Evan’s Daily: Makar Ready to Play, NHL Trade Deadline Wrap

The NHL trade deadline has passed, and it’s time for the stretch run of the NHL season.

For the Avalanche, they got some good news, as Cale Makar will return to the lineup on Saturday against the Stars. Unfortunately, the good news was countered by some bad news. On top of all that, the team was very quiet on trade deadline day.

Around the NHL, there weren’t a ton of big moves left to be made, but there were still trades that went down. There was also a very interesting situation with James van Riemsdyk in Philadelphia.

All that and more in a post-NHL trade deadline edition of Evan’s Daily.

Colorado Hockey Now

Cale Makar will be back in the lineup on Saturday, but the Avalanche just can’t have nice things, so that means someone had to get hurt. Unfortunately, that someone was Josh Manson.

Outside of a minor league trade, Chris MacFarland and the Avalanche were very quiet on deadline day.

Trade Deadline Underwhelms, But So Does The Western Conference (+)

NHL Trade Deadline

The Flyers should have been selling off unrestricted free agents. Instead, they weren’t able to trade James van Riemsdyk, and that’s a massive failure on their part.

The Penguins went out and acquired Dmitri Kulikov, who I felt was a good fit for the Avalanche. But was it necessary for the Penguins?

The Wild made a number of moves on Friday, but the most interesting one they made was dealing Jordan Greenway to the Buffalo Sabres for draft picks. It’s hard to tell what the Wild are doing. They’re trading off players, they’re retaining cap for other teams, but they’re also buying players for a playoff run?

The trade I find most interesting is Jakub Vrana going to St. Louis. His NHL goal scoring numbers are great, but the Red Wings clearly wanted no part of him. St. Louis might have picked up a good goal scorer for nothing.

If you missed anything, here’s the trade tracker to catch you up.