The 2026 NHL Trade Deadline shapes up as one of the most complicated in recent memory, for a litany of reasons.<\/p>\n
For one: the Olympic break and corresponding roster freeze shorten the trading window by 18 days, with no deals allowed between 3:00 p.m ET Feb. 4 and 11:59 ET Feb. 22. Secondly: with double salary retention outlawed on trades as one of the new collective bargaining agreement rules fast-tracked to this season, star players with chunky cap hits will be more difficult to move. Thirdly: with no more playoff LTIR loophole and teams required to be salary-cap compliant by Game 1 of the postseason, GMs must be more cautious adding money in their pursuits of upgrades.<\/p>\n
And lastly: the parity. As of press time, 29 of 32 teams are in playoff spots or within six points of playoff spots. For perspective: at this same juncture of the season a year ago it was 25 of 32, meaning seven teams were essentially out of the hunt.<\/p>\n
With the standings packed so tightly in 2025-26, the many teams hovering around the playoff bubble will have extremely difficult decisions to make with their pending UFAs. If one good week can vault you from outside the playoffs to a top-three spot in your division, is it worth holding onto your best pending free agents as \u201cown rentals\u201d? Or is it foolish to risk losing those players for nothing?<\/p>\n
Here are some UFAs whose futures will make their GMs lose sleep in the coming weeks, with contract info courtesy of PuckPedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Coyle is having one of the quietest Selke-Trophy-grade defensive seasons<\/a> in recent memory, playing a ton of difficult minutes and manning Columbus\u2019 penalty kill. He has a ton of playoff experience dating back to his six seasons as a Boston Bruin, with 126 games to his name. He\u2019d be a perfect third-line center for pretty much any contender. His $5.25-million cap hit would need to be managed, but the Jackets have all their retention slots available and can swallow half that number. The Blue Jackets are dead last in the Eastern Conference, but even dead last only means seven points out of a Wildcard spot and seven points out of third in the Metro, so GM Don Waddell has a difficult decision to make with Coyle \u2013 and another player we\u2019ll discuss later.<\/p>\n Ferraro has the kind of meat-and-potatoes game that makes him a serviceable middle-pair guy on a medicore team and an ideal third-pair banger playing more sheltered minutes on a stacked team. The Sharks refuse to lose ground in a topsy-turvy Pacific Division, and it could be wise to keep Ferraro around given he\u2019s one of the team leaders, but GM Mike Grier remains early enough in his rebuild that he can sell off pending UFAs with a clean conscience should San Jose sag in the playoff race by early March.<\/p>\n I never would\u2019ve even considered Gudas just a couple weeks ago. But his Ducks have lost nine straight games, their breakout narrative suddenly collapsing due to their continued struggles defending and the fact their goalies aren\u2019t bailing them out this time. Would GM Pat Verbeek consider trading his captain if the Ducks don\u2019t correct course? Gudas brings an important dressing-room presence, but he\u2019ll be 36 next season and thus isn\u2019t the long-term captain. In the short term: his menacing physical game and extensive postseason experience could command a premium price if he\u2019s made available. I\u2019m jumping the gun here in that I haven\u2019t seen or heard Gudas\u2019 name anywhere. Consider him a speculative idea given Anaheim\u2019s sudden nosedive.<\/p>\n Everything I said about Coyle applies to Jenner. The latter brings a much more extensive injury history, but Jenner also has higher offensive ceiling and can play in a contender\u2019s top six, ideally as a No. 2 center. He also brings the heart-and-soul leadership befitting a captain. He\u2019s Columbus\u2019 all-time games leader, he\u2019s previously expressed a desire to stay with the team, and the decision will be easy if that team is competing for a playoff spot, but Jenner is also 32 and deserves a serious shot at a Stanley Cup. He would fetch a significant return given the eternal league-wide need for his blend of scoring and sandpaper.<\/p>\n It\u2019s best to strike Laughton\u2019s 2024-25 post-deadline play from the record. As an Oakville, Ont., boy joining his childhood team, Laughton was pressing or snakebitten or both. This season, particularly of late, he looks much more like the player Toronto overpaid to get a year ago. He\u2019s scoring at an 82-game pace north of 15 goals, he\u2019s absolutely owning the faceoff circle, and he\u2019s flourishing on one of the NHL\u2019s best penalty-killing units. Pretty much any contender could use what he brings, just as Toronto did a year ago. The Leafs have clawed their way back onto the playoff periphery and are so deep into win-now mode that GM Brad Treliving wouldn\u2019t dare deal a key piece if his team remains competitive into late February. But if the Leafs suddenly slump? Other teams might start sniffing around on Laughton and UFA left winger Bobby McMann.