New CBA rules and NHL parity contributed to fewer big trades at the deadline

There is an All-Star starting lineup that can be made from the NHL players who easily could have been traded at the deadline but were not.

In goal, Sergei Bobrovsky. On defense, Colton Parayko and Rasmus Ristolainen. At forward, Vincent Trocheck, Robert Thomas and Steven Stamkos.

A lot of trades, big and small, never materialized. A combination of factors from new CBA salary rules to no-trade clauses and leaguewide parity conspired to make this to a quieter-than-usual deadline.

The 20 trades completed Friday were the fewest in five years, dating to the pandemic-shortened 2021 season.

New CBA changes the game

General managers were for the first time navigating an environment in which a third team cannot facilitate a trade by retaining salary, something that was eliminated in the new collective bargaining agreement. The so-called “double retention” solution that made so many past trades happen is now limited to 75 days apart, and fitting players in under the cap became more difficult.

“When you take that out, it’s probably why you saw, I don’t want to say as little trades, but not as many as the past,” New Jersey GM Tom Fitzgerald said. "Teams would’ve made more moves, I think, if prices were split in half twice. I do think that had something to do with it. I think it was obvious by looking at the past and how many double retentions there were and have been versus this year.”

Not that Florida was eager to trade Bobrovsky, who backstopped the Panthers to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships, but double retention would have allowed a team acquiring him to get him at a $2.5 million cap hit, rather than $5 million or his full $10 million salary.

New York Islanders GM Mathieu Darche, who had plenty of space to get Brayden Schenn from St. Louis, pointed out that the Tampa Bay Lightning — where he worked before — “used that double retention quite a few times over the years.” They won the Cup twice over that time.

The Lightning, Panthers and other recent champions also benefitted from no salary cap in the playoffs, which allowed them to keep players on long-term injured reserve through the regular season and dress them in the first round. That has also changed, because each team now has to make sure its 20-man roster for each game is cap compliant.

“With the new wrinkle of the playoff roster for calculations and things like that, you had to run the scenarios from a bunch of different viewpoints,” Colorado GM Chris MacFarland said after he and the Avalanche made the biggest move of deadline day by reacquiring Nazem Kadri from Calgary. “We’re on the phone with the different permutations and they got to be sharp in so many different ways, so there’s definitely different lenses this year.”

Players had the power to say no

At least a few deals were consummated but did not get to the finish line because the player involved had a no-trade or a no-movement clause and control over his destination.

Tyler Myers was rumored to be going to Detroit, but then Vancouver traded him to Dallas later in the week. Colton Parayko declined to waive his no-trade clause to go from St. Louis to Buffalo.

“I’m not talking about Parayko alone, players negotiate their trade rights based on their status on the team and in the league and some players have full no-trade clauses, some have partial no-trade clauses,” Blues GM Doug Armstrong said. “To sign players, you have to provide those type of guarantees. And I respect when players, if they decide to invoke the right that they’ve earned, that’s great and that means they want to be here.”

A lot of teams are still in the race

At the time of the deadline, there were six teams within four points of a wild-card spot in either the Eastern or the Western Conference. Add that to the 16 teams in playoff position, and that leaves just 10 of 32 out of the mix.

“There’s still so many more teams that are still in it or have a chance, so they’re thinking, ‘Well, even if I’m not sure I’m going to make it, I’m not going to sell the farm,'” Darche said. “There was probably less teams selling this year. It was probably more of a seller’s market because of that. It’s supply and demand, so I think that plays a factor, too.”

With so much turnover of playoff teams from last season looking like they'll miss this year — and vice-versa — a lot of front offices can convince themselves the downfall is an aberration, chalked up to injuries and other issues.

“There are teams that are in playoff spots that probably they would admit that they didn’t think they’d get there this quick, Fitzgerald said. “Then there are other teams that unfortunately aren’t, like us, but still believe in this group and don’t want to blow the whole thing up.”

Part of the parity is the record year-over-year rise the salary cap is seeing. Most teams have plenty of room to keep the players they want to keep.

“It’s been really easy for teams to kind of go out there and re-sign their players, which doesn’t put anybody at the end of their contract and you saw that this year coming down the stretch,” Utah GM Bill Armstrong said. "Everybody got re-signed, and there wasn’t a lot of people and inventory into the market. It’s kind of what we’re going to see for the next few years.”

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AP Hockey Writer John Wawrow, AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston, Pat Graham, Aaron Beard and Andrew Destin and AP freelance writer Denis Gorman contributed to this report.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL