Significant issue gets exposed on trade market

Trade chatter emerges at all times in the NHL season, and while it is still early in the campaign, rumours have come up and teams are getting a close look at what might take place ahead of the March, 3 deadline.

Some rumours have come up including the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators, however, not a whole lot have materialized.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman exposed a significant issue on the trade market on the latest podcast with Jeff Marek, explaining how it is harder for some Canadian teams to acquire players cause many who have no-trade clauses or partial clauses and don’t want to be moved to Canadian clubs. The insider pointed out how the Senators have come across this, it’s an extra hurdle to deal with.

This could indeed have a significant impact on the market as several players, even some recent ones mentioned in trade rumours, could abort a move if they were to be sent to Canada.

We’ve seen this more and more with American players, especially after the pandemic and restrictions that were put in place for travelling and entering the border. For example, both Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk were believed to have left Calgary in part because of the team being in Canada and far from family.

We could see some players waive a clause to rule out a trade to one of the seven Canadian teams and what Friedman reports would be confirmed.

Let’s keep an eye on this, eh?