anaheim.

But they're not going to the postseason, so it's OK. But it doesn't, moving Dadonov, make it any less likely that they miss the postseason, them being Vegas. They were-- the only thing they could do at this trade deadline, because of everything else they've done to try and get better so quickly, and so desperately, was trying to just offload a mistake that they made earlier. And they had to pay to do it. So not a great look for the Vegas Golden Knights.