Nobody is ready for the trade deadline

The trade deadline is coming up six long days from now. It seems like The Athletic has been sending me updates on potential deadline targets for the last two months, and we still have an arduous week to wait for the deals to start flying.

Of course, some deals, like Chris Tanev's, Sean Monahan's and Elias Lindholm's have already been executed, but the real party will come on Friday. And not Friday morning, everything will start around lunch time and conclude with a mad dash for the closing bell.

This is just how hockey is as an organization. All of the big pivotal moments are frantic and over before you realize they have started. The offseason has nothing until the beginning of July and then FREE AGENCY and then we wait until the season starts. There are some meandering transaction stories and then for three brilliant hours, we have 25 trades involving every team in the league. Once in a while, a team will sit out completely, but that's typically because they overslept.

The Flames are very clearly tearing things down. There are other teams out of contention that won't have the right pieces to have a fire sale, but I would watch the Minnesota Wild as a payroll pressed team rapidly falling out of contention as an active player on Friday. The Islanders also rank high on my list of teams to watch for wrong reasons this week.

On a more positive front, I think teams that are in position thanks to a very hot stretch may want to reinforce their roster before they slip back to mediocrity. That would point me to look at more things to come from Winnipeg, but also the Nashville Predators. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Rangers take a swing as well. In either direction, many teams will have to determine their course of action based on how just these next couple of days go. 

But then again, everyone is going to be making a move. There is a chance with any roster shuffle that it might end up being the type of move that brings in a beloved third liner for many years to come, or a player that develops into a better skater than the one given up in trade. It's a wild ride, and none of it will be predictable.