Every NHL general manager must answer the same question as the NHL trade deadline nears.
Which of their players fit into their long-term nucleus?
Also-ran teams must decide which players to build around. Contenders must decide which players could be sacrificed to address a specific team need.
Team economics and the NHL salary cap help guide those decisions. The Devils would like to lock in high-scoring winger Zach Parise, for instance, but fitting him into the same long-range payroll as Ilya Kovalchuk won’t be easy.
Islanders GM Garth Snow just re-signed forward Frans Nielsen and indicated that he won’t move veteran goaltender Evgeni Nabokov before the trade deadline. Winger P.A. Parenteau could be the next Islanders to get a contract extension as Snow sees long-range promise in his current group.
The Oilers could make several players available, most notably Ales Hemsky. He is not part of Edmonton’s long-term future. The team might be willing to extend big defenseman Andy Sutton for another year, but Ryan Smyth could exit as a rental before re-upping in Edmonton during the summer.
(Sutton is a player some NHL experts identified as a potential trade targer for the Blues.)
The Sabres have a bloated payroll, so GM Darcy Regier must identify his keepers. Playmaking center Derek Roy, faceoff specialist Paul Gaustad and rugged defenseman Robin Regehr may not be on the list.
Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford sifted through his stack of pending free agents and identified the keepers. He secured rugged defenseman Tim Gleason with a four-year, $16 million extension.
Now Rutherford is trying to extend gritty winger Tuomo Ruutu, too. He knows his team is an extreme long shot to make the playoffs this spring, but he must weigh the potential value of trading certain players versus the difficulty in replacing that talent.
“The system we're in now, you have to wrap up players that help your team now because certain players are hard to find on July 1,” Rutherford said, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “If we traded Gleason, we'd be sitting there in the offseason looking for a player like Gleason for probably the next five years.”
Rutherford doesn’t see defensemen Jaroslav Spacek and Bryan Allen fitting into his nucleus, so he may move those pending free agents may move before the tradeline to create playing time for younger Hurricanes.
Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson decided aging forward Vinny Prospal was part of his nucleus. Center Jeff Carter almost certainly is not, but dealing his contract won't be easy. Rick Nash should be part of the Columbus nucleus, but you never know what that franchise is up to.
The Predators regard defenseman Ryan Suter as a big piece of their nucleus, but affording him and goaltender Pekka Rinne and defenseman Shea Weber could be problematic. Can that team keep him out of unrestricted free agency?
The Ducks could also opt to shed veterans. Would Teemu Selanne agree to move along as a rental? Would another team offer up quality long-term assets for defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky, who carries a $5.6 million cap hit next season?
NHL GMs realize that rental players seldom deliver huge dividends. The Bruins won the Stanley Cup after acquiring defenseman Tomas Kaberle, but he did not have the desired impact on Boston’s power play.
“If you look back, on average, those types of players haven’t left a deep impact right away when they change scenery,” Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli said, according to the Toronto Sun. “Generally speaking, teams that won did not hugely benefit from bringing in a (big name) at the deadline.”
AROUND THE RINKS: Defenseman Cade Fairchild scored his sixth goal of the season for Peoria as the Rivermen rolled to a 5-2 victory over Charlotte Saturday. Goaltender Ben Bishop stopped 22 of 24 shots and 14 difference Rivermen earned at least one point . . . Old friend Joel Quenneville is feeling the heat with his Blackhawks in a free fall. That team has way too much talent to fade in the Western Conference race . . . Many players benefited from the Kings' coaching change, but perhaps none more so than Drew Doughty. The defenseman scored 15 points in 19 games. Kudos to Darryl Sutter for waking him up . . . The Canadiens wish the NHL would give every team a one-time opportunity to buy out a stupid contract without taking a big cap hit. That would help the team shed the Scott Gomez albatross. Gomez went 369 days between regular season NHL goals . . . We're guessing that Leafs GM Brian Burke is still stinging from his team's 5-0 loss to Montreal . . . Capitals coach Dale Hunter made Mike Knuble a healthy scratch for back-to-back games. He hasn't scored in his last 27 games.
