Why every contender in the East should be buying before the trade deadline

There’s a decent chance a six-year, sun-soaked Eastern Conference trend continues for the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Still, if you’re looking in the direction of daily sunrise, it’s easier than ever to contemplate new possibilities and the very real opening that exists for several success-starved Eastern squads.

The Tampa Bay Lightning may well be the class of the East and, if they do win three rounds and final themselves in the Stanley Cup Final, it will mark seven straight years either Tampa or the Florida Panthers represented the conference.

But the Buffalo Sabres — who’ve won three straight road games coming out of the Olympic break to further legitimize their fantastic results heading into the hiatus — pumped the Bolts 6-2 in Tampa on Saturday night. That same evening, the Montreal Canadiens topped a Washington Capitals club that eliminated them from the playoffs last spring and the New York Islanders won their fourth consecutive contest by beating the Blue Jackets in Columbus by a 4-3 count in overtime.

A day later, the Isles ran the streak to five games — thanks to super rookie Matthew Schaefer’s second two-goal showing in his past three contests — by downing the two-time defending Cup-champion Florida Panthers 5-4 and the Penguins — with Sidney Crosby relegated to spectator status — beat the wheels off the Vegas Golden Knights in Steeltown to the tune of 5-0. 

With the trade deadline set to hit on Friday, the ‘Why not us?’ chatter should be spreading throughout the upper halves of the Atlantic and Metropolitan divisions.

Five teams that did not make the playoffs last season — Buffalo, the Isles, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Boston — are currently in decent-to-strong places in terms of qualifying for the 2026 post-season. Boston is back just one year after a hard reset, but the Islanders haven’t won a round since 2021, Pittsburgh hasn’t won one since 2018, while the Wings and Sabres — as you’ve no doubt heard — have not participated in the second season since 2016 and 2011, respectively.

Now toss in the Habs, who emerged from a total rebuild ahead of schedule last season to make the playoffs and have a real shot at home-ice advantage in Round 1 this spring.

Seriously, why wouldn’t all these teams be sniffing around a buyer’s market for help, considering there’s a great chance you’d be facing a fellow up-and-coming team come April?

A big, steady third-pair guy for Buffalo and Montreal? Another guy who could put the puck in the net on Long Island? How about a monster swing for Robert Thomas by the Wings?

It all makes sense when you consider none of these teams must end the state of Florida’s Cup final streak for this spring to be judged a success. They may never say so publicly, but simply winning a playoff round — or, my goodness, a couple rounds — would represent a massive win in these markets, especially the ones in Michigan and Western New York with big-time hockey fans starved for nourishment.

And although Tampa and Carolina don’t need any kind of nudge to get in go-for-it mode, the quiet part those division-leading teams aren’t going to say out loud is, any year the path to the final doesn’t go through the Florida Panthers — losers of two more games on the weekend — is a year you should think about adding that extra piece or two to exploit the opening.

Even if their ultimate goals differ, every team in an Eastern Conference playoff slot should be looking to add.

Weekend takeaways

• Does everything we just said about the Eastern Conference also apply to the Pacific Division? Here are the top six Pacific teams by points percentage in 2026 after the division-leading Vegas Golden Knights were waxed by Pittsburgh on Sunday: Anaheim (.632); Seattle (.591); Vegas (.568); San Jose (.528); Los Angeles (.500); Edmonton (.500). With respect to an Oilers team that has gone to two straight Cup finals, who exactly is the big, bad boy in that group this year? The Ducks, Kraken and Sharks may be inexperienced, but they’ve got to feel like winning a round is absolutely in play if they can stay away from the Central Division side of the draw in the West. 

• The Kings, of course, axed coach Jim Hiller on Sunday and, after having previously dealt for Artemi Panarin, there’s a feeling of “in for a penny, in for a pound” around this club. Stay tuned; more moves that would directly alter the on-ice product in L.A. could be coming this week.

