2017 NHL trade rumors: 5 signs your favorite team is preparing for the trade deadline

The NHL trade deadline is on March 1, so we’re officially a month away from the busiest day of the regular season.

And that means silly season is here.

The looming expansion draft and tight playoff race might try to convince you that the deadline will be a quiet affair, but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of news security. Every day, there are hints that the league’s trade machine is starting to churn as teams move pieces around the board to prepare for the floodgates to open.

They’re not hard to miss, but with a little practice you can learn what to watch for so you’re not caught off guard when your favorite team trades your favorite player.

This is the most telling sign. Why? Because it’s in the hopes that someone picks that player up and clears up cap space for them.

As Cap Friendly pointed out on Wednesday, the Kings have been at this game for awhile now. They have $6.89 million in deadline space that jumps up to to $8.48 million if Gilbert is claimed or assigned. That’s a lot of wiggle room that lets GM Dean Lombardi snag one expensive player or two impactful players at a cheaper cost.

Fans rarely notice these moves, and for good reason. They go down at noon, in the middle of the work-week, and they rarely involve notable players.

But the big deals on March 1 will be their result.

Ah, future considerations. The loose interpretation for those deals is “Hey, take this player for free right now so we can make room for a big move soon.”

Minnesota now has 47 players under contract, three shy of the 50-contract maximum. A player-for-player swap for Hagel wouldn’t accomplish that kind of space-clearing, so they just dropped him on Ottawa’s doorstep and left.

The Wild still have just $3.635 million in cap space at the deadline. This deal does nothing to fix that. But it’s another tiny move indicating the trade train is leaving the St. Paul station.

Long-term injured reserve (LTIR) is a useful tool for teams that have players expected to miss at least 10 games or 24 days. Here’s Cap Friendly’s explanation:

When a player is placed on LTIR, their cap hit technically remains on the teams cap payroll and it continues to count as it always did. It also does not provide the club with additional cap-space savings that can be banked for future use while the team operates below the salary cap. Instead, LTIR provides relief if the club’s averaged club salary, or payroll, begins to exceed the upper limit. The amount of relief that the club receives is calculated on the day the player is placed on LTIR.

It’s a good way for NHL teams to use their injured players as an excuse to exceed the salary cap.

So, for instance, let’s say the Lightning are struggling and need to make a move at the deadline. They already have Steven Stamkos’ LTIR status clearing up more than $8 million in deadline cap space. They could also place Ryan Callahan (out for at least four weeks) on LTIR, clearing about $5.8 million and giving them a whopping $13.8 million to work with in trades.

That’s purely hypothetical, though. But if a NHL team in the playoff hunt places a player on LTIR this month, know they’re probably planning ahead for March 1.

Matt Duchene’s name is a trade rumor constant this season. Some teams have stuck around in those discussions for a long time, like Carolina. But that’s more due to the “perfect fit” factor more than teams using the media as a conduit.

But now the Predators are asking about Duchene. Or that’s what they want everyone to think. Or that someone else wants everyone to think that. Nashville officially entered the Duchene trade rumors fray this week when ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun reported that Preds GM David Poile “checked in once or twice on the availability of Matt Duchene.“

That’s really not much news, but it stirs the pot and could get things moving more behind the scenes. Bottom line: if insiders are talking about teams talking about talking to other teams, there’s usually a motive behind it and fire behind the smoke. They’re just the conduit, but something’s going on.

I’d say 90 percent of the trades that happen at the deadline don’t correlate with the scout-to-team combos listed on these charts.

But they’re speculation fodder, and everyone loves them. And it’s still a slight indication that, yes, teams are getting more active about doing homework on players who might be available on March 1.