Will July 1st turn into a trade day instead of a signing day?
Dave Pagnotta of The Fourth Period joined Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Steve Kouleas and Carter Hutton on Wednesday and was asked about July 1st, and with so few pending unrestricted free agents, could that be another trade deadline?
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Steve Kouleas: “So if we’re in this, not many, if any UFA is available. Is this going to be the norm of locking up, and does it change July 1 into the second trade deadline of a four-month period, because if you’re not going to be able to sign people, you’ve just had the draft and they’re 18, the last year is 19, the year before 20. So that’s one avenue. And then it’s KHL guys, NCAA guys that you saw. And then trades, my friend, is that the most realistic way to now examine Canada Day?”
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Dave Pagnotta: “I think, truly, I think it’s going to be a lead in from Draft to July 1, 2nd, or 3rd. Because some teams, I know there’s no talking period anymore with UFAs, but some teams have a pretty good indication as to whether or not they’ll be in the running for certain guys around draft after the draft going into July 1, and that may expedite some of the trade discussions that are going on.
There is still a decent, it’s not a deep free agent pool by any stretch, but there is some quality, there for some intangible type of pieces. Some guys on the back end. Some mid-six, kind of guys that are going to fill the holes for some of these clubs.
But anyone looking to make that big impact edition, it’s likely going to have to come in the form of, of trade. And that’s what some teams were starting to lay groundwork and foundational work with ahead of the trade deadline. By examining what the market is right now and how it might look going into the free agent period.
And there’s the possibility that some teams, like Columbus, they’ve got a few impactful UFAs. Seattle, a few impactful UFAs. They may determine that okay, we’re gonna sign one of these guys, but two or three are going to have to go hit the open market, and we’ll take our chances. And some teams are kind of banking on it, but others certainly going to be looking at the draft, and that week, going into July 1, as primary options to make moves, and that being via trade.
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The way that the salary cap is going up now that we can project things, it allows teams to spend that money a little bit differently and retain a lot of their guys, as we’ve seen to this point. And that trend is going to continue, and it’s going to force teams almost to making moves via trade in order to fill certain holes that they have.
Makes it a lot more entertaining for us. And I hope this is the case, because remember going into last summer boys, it was, there’s going to be so much talk, there’s all this commotion that’s going to happen, and then it ended up being a big sad trombone. I don’t think that’s going to be the case this summer, but we will see how much activity does transpire, because teams just don’t and won’t have much of an option.
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