6 NHL Teams Who Will Have a Clear Need at the 2025 Trade Deadline
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Patrick Kane and Leon Draisaitl. Paul Swanson/NHLI via Getty Images
We’re almost a month into the 2024-25 NHL season—have you settled in yet? Are you finally used to all of the players on your team? Have you memorized the new numbers?
Perfect, it’s just the right time to start talking about the trade deadline. We’re starting to see specific areas where Cup contenders and bubble teams alike might struggle on their playoff journeys.
Will everything be fine in OilTown once offensive weapons return to their scheduled programming, or might they need some help at the deadline? The Red Wings have an equal chance of buying and selling—what would both scenarios look like?
Teams are starting to take the temperature of the trade market as we enter November, so why don’t we join them? Here are six potential playoff teams that have emerging needs to address when the trade deadline comes.
Spoiler alert: You can never have too many solid defensemen.
Calgary Flames
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Nazem Kadri. Al Powers/NHLI via Getty Images
Through their franchise-best start and now 5-3-1 record, the Flames are showing us they aren’t throwing in the towel on the talent they have. In 10 games, defenseman Rasmus Andersson has exploded with four goals and 10 points, Jonathan Huberdeau is bouncing back with four goals and seven points, and Nazem Kadri is doing the same with four goals and six points.
Dustin Wolf has emerged as a decent option in net in his four starts, with .3 goals saved above expected (hey, it’s not in the negatives!), a 2.74 goals against average, and a .924 save percentage.
All that said, the Flames’ current three-game skid has exposed some design flaws. Each loss has featured at least four goals against, and five twice. The latest 5-0 loss to the surging Golden Knights was particularly ugly—they were outshot 30-10 in the last two periods, and all three defensive pairings made some pretty costly gaffes on the goals allowed.
Those expected to perform offensively for Calgary are what they are. If Huberdeau and Kadri are going to regress after the hot start, there’s not much you can do about it. What you can do is a significant clean-up on aisle D. If the hot start wasn’t a fluke and the Flames are still competitive when the trade deadline rolls around, they should target a few no-nonsense, sturdy defensemen.
Detroit Red Wings
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Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond. Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images
The Red Wings, per usual, are a tricky bunch to analyze after their 4-4-1 start. With the Atlantic Division’s parity, there’s an equal chance they could hang around the playoff bubble and squeak in or fall out of contention entirely somewhere along the way.
So, let’s consider they could be buyers or sellers at the deadline.
First, let’s imagine a world in which the encouraging moments from Detroit’s early play win out and they gain some consistency. They stop blend-o-raming their lines, and something like moving Andrew Copp to JT Compher’s wing alongside Patrick Kane provides the elusive scoring depth for the second line. You’ve got Dylan Larkin and Co. firing on all cylinders on the first line, Moritz Seider is back to Calder Trophy form, and the rest of the “kids” are impressing with more minutes in the lineup.
Wow, I just found myself fully immersed in a Yzerfantasy.
Anyway, life is good in Detroit and they’re seeking to buy at the deadline. I feel like this team needs just a little bit more of almost everything—a more aggressive forecheck, a more aggressive defense that generates possession, and a few more goals while we’re at it. Curiously, as the games have gone on, I’m more confident in the Cam Talbot and Alex Lyon tandem than ever.
If I’m Steve Yzerman, and unfortunately I’m not, I’m seeking a young, FAST, second-line sniper and a few more modern, puck-moving defensemen to help with the transition game.
If the Red Wings let this two-game skid extend and struggle to find consistency again this season, at least they have two super enticing goalie options to trade to contending teams at the deadline.
Edmonton Oilers
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Connor McDavid. Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The Oilers bounced back a bit after their horrid start, but at 4-5-1 sporting a -13 goal differential, they haven’t been able to string a consistent stretch of play together.
Nothing exposes this team’s shortcomings quite like a Connor McDavid injury, and unfortunately, that was the case as Edmonton was plagued with a McDavid lower-body injury and a 6-1 loss to the Blue Jackets on Monday.
