The 2025 NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone and it was surely one of the more entertaining days we have seen in recent years. Although many teams have continued the tradition of making the bulk of their moves in the days leading up to it, the actual day of still saw some big names change teams. Even though some rumours did not pan out, there were some big shifts in the hockey world.
According to Puckpedia.com, the week of the trade deadline (February 28 - March 7th) saw 44 trades, consisting of 142 assets traded, and $168,182,561 in caphits being moved.
This year, the NHL caught up with the rest of the world and suffered some major inflation as it was much more of a "sellers" market than in recent times with teams choosing to sell-off assets getting premium prices.
Despite the market shaping up this way, there was a significant number of players rumoured to be on the block, staying put. The TSN Trade Bait Board for example, saw two of their top-five names and six of their top-ten names stay with their team.
To be honest, this made it hard to whittle the list down to actual winners and losers but I have been able to identify in total, seven teams that I think are deserving to be called winners and four teams deserving to be called losers. There are many other teams that could be in either category but I tried to pick teams that I felt made really strong moves or not so strong moves.
NHL Trade Deadline Winners
The 'Winners' category is a mix of a few teams that went all-in to make a solid push for a cup, as well as a couple teams that sold who I think fared well.
Florida Panthers
The defending Stanley Cup champions got even better after the trade deadline period. They added a top-line winger, top-four defender, a backup goalie and bottom-six shutdown center. All that GM Bill Zito gave up off the roster was Spencer Knight with the most notable assets being him, and possibly their firsts in 2027 and 2028. It is a small price to pay for a strong cup contender to shore up multiple key positions. Especially with Seth Jones being under contract long-term.
The Panthers are undoubtedly the top team in the Atlantic and despite both their division rival Maple Leafs and Lightning loading up, they were able to nab the most impactful players of the three. They look poised to challenge for back-to-back Stanley Cup wins and should be the team from the East in the Stanley Cup finals.
In my opinion, the Florida Panthers are one of if not the true winners of the deadline. They acquired the very impactful players while giving up a relatively little amount, compared to the market. Although losing Knight will likely sting in the future, for the short term, they should be all-in on winning championships and that is exactly what they did.