What is The Daily Clutter?
It’s pretty simple. The Clutter is us, but it’s also the news about Minnesota hockey and hockey in general. We want to Bring The Clutter to you, our fans or The ClutterPuckers, daily… well… frequently then… Okay! We’ll post as much as possible, which hopefully turns into a consistent thing. So far, it hasn’t, but we’re still going to try!
We’ll always try to make it fun, but our main goal is to be informative and to teach fans and players about hockey.
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It’s NHL Trade Season, ‘Puckers! Are You Ready?
It’s exciting! It’s rad!
It’s mysterious! It’s bad!
It makes you happy! It makes you sad!
Think you can do better? Yeah, just a tad!
The NHL Trade Deadline is 5 weeks away!
Will your favorite team contribute in some way?
Some teams go All In. Some teams have fallen.
There are contenders, There are pretenders.
Some might jump in as a lender.
What will teams & GMs render?
NHL Trade Season is upon us. The NHL trade deadline is fascinating. There are what, 8-10 teams that look like contenders right now, especially if you leave out the Maple Leafs. (or Leaf them out? HA! I kid!) Toronto has the talent to go on a run. They can’t seem to get over the hump. As a Wild fan, I’m very familiar with that premise… and sick of it.
Back to the main point. If there are 8-10 teams who could win the Stanley Cup, how many teams think they are a trade away from joining or widening that group? If you look at the Standings right now, there are 8 teams from each conference in the Top 16.
Add two more teams and there are 9 in each conference. If you then look at the next eight teams, they are separated by just 5 points.
Does that mean this could be a crazy Trade Deadline? Look at the last two columns which are L10 (record in Last 10 games) & STRK (streak) and that might make you second-guess about the teams that are 23rd or lower. But the Rangers are 22nd and are 5-4-1 over their last 10 games but…
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Vancouver Canucks trade F J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers for F Filip Chytil & a 1st-round pick
J.T. Miller (& more) Traded to NYR for Filip Chytil & a ’25 1st-rounder (& more)
Ahh… trades. So much to figure out…
Filip Chytil is a decent young F/C who hasn’t developed well in NY.
- That seems to be a theme for a lot of Rangers prospects (Kakko? Who else?)
Can J.T. Miller get the NYR over the hump?
- This is a big trade for one of the best centers in the NHL who has struggled in Vancouver this season. Is it Vancouver? Is it Miller? Is it someone else? Elias? Are either or both of you bothering J.T.?
The easy take here is the Rangers won this trade but… did the Canuckleheads fix their team with this trade? fix Elias Pettersson?
- Only time will tell but they also get that 1st round pick and now have two 1st-rounders in the ’25 Draft so one of those could be part of another trade in the next 5 weeks – March 7th is the Trade Deadline.
- It’s sad if J.T. Miller & Elias Pettersson couldn’t get along. What happened? Is it the F Elias Pettersson or the D Elias Pettersson? or did they team up against him?
Yes. There are two players on the Vancouver Canucks with the same name.
- The defenseman was drafted by Vancouver but the pick they used to draft him was used to acquire D Nate Schmidt (one of us, former Gopher) from Vegas.
- Vegas then traded the pick (with F Nick Holden) to Ottawa for F Evgeny Dadonov.
- Ottawa then traded the pick back to Vancouver for D Travis Hamonic then drafted Pettersson in the 3rd round on July 8th, 2022.
- Since the defensive Pettersson has only played 2 games with the Big Canucks, it’s hard to believe he is the one who wasn’t getting along with Mr. Miller.
Trade Trees are Fascinating! Or should they be called Trade Roots?
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Caroline Hurricanes Acquire F Mikko Rantanen from Colorado for Fs Martin Necas & Jack Drury; F Taylor Hall from Chicago for a 2025 3rd round pick, Chicago retained half of Rantanen’s 2025 Salary Cap Hit
This one was kind of a shocker because Mikko Rantanen & Colorado were negotiating and he was caught by surprise when they traded him. He’s said since that he would’ve taken less to stay in Colorado. He was there since he was drafted 10th overall in the 2015 NHL Draft and he was a point-per-game player for them every season.* He was set to be a free agent at the end of this season with a cap hit of $9.25M so he would have jumped to at least $10M per season and Colorado must not have thought they could make it work.
*One season, he had 41 points in 40 games but in his career, he had 681 points (287 goals (100 PPG), 394 assists) in 619 games.
If you look at Colorado’s Salary Cap Projections from PuckPedia.com…
They have 7 players hitting free agency. 2 of those 7 are Restricted Free Agents (RFA) so they count as part of their active roster for the 2025-26 season.
The Colorado Avalanche received Fs Martin Necas & Jack Drury as part of their return in the trade. 26-year-old Necas, who will be an Unrestricted Free Agent after the 2025-26 season, is having a career year with 55 points (16 goals, 39 assists) before the trade and 5 points (1 goal, 4 assists) in 5 games since the trade. Drury is 24 years old and looks to be a player who could use a change of scenery as things weren’t clicking in Carolina at least points-wise (9 points (3 g, 6 a)) in 39 games. He’s already scored 2 goals in the 4 games he’s played for Colorado
Do we think they knew about the increase in the NHL’s salary cap before making that move? They had to have known, right?
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We missed a couple of other trades today! Did you miss these, too?
The Vancouver Canucks acquired another Pettersson! They got a defenseman in D Marcus Pettersson from Pittsburgh in exchange for a couple of NHL veterans in D Vincent Desharnais & F Danton Heinen, a prospect Melvin Fernstrom & the 1st-round pick Vancouver got from the Rangers hours before so that didn’t take long, huh?
The Calgary Flames also jumped into the trading ring by acquiring Fs Joel Farabee & Morgan Frost from the Philadelphia Flyers for Fs Andrei Kuzmenko & Jakob Pelletier and 2 draft picks, a 2025 2nd-rounder & a 2028 7th-rounder.
So… this might reinforce how interesting the next 5 weeks will be for the NHL Trade Deadline.
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The 4 Nations Face-Off is just 11 Days Away!
The 4 Nations of Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States of America will battle it out for 9 days to see who is the best in the World at hockey and it starts in just 11 days! AHHHHH!!!!
Here’s the schedule:
Track all of the News including Rosters, Jerseys, Ticket Information, etc… here:
2025 NHL 4 NATIONS FACE-OFF News
- 4 Nations Face-Off schedule, rosters, format | NHL.com
- 4 Nations Face-Off jerseys feature incredible detail, national pride | NHL.com
- Crosby named Team Canada captain for 4 Nations Face-Off
- Barkov named Team Finland captain for 4 Nations Face-Off
- Hedman says being Sweden captain ‘a dream come true’
- Matthews named Team USA captain for 4 Nations Face-Off
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