The Trade-And-Extend Move Is Becoming A Gamble

Stars forward Jason Robertson is having another terrific season at just the right time. He’s set to become an RFA this summer and should be handsomely rewarded on his next contract.

One wrinkle with his next contract is that it could come with a team other than Dallas, given that they already have so much big money committed to members of their core (just $16.4MM in cap space available next year, per PuckPedia). If Robertson is moved, it would likely be via trade to a team hoping to sign him to a long-term deal. But given that many of these types of transactions have failed in the past, should teams be doing it?

The trade-then-sign isn’t an official title for a series of moves in which a team trades for a player and then locks them up shortly after the trade, but that’s effectively what it is. A few recent examples include the Senators trading for Linus Ullmark and then signing him shortly after, or the Flames and Panthers linking up on the infamous Jonathan Huberdeau-for-Matthew Tkachuk trade that launched Florida on a potential dynasty while effectively slamming the door on Calgary’s contention window.

Therin lies the risk with these kinds of moves. Trading for a player and then signing them immediately to an extension leaves you open to the possibility that they aren’t a good fit, and you end up with a Huberdeau situation instead of a Tkachuk one.

The Flames and Senators are hardly the only teams to fall victim to this kind of thing. In fact, the Senators have dealt with it before with Bobby Ryan. Ottawa traded for Ryan in 2013, a move in response to Daniel Alfredsson leaving the franchise to sign with Detroit. The trade effectively boxed the Senators into signing Ryan to a long-term contract, which they did, resulting in an albatross contract that was eventually bought out.

Vancouver is learning a similar lesson with defenseman Marcus Pettersson, who was a top-pairing defenseman in Pittsburgh but was dealt to the Canucks last year, before the trade deadline, and has never been a fit. Vancouver was quick to ink Pettersson to a six-year deal last year, shortly after acquiring him, and, like Ullmark, Huberdeau and Ryan, he has not worked out as planned.

The list could go on and on. Timo Meier in New Jersey, Seth Jones in Chicago, Matt Murray in Ottawa, and Pierre-Luc Dubois in Los Angeles. All of these moves had a few things in common. The teams signed the players to extensions before the fit was ever stress-tested.

Take Huberdeau, who was acquired in late July 2022. Within two weeks, he signed an eight-year, $84MM extension to remain with the Flames. Pettersson had a similar trajectory in Vancouver, as he was acquired in early February 2025 and signed his six-year extension less than a week later. The same story with Murray and the Ottawa Senators, as he was acquired in early October 2020 and re-upped within two days, having never played a game in Canada’s capital city.

Again, the examples are endless, and the failures in these situations appear to share several common traits. In the three examples of Huberdeau, Pettersson, and Murray, they had essentially never played for the teams they were signing with, meaning no one knew whether they would work out with their new teams, making it a gamble for the acquiring team. But the trades themselves, and the players’ contractual status, essentially forced the team that gave up the assets in the trade to lock up the player or risk “losing the asset for nothing.”

It’s something that happens in every sport, where teams acquire pending UFAs. For whatever reason, some teams have felt compelled to extend the player before they even have a look at how the player will work out with their new team. And make no mistake, most of the teams that have extended the player right away probably regret their decision. There is no way Ottawa was happy with the Murray era, and Calgary has another five years of headaches with the Huberdeau deal.

Often, a player’s signing is a move to protect a GM’s short-term reputation rather than to focus on long-term projections. In fact, most of the time, the GM never lasts the length of the deal he is handing out, as was the case with Brad Treliving in Calgary and Pierre Dorion in Ottawa.

The thing about rushing to sign a player you really don’t know, beyond scouting their on-ice performance, is that once you ink the deal, there is no easy escape, or do-overs. You are locked into a player you don’t really know, and outside of asking mutual friends, acquaintances, or previous employers, you don’t have first-hand experience with the person in most cases. It would be like running a business and then hiring an employee you’ve seen on television but never spoken to.

But in hockey, as in all sports, market and ownership pressures, egos, and reputations can all play a role in transactions, contracts, and player management. As much as it probably stings for GMs to ink a bad contract with a player, they would probably all do it again if given another opportunity.

The truth is that trading for a player is always risky, while trading for a player and immediately extending them is often how NHL GMs try to save their jobs. Usually, it’s the move that leads them to the unemployment line.