NHL Trade Deadline Primer: The change of scenery guys

Shane Wright (Seattle Kraken), Alexis Lafreniere (New York Rangers), and Elias Pettersson (Vancouver Canucks) might all need a fresh start, but there is a significant risk in dealing any of them.

The NHL Trade Deadline (March 6) is approaching, and until it arrives we are going to take a look at some of the significant players and teams that could be making moves. We start today with a trio of players that might need a fresh start and a change of scenery, but would be risky players for their current teams to trade.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, things just do not work for a team and player.

Maybe it is the coach.

Sometimes it is the system or role a player is being asked to play in.

It could be a lack of quality teammates.

Or it might just be a lack of confidence after years of unrealized potential and development and the need for a fresh start with another team.

A lot of times it is just a case of the player simply not being what anybody expected.

It happens.

When you are the team that has one of these players and your patience starts to run out, some sort of a trade or roster move becomes inevitable. After all, how long are you supposed to wait for that former first-round pick to develop? How many down years are you supposed to wait for a player to get back to their previous level? It is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately sort of industry, and patience is not really something a lot of general managers, coaches and teams have much of. Or the luxury of having. Especially when they need to win, and win now.

While a trade becomes the easy solution to give everybody a fresh start, there is a pretty significant risk for the team that is dealing that player that needs the fresh start. We saw the Anaheim Ducks get frustrated with the development of Trevor Zegras, and they finally traded him this offseason for Ryan Poehling and some mid-round draft picks. Given Zegras’ age, talent level, previous production and still untapped potential there was always going to be a chance the Ducks would look silly for moving him for such a low price.

That is kind of happening as Zegras has started to reach his potential for the Philadelphia Flyers. Entering play on Monday he is on pace for 30 goals and 70 total points (both of which would be career highs) and is playing some of the best hockey of his career.

It does not always work out that well for the player (or new team), but it can. There is always the chance of it. And when it does work out, they can end up coming away with a top-line player for relatively little cost.

As we approach the 2025-26 NHL Trade Deadline I see three players mentioned in trade speculation that could fit that “change of scenery” description: Seattle Kraken forward Shane Wright, New York Rangers forward Alexis Lafreniere, and Vancouver Canucks forward Elias Pettersson. I am not sure it makes a ton of sense for any of their teams to move them right now. At the very least, there should be no rush to move them just for the sake of moving them before the NHL Trade Deadline next month.

Let’s talk about them in a little more detail.

Shane Wright, Seattle Kraken

Wright’s career got off to a disappointing start when he went from being the potential No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft to the No. 4 overall pick. Still a high pick, but not where he — or anybody else, really — expected him to go.

The early returns are that at least a couple of the teams that passed on him got it right with their picks. Juraj Slafkovsky (who ended up going No. 1 overall to the Montreal Canadiens) and Logan Cooley (No. 3 overall to the Arizona Coyotes/Utah Mammoth) are both looking like legit top-line forwards.

Wright’s career, to this point, has been a little more inconsistent.

After getting a brief cup of coffee in the NHL in 2022-23 and 2023-24, he was given a real permanent role in 2024-25 and had a promising year offensively. From a traditional numbers perspective, he had 19 goals and 44 total points in 78 games as a 21-year-old rookie. On a per minute basis, he was one of Seattle’s most effective scorers during 5-on-5 play and among the top-five players in goals and points per 60 minutes.

There was a big shooting percentage spike with that, but he was at least showing signs of being a potential player for the future.

Through the first three quarters of this season, however, things have taken a step back almost entirely across the board.