Trade deadline swings are supposed to give a team a jolt. Sometimes they do the opposite.
In the last couple of seasons, a few clubs have pushed in on players they thought could help right away, only to watch the move turn into dead weight almost immediately. Detroit, Toronto, and Edmonton all took their shot. None of those bets has aged well.
Detroit’s move for Justin Faulk was the kind of deadline swing that says a lot about where a team thinks it stands. The Red Wings wanted to make a push for the playoffs, so they paid up for the St. Louis Blues defenseman, sending Justin Holl, prospect Dmitri Buchelnikov, a 2026 first-round pick, and a 2026 third-round pick.
What followed was a collapse. Detroit went 3-13-3 over its final 19 games, dropped out of the race, missed the playoffs, and then saw Steve Yzerman removed as GM this summer.
Dylan Larkin also requested a trade. It would be unfair to pin all of that on Faulk, but the deadline deal did not deliver the lift Detroit was chasing.
And because Faulk carries a $6.5 million cap hit with term, this wasn’t even a clean rental situation. The Red Wings may still try to move him this season.
Toronto had a different kind of miss with Scott Laughton. The Maple Leafs brought him in from the Philadelphia Flyers believing he could strengthen their center depth.
Instead, he played 21 games, scored five goals, and finished with eight points. Toronto gave up prospect Nikita Grebenkin and a conditional 2026 first-round pick, with the Flyers retaining 50% salary.
Then Laughton was gone. He didn’t return to the Leafs amid the offseason changes and signed a three-year deal with the Los Angeles Kings at $3.5 million per season. The result for Toronto was simple: no playoffs, and very little value before he left for nothing in return.
Edmonton’s Trent Frederic trade is the newest cautionary tale. On March 4, 2025, the Oilers landed Frederic and Max Jones from the Boston Bruins in a three-team deal that also included the New Jersey Devils.
Edmonton clearly made the move for Frederic, but Jones has been the better part of the return so far. Frederic arrived injured and never really got going.
That alone should have raised alarms, but the Oilers doubled down anyway, signing him to an eight-year extension worth $30.8 million. The early results have not been pretty.
In 2025-26, he has struggled to carve out a role, and the trade and the contract both look like mistakes right now. Edmonton gave up two draft picks and two prospects to get two players who aren’t even regulars in the lineup.
There’s still time for Frederic to change the story, but he has a lot of work to do.
In Other News...
Flyers May Have A Buy Low Center Option Worth Watching
The Flyers search for a top-six center is already shaping up to be one of the bigger roster questions heading into the 2026-27 season, and it has opened the door to some buy-low possibilities around the league. One name worth keeping in the conversation is Connor Zary, a young center in Calgary whose profile fits the kind of swing Philadelphia could explore if it wants to add upside without paying full price.
Zary has shown enough in his past work to suggest there could still be another level to unlock, which is exactly why he is drawing trade buzz. For a Flyers team trying to map out its future down the middle, a player like that makes sense as a candidate to watch, even if the fit and the cost end up determining whether the idea goes any further. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers 2020 Draft Class Says Plenty About How That Era Went
The 2020 NHL Draft was supposed to be a meaningful pivot point for the Flyers, a chance to restock the pipeline and give the organization a cleaner future. Instead, looking back at that class now says a lot about how uneven that era turned out to be. Philadelphia made five selections, and while Tyson Foerster has grown into a notable contributor at the NHL level, the rest of the group has mostly taken a more complicated path through pro hockey.
Emil Andrae did reach the NHL before eventually being dealt to the Toronto Maple Leafs, while the other picks have spent their time largely in the AHL and ECHL, with some no longer in the Flyers organization at all. It is the kind of draft haul that reflects both the hope teams attach to that weekend and the long, often messy reality that follows, especially for a club still sorting through the legacy of those years. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Still Have One Intriguing Young Center Trade Option
The Flyers still have work to do if they want to add more young center depth, and the search does not have to stop with free agency or the draft. Philadelphia can still poke around the trade market, where age and upside matter just as much as immediate help, and that keeps a few intriguing names in play for a club trying to build a deeper middle down the line.
One possible path runs through San Jose, where a promising young center has started to turn a strong AHL season into real attention around the league. For the Flyers, the appeal is obvious: a player with size, skill and room to grow could fit the kind of long-term roster puzzle they are trying to solve. The harder part is getting him out of an organization that has every reason to value what he brings, which is why this remains more of an idea than a completed move for now. [Read more 🡒]