It’s not often that a player gets traded after being elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
In fact, to the best of my knowledge, it’s only happened twice: once in 1991 when the Minnesota North Stars traded Guy Lafleur to the Quebec Nordiques, and once on Friday when the Utah Hockey Club shipped Shea Weber’s contract to the Chicago Blackhawks.
It was Utah’s only move of the day. It also saw Aku Räty and Victor Söderström join the Blackhawks’ prospect pool, with a 2026 fifth-round pick coming Utah’s way.
“Little bit of housekeeping on our end,” Utah GM Bill Armstrong told the Deseret News just minutes after making the trade. “It helps us be able to accumulate some cap space next year and tie up a few loose ends, too.”
The “loose ends” to which he’s referring are likely Räty and Söderström. Räty, whose only NHL game was the Arizona Coyotes' final game, has taken a step backwards in his development this season. Söderström has spent the entire season in Sweden after being unable to come to terms on a contract with Utah.
As Armstrong mentioned, trading Weber’s contract frees up a little more than $7.85 million in cap space for this season and next. That, plus the existing abundance of cap space he already had, gives Armstrong the potential to add some expensive players over the summer.
Armstrong and his staff chose not to move on from any of their pending unrestricted free agents. In fact, they resigned four of them this week: Olli Määttä, Ian Cole, Alexander Kerfoot and Karel Vejmelka.
“I think it’s great confidence for the group,” Armstrong said. “Our team’s been through a lot this year with all the injuries at the start. You watch how they fight. They deserve to fight together, and that’s what they’ve earned the right to do.”
Armstrong also mentioned, as he has a few times over the last two weeks, that he did lots of his “buying” throughout the summer and the early part of the season — and seeing how much players cost at this deadline, that was probably the right move.
Between Mikhail Sergachev, John Marino, Kevin Stenlund, Määttä, Cole and a few others, it could have cost every pick in Utah’s cupboards had they acquired them all at the deadline.
When asked what Matias Maccelli’s future in Utah is, Armstrong compared him to Jaden Schwartz.
In the 2018-19 regular season, Schwartz scored just 11 goals and 36 points. But come playoff time, he turned it around and tallied 12 goals and 20 points in 26 games, and the season ended with both Schwartz and Armstrong hoisting the Stanley Cup.
“You never know,” Armstrong said. “You have to stay positive.”
