Jake Sanderson Out Week-To-Week
Senators star defender Jake Sanderson is out week-to-week with the upper-body injury he sustained against the Kraken on Saturday, head coach Travis Green announced (via Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia).
Ottawa recalled Dennis Gilbert from AHL Belleville in a related move this morning, but he will not play tonight against the Canucks. Nikolas Matinpalo has been cleared to return from his undisclosed injury and will replace Sanderson in the lineup, sliding in as their #3 lefty alongside Nick Jensen, the team said.
Sanderson’s first significant injury since undergoing season-ending hand surgery in March 2022 couldn’t come at a worse time. After beating Seattle 7-4 over the weekend, the Sens have kept pace in the wild-card race and entered play Monday five points back of the Bruins for the second spot with a game in hand. They still have the Blue Jackets to leapfrog before putting themselves in duel mode with Boston, though, and considering Columbus has matched them with a 7-1-2 record in their last 10, they’ll need to keep all the pressure on.
While the Eastern Conference field has separated into the haves and have-nots post-deadline, there are still 10 teams truly in the mix for eight playoff spots. Ottawa currently sits 10th in that group, and while MoneyPuck gives them a 50.8% chance of making the playoffs, fifth and 10th place in the conference are so close that there are seven teams in the 50-85% range, with Ottawa bringing up the rear there as well.
All that means a lot still needs to go right for the Sens to get back to the playoffs for the second straight season. One saving grace is that they don’t have a particularly difficult schedule with around league-average opponents the rest of the way. They get their easiest remaining matchup out of the way tonight in what is an absolute must-win against the last-place Canucks. Meanwhile, three teams they’re chasing – Boston, Detroit, and Pittsburgh – have three of the five most difficult remaining schedules.
It will get even more difficult to make up ground without Sanderson. On the heels of a 10th-place Norris Trophy finish last season, he’s upped his points per game from 0.71 to 0.77 while posting a career-best +9 rating, averaging 24:49 of ice time per game, and posting spectacular 5-on-5 possession numbers. Ottawa is controlling 56% of shot attempts, 57.1% of scoring chances, and 56.8% of expected goals with Sanderson on the ice.
Green must now shuffle the deck regarding his defense pairings. He has the luxury of another top-pair caliber lefty, Thomas Chabot, sitting behind Sanderson on the depth chart. He’ll go back to being the Sens’ #1 in terms of ice time, moving up to slot in alongside top shutdown righty Artem Zub. Tyler Kleven and Jordan Spence, who have been so effective as Ottawa’s third pairing, will receive second-pairing deployment tonight while Jensen, who’d served as Chabot’s partner at even strength for much of the year, will see reduced minutes alongside Matinpalo.
Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.
Avalanche’s Gabriel Landeskog Out Week-To-Week
The Colorado Avalanche will be without a second-line winger for the short future. Captain Gabriel Landeskog has been designated as out week-to-week with a lower-body injury after taking a shot from Cale Makar to the groin per Corey Masisak of The Denver Post. Landeskog had a puck-sized dent in his athletic cup after the game, adds Masisak.
Landeskog has already missed 14 games to various injuries this season. Luckily, none of them have been connected to the knee injuries that held Landeskog out of three regular seasons, from 2022 to 2025. He made a brief return for the playoffs in 2022 and 2025 – combining for 26 points in 25 games. That momentum set Landeskog up for a major, and important, return this season. Through some bouts with injury, he has found a way to match the bill, netting 29 points in 47 games and returning to his clear-cut role as Colorado’s second-line left-wing.
Landeskog’s playmaking has helped spark veteran center Brock Nelson in his first full season with the club. Nelson has a tremendous 30 goals and 53 points in 61 games, helped along by a 21.1 shooting percentage. When he’s not playing off of Nelson, Landeskog has been deployed on Colorado’s top line, next to high-tempo scorers Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas. He has matched that duo’s pace and outscored opponents 15-to-three in his top-line minutes.
