The National Hockey League (NHL) is in full swing, but diehard hockey fans look forward to the trade deadline, where teams that are pushing for a Stanley Cup run get aggressive for their missing piece or teams not in contention retool their roster by acquiring prospects.

While this year’s deadline did not produce a significant blockbuster, it did complete 21 trades on the final day and 40 total in the final week in an otherwise sleepy deadline.

If there was one thing clear to the entire league, it is that the Colorado Avalanche are Stanley Cup favorites. The Avalanche were busy acquiring defenseman Brett Kulak from Pittsburgh and center Nicolas Roy from Toronto in a package that sent Colorado’s 2027 first-round pick, which is also the top-10 protected and the biggest trade of the deadline, reacquiring Nazem Kadri from the Calgary Flames.

Kadri won the Stanley Cup with the Avalanche in the 2021–2022 season before leaving the club in favor of Calgary, signing a seven-year, $49 million contract.

John Carlson, who spent his entire seventeen-year career with the Washington Capitals, was traded to the Anaheim Ducks in a package that sent draft picks to the nation’s capital, as well as a conditional first-round pick.

The Ducks, who hold the top spot in the Pacific division, are primed to make a Stanley Cup run, challenging the Western favorites like the Avalanche, the Stars, and the Wild.

Forward Corey Perry has been to the Stanley Cup Finals five out of the last six years, having lost two in a row against the Florida Panthers as a member of the Edmonton Oilers, and is the only player to lose three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals on three different teams. This deadline, he was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning from the Los Angeles Kings for a 2028 second-round pick, so fans are predicting that the Tampa Bay Lightning will be coming out of the Eastern Conference to make the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 2022, losing to the Colorado Avalanche.