• A final Pacific note: Michael Misa, the second-overall selection in 2025, scored the overtime winner in San Jose’s 2-1 victory over Winnipeg on Sunday. That came one day after a 1-1-2 showing for the rookie in a 5-4 win over Edmonton. In all, Misa has two goals and four points in his past three outings as he appears to be hitting his NHL stride. 

Red and White Power Rankings

1. Montreal Canadiens (33-17-9) With two goals in Saturday’s 5-2 victory over Washington, Cole Caufield has 35 on the year and at least a crack at becoming the Canadiens’ first 50-goal scorer since Stephane Richer in 1989-90.

2. Ottawa Senators (29-22-8) After downing their provincial rivals 5-2 in Toronto on Saturday, the Sens head west with an outside shot of being buyers on Friday. Ottawa begins a jaunt through Western Canada and Seattle on Tuesday in Edmonton. 

3. Edmonton Oilers (29-24-8) After losing 5-4 in San Jose on Saturday, the Oilers have surrendered five or more goals in six of their past 10 outings. Their goals-against average in that run is 4.60 and the only time they allowed fewer than three in that stretch is when they held a Kings squad that just fired its coach to one goal.

4. Toronto Maple Leafs (27-24-9) Exactly how different this team looks by Saturday is unknown, but there’s no doubt change is coming now after what captain Auston Matthews called out an “embarrassing” loss on Saturday. 

5. Winnipeg Jets (23-26-10) The Jets begin an eight-game homestand on Tuesday versus Chicago. Winnipeg will play the four worst teams in the league by points percentage (Chicago, St. Louis, the Rangers and Vancouver), while also facing two of the best three in Colorado and Tampa. It seems like a pipedream, but any chance 14 of a possible 16 points gets them back in the Western Conference wild-card hunt? 

6. Calgary Flames (24-28-7) If Nazem Kadri is dealt this week, there’s a decent chance the Flames will finish the season without a 50-point guy. Kadri is on pace for 57 and the next-closest Flame to him is captain Mikael Backlund, who’s tracking a 48-point season. Twenty-six teams already have a 50-point player on their roster. 

7. Vancouver Canucks (18-34-7) No matter what happens this week, the Canucks made the biggest deal they could make this season when they dealt Quinn Hughes to Minnesota. On the rare happy note, one of the players Vancouver got in that deal — winger Liam Ohgren — scored in Saturday’s 5-1 loss to Seattle and now has two goals and four points in his past five outings. 

The week ahead

• New Kings (interim) coach D.J. Moore will jump right into the fire when his club hosts the top-of-the-table Colorado Avalanche on Monday night in L.A. That game will be Anze Kopitar’s 1,499^th in the NHL and the future Hall of Famer — in his final season — will play career game No. 1,500 on Thursday, when the Kings host the Islanders.

• Tuesday brings a heavyweight tilt in Minnesota when the Tampa Bay Lightning travel north to battle the Wild. Both teams will be looking to distance themselves from poor showings on the weekend, as Tampa was thumped by the Sabres and the Wild lost at home to lowly St. Louis on Sunday. 

• It’s an all-disappointment matchup on Wednesday in Jersey when the Leafs visit the Devils. New Jersey coach Sheldon Keefe — who knows a thing or two about both clubs — is poised to miss the playoffs for the first time in his seventh season as an NHL bench boss. 

• Speaking of the deadline, it will land at 3 p.m. ET / noon PT on Friday. Last year featured a crazy day that saw Mikko Rantanen dealt for the second time in six weeks and Brad Marchand heading to Florida in a buzzer-beater of a deal. What will this Friday bring?

• The two best teenagers in the league will battle Saturday night in San Jose when Matthew Schaefer and the Islanders visit Macklin Celebrini’s Sharks. Meanwhile, Sunday brings big Western Conference duels with the Wild in Colorado and Edmonton visiting Vegas.