It is that layer of versatile scoring that Colorado will now have to replace. They’ll, luckily, find the perfect source of offense in Trade Deadline pickup Nazem Kadri. Kadri reached his career-high in scoring – 87 points – in Colorado’s Cup-winning 2021-22 season. He has spent the last four years in a clear #1 role on a middling Calgary Flames offense. The jolt of rejoining a red-hot Avalanche club could be enough to spark Kadri’s scoring once again. He will assume Landeskog’s role on the second-line wing, at least until the Avalanche’s captain is back to full health.
Colorado sits comfortably on top of the Western Conference, with seven more points and a game in hand over the second-place Dallas Stars. Even better, they have a fairly light schedule through the next few weeks, with multiple matchups against the Winnipeg Jets, Pittsburgh Penguins, and St. Louis Blues. Those games are intercut with tough tests against the Edmonton Oilers and Dallas Stars but Colorado should have plenty of runway to find a spark headed into those games. They will lean on Kadri to adjust quick and keep the offense firing, while envisioning what their lineup could look like at full health, when Landeskog and Artturi Lehkonen are in their proper spots.
Roope Hintz To Miss Multiple Weeks
Last night, the Stars got a big boost up front when Roope Hintz returned to the lineup from an illness that had kept him out since the end of the Olympic break. Unfortunately for them, that will be his last game for a little while.
Hintz sustained a lower-body injury in the second period of their game against Colorado and ultimately had to be helped off the ice. Speaking with reporters today including D Magazine’s Robert Tiffin (Twitter link), Hintz is set to miss multiple weeks due to the injury. As he needs to be evaluated by another doctor, no firm timeline is available yet but the team is hopeful that Hintz will be able to return by the start of the playoffs next month.
Hintz has been productive as always this season, putting up 15 goals and 29 assists in 53 games while averaging over 17 minutes per night. The 29-year-old has been their number one center throughout the year while seeing time on both special teams units. On top of that, Hintz is their top full-time performer at the faceoff dot, winning over 59% of his draws. Suffice it to say, his loss will be significant, especially with the Stars in a tight battle for second place in the Central Division to try to secure home-ice advantage in the first round.
With 12 other healthy forwards on the roster, the Stars aren’t yet eligible for an emergency recall, one that wouldn’t count against their post-deadline regular recall limit of five. However, given that Hintz is going to be out for a while, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Dallas utilize one of those five recalls from AHL Texas to ensure that they have at least one extra healthy forward available over the coming weeks.
Troy Murray Passes Away
Former NHL forward and longtime Blackhawks broadcaster Troy Murray passed away on Saturday at age 63, the team announced. Murray had battled cancer since first publicly sharing his diagnosis in 2021, still serving as the team’s radio color analyst for most of that time up until this season.
Murray had two separate stints in Chicago as a player, totaling nearly 700 games over 12 seasons. The first started when they drafted him in the third round in 1980, preceding a highly successful two-year stint at the University of North Dakota – including captaining Canada to a gold medal at the 1982 World Juniors – before turning pro in 1982 and immediately becoming a fixture in the Hawks’ lineup. He spent the remainder of the decade as one of the league’s top defensive centers, winning the Selke Trophy in 1985-86 while routinely putting up 50-plus points. He had five consecutive 20-goal seasons from 1984-89.
The second half of Murray’s career was as more of a journeyman, but a highly valuable one. He was traded to the Jets in the 1991 offseason for rugged defender Bryan Marchment and was immediately named Winnipeg’s captain. A year and a half later, they shipped him back to the Hawks at the 1993 deadline for a hopefully long playoff run after they reached the Cup Final the year before, but they were swept out in the first round in a significant upset by the Blues. Murray was traded twice in each of the next two seasons – first to the Senators in 1994 and then to the Penguins in 1995 – before signing on with the first-year Avalanche for 1995-96 after their relocation from Quebec. That was the last NHL season of his 15-year career, but he ended it with a Stanley Cup win, suiting up eight times in the Avs’ march to their first Cup.
