Yeah I agree it would be better if it were a few weeks earlier, gives more time for players to adjust to their new team and find their role. Plus as a fan especially for the leafs who have trade rumours/dreams start in November lol it feels so daunting having to wait until early March for trade action. It would be awesome as a fan of both if it was a week apart from the NBA deadline lol
Marc, one note on the NHL deadline wasn’t mentioned specifically in the article is the salary cap implications of making moves exactly at the deadline. The later you make a move for a player with a large cap hit the less money you need to put in your cap hit which gets calculated at the end of the season. So teams like my Maple Leafs are incentivized to wait until the last minute to land a player with a large salary cap hit (which I’m praying they do before Friday lol) and with the deadline being so late in the season helps with that, versus it being earlier. I really hope some day the NHL can adopt some version of a NBA luxury tax, it would make the game way more fun with transactions, plus the players salaries will be drastically less scrutinized which is a common topic in Toronto sadly.
I’m not much of a hockey fan, but I know that the outcomes of games in hockey are far more random than they are in basketball: with relatively few goals being scored, an unexpected bounce of the puck or a deflection off someone’s skates or a suddenly hot goaltender can determine the outcome of a game. And since almost everyone makes the playoffs, once you’re there you have a chance to go all the way.
Yeah I agree it would be better if it were a few weeks earlier, gives more time for players to adjust to their new team and find their role. Plus as a fan especially for the leafs who have trade rumours/dreams start in November lol it feels so daunting having to wait until early March for trade action. It would be awesome as a fan of both if it was a week apart from the NBA deadline lol
Marc, one note on the NHL deadline wasn’t mentioned specifically in the article is the salary cap implications of making moves exactly at the deadline. The later you make a move for a player with a large cap hit the less money you need to put in your cap hit which gets calculated at the end of the season. So teams like my Maple Leafs are incentivized to wait until the last minute to land a player with a large salary cap hit (which I’m praying they do before Friday lol) and with the deadline being so late in the season helps with that, versus it being earlier. I really hope some day the NHL can adopt some version of a NBA luxury tax, it would make the game way more fun with transactions, plus the players salaries will be drastically less scrutinized which is a common topic in Toronto sadly.
Thanks much for adding this context! As both a Raps and Leafs fan … don’t you think the NHL deadline is way too late?
Seems like NBA has made trade deadline earlier over the years.
This article shows in late 80s it was third week of February (https://www.nba.com/news/trade-deadline-deals-all-time-history).
In the early 2000s I remember deadline was week of Valentine’s Day.
And as Marc mentioned this year it was Feb 8th.
Explanation is in Numbers Game …
I’m not much of a hockey fan, but I know that the outcomes of games in hockey are far more random than they are in basketball: with relatively few goals being scored, an unexpected bounce of the puck or a deflection off someone’s skates or a suddenly hot goaltender can determine the outcome of a game. And since almost everyone makes the playoffs, once you’re there you have a chance to go all the way.