Here we go! Things do seem to be heating up around the NHL as we barrel toward the NHL Trade Deadline, which hits at 12 p.m. Pacific on Friday. So far, it’s been mostly fringe, secondary, and tertiary players who have moved, with a few notable names like Tyler Myers (Vancouver to Dallas), MacKenzie Weegar (Calgary to Utah), Sam Girard (Colorado to Pittsburgh), and Conor Garland (Vancouver to Columbus) already being dealt.

Perhaps the biggest deal so far came late Thursday when the Anaheim Ducks, one of the teams Seattle is chasing, landed veteran defenseman John Carlson from the Washington Capitals.

The returns for the players that have moved have not been astronomical, indicating that this is truly a “buyers’ market.” So, we could see some more fireworks before midday on Friday.

Meanwhile, all is quiet on the Kraken front, so the team’s players are playing it cool, trying not to pay too much attention to the few rumors that have bubbled up around the club.

“Obviously, we’ve put ourselves in a spot where we have an opportunity to make the playoffs and make a run here,” captain Jordan Eberle said. “Whether that means we add or we stick with the group, I don’t know, those decisions are above me. But at this moment in time, I’m proud of the way that this group has battled to get ourselves an opportunity to hopefully get in.”

Control what you can control

It’s interesting to feel the palpable difference in mood between a team battling for the playoffs (like this season’s group and the 2022-23 team) compared with the three seasons when the Kraken have been obvious sellers on the eve of the deadline. Even after a stinging loss to the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday, the players don’t expect the front office to be selling off veterans on expiring contracts Friday.

“We’ve been here the last couple years where we’ve kind of been selling off guys, and the first year, right? The vibes are not good [in that situation],” Eberle said. “You’re saying bye to friends, saying bye to teammates. It’s always not a fun situation. That’s why at the end of the day, you want to try and play meaningful games all the way to the end.”

Eberle, by the way, is one of four players—along with Eeli Tolvanen, Jamie Oleksiak, and Jaden Schwartz—on expiring contracts. I do not expect to see those players moved simply to collect draft picks like we’ve seen the past two seasons. If any of them are dealt, it would likely be because general manager Jason Botterill receives an offer he can’t refuse and believes the team can still make the playoffs without that player.

Tolvanen echoed Eberle’s sentiments, despite his own contract situation.

“What happens happens. You can’t really focus on that,” Tolvanen said. “I mean, it can be December when you get traded like Kaapo [Kakko] did, or it can be tomorrow, or you can stay. I don’t really care about that.”

While I’ve gotten no indication that Tolvanen is re-signing, my intuition tells me he’ll stick around beyond this season. As Tolvanen himself said, “We’ll see what happens.”

Meanwhile, coach Lane Lambert is likely ready to move past the deadline and eliminate any related distractions for his group.

“There’s always trepidation, I guess, with guys, and it’s not an easy time of the year,” Lambert said. “Most of them, not all of them, but most of them have been through it, a lot of them on multiple occasions. So the bottom line is, in anything—it doesn’t matter if it’s hockey or life—it’s you can control what you can control. And if there’s rumors or there’s outside noise, you’ve just got to not listen to it, because a lot of times that’s exactly what it is, just rumors and outside noise.”

When I asked Lambert if he’s hoping to see moves from the front office, he said there are things about the team that he really likes and would be hesitant to see disrupted. Still, there’s no doubt he’d welcome the addition of a player or two who can put the puck in the net.

“I’ve been on teams in the past where it did kind of mess it up a little bit, but I’ve also been on teams where it helped. So, you just have to make sure that you do your homework, do your research, know what you’re doing and know what you need.”

What happened against St. Louis on Thursday?

With every point in the standings feeling critical right now, it was disappointing to see the Kraken follow up their impressive 2-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday with a 3-2 loss to St. Louis on Wednesday—their second defeat against the underperforming Blues in just eight days.

Eberle gave his take on how that happened, crediting the Blues as a team that’s better than its record indicates.

“I thought we started the game really well, obviously opened the scoring, and then we died off in the first period a little bit. They obviously tied it up. I thought our second period was great. I thought we created some chances, we had opportunities. Third period, we gave up one, and then we were just chasing.”

Added Lambert: “The game for me, could have went either way. We made a couple of mistakes, they made a couple of good plays, and we had some opportunities but failed to capitalize on them. There was a lot of things about that game that I really liked.”

Los Angeles won Thursday night, so now the Kings and Sharks are both within three points of the Kraken, who remain in the final wild-card spot. Getting two points against the Blues would have pushed Seattle back ahead of Edmonton for third place in the Pacific Division.

Tolvanen recalls Olympics

This was my first time chatting with Tolvanen since he and countryman Kaapo Kakko returned from the Olympics in Milan with bronze medals.

Like we heard from Grubauer last week, the event was clearly memorable for Tolvanen.

“I think the whole experience was unbelievable,” Tolvanen said. “The city of Milan was unreal, great weather, just the history behind the city, seeing all the athletes at the village walking around, hockey players, different athletes. It was unbelievable.”

He said the Finnish team stayed in the Olympic Village and spent plenty of time together biking around the city and hanging out in the team lounge.

Tolvanen spoke proudly about winning bronze but admitted he hasn’t yet found a permanent home for the medal. For now, it’s sitting in his closet, though he plans to eventually create a display featuring the medal and his jersey from the tournament.