Trade "Dud"-line 2012

[blny]

Along with being very quiet on the actual trades front, we're seeing teams and players looking to sign extensions. Andy Sutton just signed a one year extension with the Oilers.

Not only is the deadline a big press day for the league, but all the sports channels have been bombarding us about Feb 27th since Jan 1. TSN has gone so far as to post rumour round ups everday.

Could this be the quietest deadline ever? Is parity, and teams thinking they have a real shot keeping the number of deals down? I think we're getting near the point where it's not about WHO gets dealt, but does anyone? I can just see the TSN coverage starting at noon and twiddling their thumbs for 7 hours.

[franko]

it would look good on them all, too. trade deadline has become a media driven fill-in-the-tv-hours event

[jkr]

If they went back to allowing teams to pay some of a traded players contract, things might pick up.

[Boston_Habs]

Feb 13, 2012 15:23:47 GMT -5 jkr said:

If they went back to allowing teams to pay some of a traded players contract, things might pick up.

I agree. One of the things that really limits trades is the fact that you can't eat salary. If a team is trying to trade a player who makes $6 million a year, but for various reasons, the other team will only take $4 million of the cap hit, then what's the problem? The cap hit for the player doesn't change, it's just shared by two teams. If a team doesn't mind having $2 million of dead payroll on their salary cap, then why should the league object? How teams manage their cap space should be up to them.

[BadCompany]

They could also move the deadline back to where it was before the lockout. A lot more teams would be "out of it" and thus more willing to deal. And the cap hits would be smaller. But you'd have to throw a bone to the players on this one, they don't really like trades (and who can blame them?)

[GNick99]

I always liked the deadline around 2nd Tuesday in March.