Murray played one more pro season, captaining the Chicago Wolves (then of the now-defunct IHL) in 1996-97, before officially retiring. He immediately began his second act as a broadcaster and called Hawks games on WGN Radio for over two decades. While doing so, he was the president of the Blackhawks’ alumni association.
Blackhawks chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz’s statement was as follows:
The Chicago Blackhawks are deeply heartbroken today as we mourn the loss of Troy Murray, our beloved “Muzz,” and our love and support go out to his family.
Troy was the epitome of a Blackhawk, so far beyond his incredible playing career with a presence felt in every corner of our organization over the last 45 years. He was admired by his teammates and our players, and was so proud to connect generations of Blackhawks through his work with the Blackhawks Alumni Association. He jumped at every call to support our local community with our Foundation. He never missed a chance to say ‘hello’ in our press box and always knew the perfect time for a joke just when someone around the office needed it most. And he absolutely loved bringing Blackhawks hockey to you, our fans, night after night with a dedication to his craft that never wavered to the very end.
During his long and hard battle with cancer, it was often said that Troy didn’t have any ‘give up’ in him. While our front office simply won’t be the same without him, we will carry that spirit forward every day in his honor. We’ll miss you, Muzz.
Murray had 230 goals, 354 assists, and 584 points with a +53 rating in 915 career NHL games, including 488 points in 688 games as a Hawk. He’s 23rd in franchise history in appearances by a skater, 18th in assists, and 19th in points. PHR joins others around the game in sending condolences to his family, friends, loved ones, coworkers, and former teammates.
Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin Suspended Five Games For Slashing
The Pittsburgh Penguins will be without a cornerstone of the lineup for the short-term. Forward Evgeni Malkin has been suspended for five games by the NHL Department of Player Safety for slashing Buffalo Sabres’ defenseman Rasmus Dahlin in the face. He will be eligible to return on March 16th, when the Penguins face the Colorado Avalanche.
Malkin has been suspended twice in his career. His first was a one-game suspension for slashing opponents in the head during a Penguins versus Flyers matchup on February 11th, 2019. The second was a four-game suspension handed out on April 11, 2022 for cross-checking an opponent in the face. With Malkin’s track record in mind, he will now land the longest suspension of his career, and forfeit $158,854.15 in salary, while Buffalo appreciates the silver lining that Dahlin wasn’t seriously injured on the play.
Malkin is an important piece of the offense when he’s in the lineup. He has averaged 17:29 in ice time this season – a career-low – but still sees upwards of 20 minutes a night when the Penguins lean into their veteran leaders. Malkin has scored 13 goals and 47 points in 46 games this season, making him one of only two Penguins still scoring above a point-per-game pace alongside Sidney Crosby. Pittsburgh will need to find a way to replace that offense now that Malkin will miss time.
Pittsburgh has recalled winger Ville Koivunen from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to try and bridge that gap. Koivunen has scored 33 points in 28 AHL games this season but only has five points in 27 NHL games to go with it. He is still searching for a spark and could find one in a top-nine role with Malkin out. Pittsburgh is also carrying Kevin Hayes and newcomer Elmer Soderblom as extra forwards after the Trade Deadline. Hayes has scored five points in 25 games this season, while Soderblom had three points in 39 games with Detroit.
Avalanche Acquire Nazem Kadri
An hour after the deadline, one of the top names finally comes off the board. The Flames have agreed to send Nazem Kadri and their 2027 fourth-round pick back to Colorado for a reunion with the Avalanche, with whom he won the Stanley Cup in 2022, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. The Avs’ 2028 first-round pick, a 2027 second-round pick, winger Victor Olofsson, and the signing rights to forward prospect Max Curran are going to Calgary. Both draft picks have conditions attached. Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet adds that the Flames are retaining 20% of his salary to bring his cap hit down from $7MM to $5.6MM for the Avs. The trade is now official.
The idea of the Avalanche bringing Kadri back into the fold first surfaced last week in a report from David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. Kadri, armed with a 13-team no-trade list, told TSN today that Colorado was “the team at the very top of my list” and was “for the most part” only interested in returning to Denver if he didn’t stay with the Flames (via Aarif Deen of Colorado Hockey Now).