B/R Open Ice @BR_OpenIce
Connor McDavid will not return after sustaining a lower body injury off the opening faceoff vs. the Blue Jackets.
McDavid’s shift only lasted 37 seconds. pic.twitter.com/iM0FiaN9w8
Even though McDavid is off to the slowest start in his career with three goals and seven assists in 10 games, the whole offensive roster seemed to just fall apart in his absence.
Even worse, the Oilers aren’t in the best place financially to do anything other than take care of the players they already have—although they’ve been accumulating cap space with Evander Kane on LTIR.
Look, I don’t want to get too dark here. It’s 10 games in, and McDavid is still far and away the best player in the world. I also tend to doubt the rest of the slumping offense is going to stay down too long.
The trouble is, there just aren’t a lot of options when it comes to the Oilers’ specific needs unless Darnell Nurse wakes up one day and becomes the best defenseman in the league. Until then, target a few right-hand defensemen, possibly a goalie, and hope the best offense in the world acts like it 98 percent of the time.
New Jersey Devils
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Jack Hughes. Rich Graessle/NHLI via Getty Images
The Devils (6-4-2) aren’t in dire trouble or anything, but after a start that looked like a utopia of goaltending and defensive issues solved, things are coming back down to earth.
Jacob Markstrom is 4-3-1 through eight starts, with a 3.01 goals against average and a .895 save percentage. Jake Allen is 2-1-1, with a 3.25 goals against average and a .876 save percentage. Markstrom is currently the fifth-worst goalie at -4.6 Goals Saved Above Expected, and Allen was in net for eight goals against Tampa.
Do you take the Hurricanes approach here and keep stockpiling a cupboard of extremely reliable defensemen? I think so. Again, it’s only been 12 games, and we’ve seen some great things from both goalies. Perhaps the consistency will come with more reps and Brett Pesce will get going at full speed. Add another goalie-protecting defenseman at the deadline and everything will be fine. Probably. At the very least, New Jersey has shown us it isn’t afraid to switch it up in net, so if worst comes to worst, maybe Tom Fitzgerald will call up Yzerman.
Utah Hockey Club
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Logan Cooley. Jamie Sabau/NHLI via Getty Images
The Good Ole Hockey Club entered the NHL with a bang, but suddenly they’re 4-4-2 amidst a four-game losing streak. Monday’s third-period collapse against the league-worst Sharks was ugly.
B/R Open Ice @BR_OpenIce
“IT’S A MIRACLE IN UTAH”
SHARKS COMPLETE THE COMEBACK TO WIN THEIR FIRST GAME OF THE YEAR pic.twitter.com/YB9F4NJoJ7
The most glaring issue is a top-four decimated by injury. Long-term injuries to defensemen John Marino and Sean Durzi have exposed the lack of depth at the position, and the not-so-fantastic goaltending in a two-pronged issue.
The good-ish news? The defense problem has a solution. Marino and Durzi aren’t expected to return until the New Year, so Utah could shop around for replacements or wait for the boost when they return—perhaps they’ll do both.
The bad news? The underlying numbers for Connor Ingram’s hot start at home didn’t look great to begin with, and now he’s got the second-worst Goals Saved Above Expected metric in the league at -7.3.
Ingram had some pretty decent stretches last season, though, so maybe he finds his way, Logan Cooley starts seeing the back of the net and takes a little pressure off, and some defensive reinforcements ease the losses of Marino and Durzi.
Vancouver Canucks
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Jake DeBrusk, J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser. Jamie Douglas/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The Canucks simply refuse to do anything in a way that makes sense, and that’s what I love about this team. The chaotic start to the season, the question marks in net, and yet they’ve only lost once in eight regulation games so far.
Of course, they aren’t without their blemishes, which would explain the late-game collapses and three overtime losses. Management is already on top of it, as insider Frank Seravalli reported the Canucks have started making calls to see what the deadline defense market is going to look like.
The Canucks simply need stronger defense to make a serious run. They need to be able to rely on their second and third pairings to eat tougher minutes without Thatcher Demko in net.
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