<\/p>\n Pageau looked like a pretty obvious trade candidate heading into the season given the Isles had missed the playoffs, won the 2025 NHL Draft lottery, picked first overall and traded top-pair defenseman Noah Dobson for two extra 2025 first-rounders. My read was that the franchise was willingly taking a step back for the sake of long-term gain and was unlikely to contend for a playoff spot. But here we are in mid-January and the Isles sit second in the Metropolitan Division, buoyed by a historic rookie year from 18-year-old defenseman Matthew Schaefer and Vezina-Trophy-worthy play from goaltender Ilya Sorokin. If New York keeps this up\u2026it can\u2019t trade its third-line center, right? But if the Isles slide back to the bubble, GM Mathieu Darche has to consider punting Pageau. He\u2019s elite on draws and scores at a higher clip in the postseason, jumping from 16 to 21 goals per 82 games. He\u2019d have plenty of suitors if available, and the same goes for captain Anders Lee, but if New York maintains its current position, those two make sense to retain as classic \u201cown rentals.\u201d For now, Darche seems perfectly comfortable sitting on the fence<\/a> and waiting to make a decision.<\/p>\n The Blueshirts have lost eight of 10 and are only a point up on Columbus for last in the East, so I debated excluding Panarin from this list on the grounds he\u2019s a clear easy sell. But, again, even with star goaltender Igor Shesterkin out, the Rangers are a three-game winning streak from contending for a playoff spot again, so Panarin just makes the cut for this discussion. \u2018The Bread Man\u2019 would arguably be the top rental option available; even at 34, he\u2019s an elite top-line scorer. He could net the Rangers a first-round pick, top prospect and maybe a decent younger NHLer depending on how many bids drive up the price. But the Rangers still have enough talent on their roster that cashing out Panarin would hurt if the team is back in a playoff position at any point in the next two months. Any team with Shesterkin is a threat to steal multiple playoff series, presuming he\u2019s healthy by the spring, which isn\u2019t yet guaranteed.<\/p>\n Schmaltz would make a fine consolation prize for teams unable to snag Panarin. Schmaltz is one of the league\u2019s more reliable scoring-line distributors, and he\u2019s scoring goals at a higher rate than normal because he\u2019s shooting the puck more this season. The Mammoth, tied for the last Western Conference Wildcard spot, are itching to give their new fans playoff hockey for the first time. But he and the Mammoth were far apart in contract talks during the fall, so it seems the risk of him walking as a UFA is high. If the Mammoth fall out of the race, trading Schmaltz is an easy call, but even if the Mammoth sit in a playoff spot come March, does GM Bill Armstrong have to seek a hockey trade?<\/p>\n What a rollercoaster. Late last season, Tuch asserted his desire to remain a Sabre. Then came the reports heading into 2025-26 suggesting he and the Sabres weren\u2019t close on an extension, just as seemingly every major 2026 UFA re-signed, leaving Tuch and Panarin all alone as the top all-around forwards on the market. And then the Sabres won 13 of 15 games, leaping back into the Eastern Conference playoff race. It would be a shame for GM Jarmo Kekalainen to mess with his team\u2019s momentum at all. Tuch could still be a major part of the Sabres\u2019 first playoff run in 15 years. But the reality check is that the Sabres, despite their torrid play of late, haven\u2019t gained that strong of a foothold because pretty much every Atlantic Division team got hot at the same time. The Tuch decision is oh-so pivotal. If Buffalo really has a chance to end its playoff drought, you can\u2019t rip the team\u2019s heart out. On the other hand, Tuch would command a gargantuan return, and Kekalainen has been burned before for sitting on his \u201cown rentals.\u201d In 2018-19, as Blue Jackets GM, he held onto Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky only to watch both leave that summer. All Sabres fans can hope for is that Buffalo keeps winning enough to establish itself as a safe playoff team by March, or, better yet, re-signs Tuch between now and the Trade Deadline.<\/p>\n Given Trouba\u2019s open-ice hits are so game-changing, that he plays more minutes and that he\u2019s several years younger, he\u2019d command a larger return than teammate Gudas. That said, Trouba has been open about enjoying the lifestyle change to a calmer environment since the New York Rangers traded him last season and seems like a real candidate to re-sign in Orange County. He also has a 12-team no-trade list. A trade might require some aggressive suitors who tempt Trouba with a chance to chase a championship.<\/p>\n _____<\/p>\n POST SPONSORED BY bet365<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 NHL Trade Deadline shapes up as one of the most complicated in recent memory, for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-404790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}