Momentum toward a deal seemed to cease when Colorado traded a first-round and a fifth-round pick to the Maple Leafs yesterday for Nicolas Roy. Not only did Roy swallow up $3MM in cap space, but they traded away their top 2027 draft pick that most assumed would have to be included in any potential deal for Kadri. They’d traded away their 2026 selection at last year’s deadline for Brock Nelson. They now have no first-round choice until 2029 and haven’t drafted in the first round since taking Calum Ritchie (also traded for Nelson) 27th overall and Mikhail Gulyayev 31st overall in 2023.
The Avalanche never wanted to lose Kadri after his career year in 2021-22 fueled them to a Stanley Cup. The post-COVID flat cap environment simply made matching Kadri’s open market value impossible, though, and at age 31, he was never going to have a better opportunity to cash in on a long-term deal. Colorado had fits trying to replace him as their #2 center behind Nathan MacKinnon, rotating through lower-cost or younger names like Alex Newhook, Ryan Johansen, and Casey Mittelstadt until finally addressing the hole in a meaningful way by splurging for Brock Nelson from the Islanders at last year’s deadline.
Nelson has flourished this season, racking up 30 goals and 52 points in 60 games while playing over 19 minutes per night. Nelson could shift to the wing to make room for Kadri down the middle in the top six – he did spend some time on John Tavares‘ flank early in his career in New York. In any event, the Avs have an excess of options down the middle with Roy, Ross Colton, Jack Drury, and Parker Kelly all able to comfortably hold things down on the third or fourth lines. If Colorado really wants to spread the wealth, it could slot in Kadri on the third line down the middle behind Nelson and look to get him extra ice time on the top power play unit to maximize his value.
Kadri, 35, owns a 12-29–41 scoring line in 61 games this year for the Flames that’s relatively uninspiring given his recent track record. He didn’t make an overwhelming first impression in Calgary with 56 points in 2022-23, but he followed that up with a 75-point year in 2023-24 and then a career-high 35 goals last season.
Kadri’s age and term remaining will be something of a concern, seeing as he’s now on the Avs’ books through 2028-29. It’s important to consider that Kadri didn’t miss a single game due to injury over his three-plus years in Calgary and last landed out of the lineup when he fractured his right thumb in the 2022 Final with the Avs. Even then, he hasn’t missed double-digit games in a season due to injury since before the pandemic.
Whatever concerns the Avs may have about Kadri’s production this year certainly weren’t enough to stop them from reacquiring him, plus an ugly 6.9% shooting clip should turn around in short order and help him get hot for Colorado down the stretch. A two-time All-Star, he’s played the least for the Avs out of his three NHL stops but reached the playoffs each time.
In contrast, no team has more premier draft picks in the next few years than the Flames. They already had an impressive stable before the deal, but now own a pair of first-round picks each in 2026, 2027, and 2028 and have eight second-rounders over the next three years as well.
They’ll take a bit of money back in the deal in the form of Olofsson, a pending UFA at a cap hit of $1.575MM. A strong finish to the year could result in an extension if he’s open to staying in Calgary; they’ll need to retain a few veteran bodies to fill out their forward group next season. He ended up being a shrewd depth pickup for the Avs last summer, scoring 11 goals and 25 points in 60 games, but became a redundant luxury they couldn’t afford after adding Kadri and Roy into the mix.
Curran won’t make a huge splash in Calgary’s already excessive prospect pool but is a nice get nonetheless. The 6’3″ center is still 19 years old and was a fifth-round pick by Colorado in 2024. Ranked as their #7 prospect entering the season by Steven Ellis of Daily Faceoff, he’s produced over a point per game over his last two seasons in the WHL and has committed to UMass for the fall before potentially turning pro in 2027-28.
Flames general manager Craig Conroy told reporters that the condition on the 2028 first is tied to the condition attached to the 2027 first they sent to Toronto in the Roy deal. That pick was top-10 protected, so in the unlikely event it falls in that range and defers to 2028, the Flames would then receive Colorado’s 2029 first unprotected. The 2027 pick they receive is the better of the Avs’ or Wild’s second-rounder (via Pat Steinberg of Sportsnet 960).
Image courtesy of Geoff Burke-Imagn Images.
Red Wings Acquire Justin Faulk From Blues
According to TSN’s Bruce Garrioch, the Detroit Red Wings are considered the frontrunners for defenseman Justin Faulk if the Blues end up moving him before the deadline. According to Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic, there is confidence that the two teams were able to place a trade call before the deadline.
TSN’s Darren Dreger shares that a first- and third-round pick are headed to St. Louis. Additionally, Dreger added that Justin Holl is also going to the Blues. Both teams have confirmed the trade, with the Red Wings announcing that prospect Dmitri Buchelnikov is also included in the trade. The first-round pick will be Detroit’s first this season and carries no protection per Max Bultman of The Athletic, whereas the third-round selection will be the one they acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier today for Elmer Söderblom.
Detroit was known to be looking for a right-handed top-four defenseman, and there were few options better than Faulk available. Despite being a competitive team this season, the Red Wings had little else on the blue line behind Simon Edvinsson and Moritz Seider.
Not only will Faulk help stabilize Detroit’s defensive corps this season, but he’ll be around next year, too. Thanks to his seven-year, $45.5MM contract extension with the Blues, Faulk is signed through next season at a relatively affordable $6.5MM cap hit. Additionally, he’ll only be owed $4.5MM in actual salary. He does have a 15-team no-trade clause in his contract, but there’s no word if he had to waive it to move to HockeyTown.
At this stage of his career, Faulk has become a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. He topped out with a 50-point performance with the Blues in the 2022-23 season, but hasn’t gotten close to those totals since.
Still, he has remained a complete player. Over the last three years, Faulk has averaged six goals and 31 points in 66 games, with over 22 minutes of ice time per game. Furthermore, he consistently blocks over 100 shots a season, which will benefit the trio of Edvinsson, Seider, and Ben Chiarot, each of whom has blocked over 100 shots this season.
Unfortunately, although he can offer help on the Red Wings’ power play and penalty kill, Faulk won’t do much to diminish Detroit’s goal-scoring woes at even strength. Of his 94 points throughout the last three seasons, 28 of those have come with a man advantage.
Meanwhile, the Blues will come out of today’s deadline with a pair of first-round picks in exchange for a few aging veterans. They were already known to be one of the few sellers entering deadline season, and have set themselves up nicely for Alexander Steen to take over as the next General Manager.
Holl will only serve as a warm body for the rest of the regular season. He will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season after watching his three-year, $10.2MM ($3.4MM AAV) contract expire.
It was a foregone conclusion that Holl wouldn’t be a part of the Red Wings’ plans this season, but there was little hope the team would be able to clear his salary off the books. After clearing waivers earlier this year, Holl, 34, has spent the entire season with the Grand Rapids Griffins, scoring two goals and 14 points in 41 games with a +19 rating.
Additionally, the Blues have also acquired a very intriguing prospect in Buchelnikov. The 22-year-old was drafted in the second round of the 2022 NHL Draft by the Red Wings and has been in the KHL ever since.
He’s made waves in the KHL over the past three years. Playing on three different teams, Buchelnikov has scored 41 goals and 106 points in 159 games. There will be a notable jump once he transitions to professional life in North America, but that’s extremely productive for a younger player in the top professional league on the other hemisphere.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Curry-Imagn Images.
Islanders Sign Jean-Gabriel Pageau To Three-Year Extension
The New York Islanders have continued their busy day. According to a team announcement, the Islanders have signed center Jean-Gabriel Pageau to a three-year extension. Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News reported that Pageau will earn a $4.85MM salary on the extension. PuckPedia later added that he’ll have a full no-trade clause in the first two years of his deal, which will convert to a 16-team no-trade clause in the final year.
At the beginning of the season, few would have expected Pageau to re-up in Long Island. Playing out the last season of a six-year, $30MM contract, Pageau was believed to be an early trade candidate considering that the Islanders were largely viewed as a rebuilding club.
