With less than one week until the NHL's March 1 trade deadline, the masses are getting restless.
Fans have grown accustomed to trades being rare in the salary-cap era, so we spend practically the entire hockey season looking forward to spring's regular-season deadline and the summer week between the draft and the beginning of free agency—the two times of year when all the action comes down.
This season, two additional forces are making the trade deadline murkier than ever.
The first is June's expansion draft to stock the Vegas Golden Knights. That has left general managers wondering how the trades they make today will impact their lists of protected and exposed players later this spring.