Friedman Reveals Two Canadian Teams Are Actively Eyeing Trades

With the 2023-24 NHL season beginning relatively soon, many teams are looking to make some moves ahead of the season to ensure they can ice their best rosters possible.

Today on the 32 Thoughts Podcast, Elliotte Friedman revealed two Canadian teams that are actively looking to make trades in the coming weeks.

The Canucks and the Senators are both eyeing trades for similar reasons. The Canucks need to clear out some cap space. They currently sit nearly $5 million over the salary cap and unless an expensive player heads to LTIR, we are likely seeing a trade.

The Senators on the other hand are roughly $900,000 under the salary cap but they need to sign young forward Shane Pinto who will demand at least double, potentially upwards of triple that space.

Given how both teams need to clear cap space, we would likely see the teams trade their assets off in a cap dump. The players that could be cap dumped is a relatively short list. From Vancouver, Conor Garland and Tyler Myers both make sense to move out given their cap hits. There is also a chance Anthony Beauvillier is moved which is less likely but he could command a significant return.

Ottawa on the other hand has a much shorter list. We could see Mathieu Joseph or Dominik Kubalik moved out to create room for a Shane Pinto signing. Kubalik would make a bit less sense considering how he was a major part of the Alex DeBrincat trade.

Finally, there is always the chance that Ottawa trades Shane Pinto for future assets which would be a nonconventional route but once that is also viable and could make sense depending on the return.