Instead, the team caught fire under a new front office regime and the emergence of standout defenseman Matthew Schaefer. Poised for a postseason spot, New York will come out of deadline day with Ondřej Palát, Brayden Schenn, and a new contract for Pageau.
Factoring in the acquisition of Schenn, many believed he would become the heir-apparent to Pageau down the middle of the ice for the Islanders. Now, the team will have formidable center depth for the next three years, and that’s without including youngster Calum Ritchie.
Although he didn’t become the second-line center the Islanders were hoping he would become, Pageau has remained extremely consistent. Over the last five years, Pageau has scored 70 goals and 183 points in 363 games, typically netting between 35 and 40 points. Additionally, he’s one of the best faceoff takers in the NHL, averaging a 57.2% success rate in the dot over that stretch.
The only drawback from the Islanders’ perspective is that this extension will take Pageau through his age-36 season. There’s a good chance that Pageau’s offensive capabilities will have dropped off by then, and a $4.85MM cap hit is a chunky price for a center that may be isolated to a fourth-line role by then.
Regardless, it’s clear that New York was intent on rewarding their players at the deadline. There’s a strong rejuvenation happening in the organization right now, and it’s clear the front office wants to keep the core together for the next few seasons.
Photo courtesy of Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images.
Seattle Kraken To Acquire Bobby McMann
The Toronto Maple Leafs have traded Bobby McMann to the Seattle Kraken, reports Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. The return heading to Toronto is a second-round pick in 2027 and a fourth-rounder in the upcoming 2026 draft, according to Frank Seravalli of Victory+.
The move ends McMann’s nearly six-year tenure with the Maple Leafs, a tenure in which he emerged a real developmental success story for the organization. He signed with the team as an undrafted player out of Colgate University, began in the ECHL, and worked his way up the professional ladder to the NHL, where he became a 20-goal scorer.
With his contract set to expire, McMann has been widely reported to be seeking a significant pay raise from his current $1.35MM cap hit. The recent signing of a comparable player, San Jose Sharks winger Kiefer Sherwood, to a five-year, $5.75MM AAV contract may very well have pushed the price tag on a McMann extension past where the Maple Leafs were comfortable going.
With Toronto likely to miss the playoffs for just the second time since drafting Auston Matthews, collecting some assets for McMann became an important goal for the team’s deadline work.
Toronto may have been hoping to receive a first-rounder for McMann, who has 19 goals and 32 points this season, rather than a second-rounder. McMann is widely considered a more valuable player than Minnesota Wild center Michael McCarron, who net the Nashville Predators a second-round pick earlier this week. But it seems as though no team was willing to part with a first-rounder for McMann, and with the deadline looming, the Maple Leafs seem to have decided that a package for McMann that is lighter than they may have hoped is better than retaining him beyond today.
More to come…
Flyers To Retain Rasmus Ristolainen
The Flyers will not be moving right-shot defender Rasmus Ristolainen in the closing minutes before the trade deadline, Anthony Di Marco of Daily Faceoff reports.
Philadelphia had received extensive interest in the 31-year-old, who still has another year left on his deal at a $5.1MM cap hit. That year left allowed Philly to be comfortable setting a relatively high price and sticking to it, opting to hold onto him and try to move him over the summer or as a rental next year (if at all) rather than budge from what they felt he was worth.
The long list of names calling on the Finn included the Sabres, Canadiens, Bruins, Oilers, Stars, and others. Edmonton, Buffalo, and Dallas in particular pivoted to other options in the past few days. Multiple reports indicated Philly was looking for the same return the Bruins received from the Maple Leafs for Brandon Carlo at last year’s deadline. That package included a first-round pick, a fourth-round pick, and an A/B-tier prospect in Fraser Minten.
As such, the Flyers are done after making two trades earlier today – the first sending Bobby Brink to Minnesota for David Jiricek, the second sending Nicolas Deslauriers to the Hurricanes for a seventh-rounder. They also claimed Luke Glendening off waivers from the Devils to give themselves some center help.