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By the night of March 20, 2022, Nick Paul had grown weary of waiting for the noon phone call that never came. So Paul, wife Janessa and parents Ellwood and Melinda did what seems natural for a boy from Mississauga, Ontario, celebrating his 27th birthday: They went to The Keg.
The staff seated the family. They had not yet ordered when Paul’s phone rang.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my God. This is it,’” Paul recalls. “So I go outside. Get the news. I come back. It was just a big relief for my whole family. All day, we were tense.”
The Ottawa Senators had traded Paul to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Mathieu Joseph and a 2024 fourth-round pick.
As prolonged as the process became, Paul knew the trade was coming. His contract was expiring. He was scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent at year’s end. Non-playoff teams often trade such players when they can’t agree on an extension.
For players in these positions, the wait for resolution does not feel nice.
Expiring contracts encourage deals
There are 50 players on The Athletic’s trade board. Thirty-one of them are pending UFAs, including No. 1 candidate Noah Hanifin. The Calgary Flames’ left-shot defenseman is up for a new deal upon his soon-to-expire six-year, $29.7 million deal.
The Flames do not want to see Hanifin walk for nothing like Johnny Gaudreau did in 2022.
That season, Hampus Lindholm, also an all-situations left-shot defenseman, was in a similar situation as Hanifin. Lindholm’s six-year, $31.5 million was expiring. The Ducks were out of playoff contention.
Bob Murray, Lindholm’s original general manager, had resigned on Nov. 10, 2021. On Feb. 2, 2022, the Ducks hired Pat Verbeek as Murray’s permanent replacement. Verbeek did not have much time to address his UFAs-to-be — Josh Manson and Rickard Rakell were also due to hit the market — before that year’s March 21 deadline.
According to Lindholm, Verbeek informed Manson and Rakell that they would be traded. Verbeek was not as declarative with Lindholm. The new GM talked extension with Claude Lemieux, Lindholm’s agent. But Verbeek’s ceiling was five years. Lindholm wanted more security.
Their disagreement put a trade in motion.
“It was kind of clear to me that me, Manson and Rakell were going to get dealt,” Lindholm says. “Those two, I know he told them earlier he was going to deal them. I know he wanted to sign me. But he wanted to sign me on his terms. That’s why it didn’t really work out.”
For several weeks, Lindholm played and waited. He did not necessarily want to get traded. The Ducks had drafted him No. 6 overall in 2012. He enjoyed Southern California life. The most stressful part of the process, however, was the uncertainty of his destination, especially being a lifelong Duck. Lindholm did not have no-trade protection.
“Teams are going to do what’s in their best interest. That’s just how it works,” Lindholm says. “They’re not going to do you a favor. It’s going to be something they feel they’re benefiting from. That’s the hard part of it. If you’re going to get dealt, it’s not like, ‘OK, I want to go to those teams. Can you please do this for me?’ It doesn’t really work that way.”
Manson was the first to go. On March 14, Verbeek traded the right-shot defenseman to the Colorado Avalanche for a 2023 second-rounder and Drew Helleson.
Five days later, Lindholm was moved to the Boston Bruins for a 2022 first-rounder, second-round picks in 2023 and 2024, Urho Vaakanainen and John Moore. On March 20, Verbeek traded Rakell to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a 2022 second-rounder, Zach Aston-Reese, Calle Clang and Dominik Simon.
That same day, Lindholm signed an eight-year, $52 million contract with his new team. It included no-move…
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