There are always winners and losers at the NHL trade deadline.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that a team is going to win a Stanley Cup, obviously, and some of the big winners at the deadline are lousy teams loading up on draft picks and assets for the future.
Still, it’s better to be moving and shaking at the trade deadline like a Carolina Hurricanes team that added Vincent Trocheck, Brady Skjei and Sami Vatanen than be a non-playoff team like the Wild that made one early Jason Zucker trade with Pittsburgh before closing their shutters for the week.
LIVE stream the Celtics all season and get the latest news and analysis on all of your teams from NBC Sports Boston by downloading the My Teams App.
The biggest winner of all might have been the New York Rangers in retaining Chris Kreider with a seven-year contract rather than making him the biggest trade target on the market.
But each team received a grade for what they did leading up to Monday’s NHL trade deadline and we didn’t mince any words.