Culture
NHL trade matchmaker: Predicting where top targets go by the deadline, part 2
We are now exactly 10 weeks away from the NHL’s March 7 trade deadline.
That leaves enough runway for the needs of buyers and sellers to shift before the biggest decisions are made — or for buyers and sellers to switch places. But in a season where there’s already been plenty of trade action, it’s not too soon to try to find some fits between teams and players available on our latest NHL trade big board.
With that in mind, here’s part two of trade-board matchmaker.
GO DEEPER
NHL trade matchmaker: LeBrun and Johnston predict where top targets go by the deadline, part 1
Team: San Jose Sharks
Position: F
Shoots: L
Age: 32
Contract term: 2025 UFA
AAV: $5 million
LeBrun: Vegas Golden Knights
The 32-year-old Granlund leads the Sharks in scoring and is on pace for a career high in points. He’s meant a lot to San Jose off the ice, too, as far as his leadership and influence around the youngsters. He also likes it there. All of which is to say, it’s not a slam dunk he gets dealt before the deadline just because he’s a pending unrestricted free agent. The expectation is that Granlund’s agents, Todd Diamond and Mark Gandler, will have a discussion in the new year with Sharks general manager Mike Grier. But the team will need to balance any potential extension with the kind of offers it’ll get on the trade market, and there will certainly be some. Granlund’s versatility of being able to play all three forward positions with comfort will appeal to contenders. He may also augment his trade value depending on his performance under the spotlight playing for Finland in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February. Looking into my matchmaker crystal ball, let’s make him a Vegas Golden Knight. The Sharks and Knights got together on a trade deadline deal a year ago involving Tomas Hertl. Keeping in mind Granlund’s versatility and the unfortunate reality of always being concerned about Mark Stone’s health, I like the idea for Vegas of adding this kind of depth.
Johnston: Minnesota Wild
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Granlund was a first-round pick by the Wild who spent seven seasons playing for the organization. Still, wouldn’t it be a nice homecoming story? Minnesota could really use a forward who can toggle between center and wing while chipping in with some offense. Granlund ticks all of those boxes and should come with an added level of comfort given his familiarity with the organization. The cap aspect will need to be worked out since San Jose doesn’t have any retention spots still open and Minnesota has some added challenges while operating in long-term injured reserve, but those aren’t big enough hurdles to keep this from happening.
Team: Philadelphia Flyers
Position: D
Shoots: R
Age: 30
Contract term: 2027 UFA
AAV: $5.1 million
LeBrun: Winnipeg Jets
It wasn’t too long ago that Ristolainen’s contract scared teams, but it’s funny what happens with a 20-minute-a-night, top-four defenseman finds his game more consistently, as he has this season. Suddenly, with the salary cap going up, a $5.1 million cap hit for the next two and a half years isn’t so bad at all. That’s why league sources say the Flyers have indeed received calls this season asking if they would be willing to move Ristolainen. The answer from the Flyers is yes — if there’s a certain price met. They would want a good prospect or young player in return or a combination of a prospect and a pick. And while trading for a player with term on his contract isn’t your typical deadline deal since most contenders prefer rentals, I can see it appealing to a few teams. For example, the Jets. I’d like to see the Jets add the kind of size on the right side of their defense that Ristolainen would bring. And after giving up a first-round pick last season for rental Sean Monahan only to see him leave July 1, and keeping in mind how difficult it is for the Jets to attract free agents to Winnipeg, I like the idea of acquiring a player under contract. So there you have it, I’ve got the Cup-contending Jets taking on Ristolainen.
Could Rasmus Ristolainen end up in the Central Division? (Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)
Johnston: Dallas Stars
The Stars made a big splash by acquiring Chris Tanev ahead of last year’s deadline but were unable to retain him in free agency over the summer. They haven’t yet filled that hole on the right side of their blue line. The term remaining on Ristolainen’s contract fits in with the Stars’ win-now window, and the improvements in his game should hold appeal given how few defensive stoppers are expected to be available in the marketplace. Depth is essential for any team gearing up for a long spring, and Dallas is all in on trying to win the Stanley Cup.
Team: Chicago Blackhawks
Position: F
Shoots: L
Age: 33
Contract term: 2025 UFA
AAV: $6 million
LeBrun: Utah HC
The Blackhawks actually haven’t committed yet to trading Hall, although given where they are in the standings, one would imagine that’s the most logical course of action for the veteran pending unrestricted free agent. It hasn’t been the best of seasons for the 33-year-old winger, but something tells me that a move to a Cup contender might ignite a little flash from the former Hart Trophy winner. He’s always been one of the smartest players in the league. The hockey IQ hasn’t dulled even if the skating has slowed down a little. If the Hawks are willing to eat some of Hall’s $6 million cap hit, there’s no question in my mind there will be a market for him. Hall has a modified no-trade clause, so his agent, Darren Ferris, could have a role in helping the Hawks find a suitor. So hear me out here: Utah HC as a buyer! This is only realistic in a world in which Utah stays in the race in the second half. They could use a little more offense. Hall has some brand-name cache that would be fun to bring into the NHL’s newest market, and Utah has plenty of cap room, plus a strong desire to stay in the playoff chase.
Johnston: Colorado Avalanche
The Avs are one of the few top teams who could make room for Hall in their top six, which is likely where a player with his skill set needs to play in order to be most effective. The continued uncertainty around Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog, who has gone more than two and a half years without playing while recovering from a cartilage transplant in his right knee, makes the need for another left winger more pronounced. Hall may not skate at the same level as earlier in his career, but he’s still faster than average and could hold his own alongside Nathan MacKinnon in top-line duty if needed. At minimum, he would give the Avalanche more lineup flexibility than they enjoy now. The acquisition cost also shouldn’t be too significant for a veteran player unlikely to be part of the long-term solution for the rebuilding Blackhawks.
Will Borgen
Team: New York Rangers
Position: D
Shoots: R
Age: 28
Contract term: 2025 UFA
AAV: $2.7 million
LeBrun: Florida Panthers
The Rangers just acquired Borgen, but he’s a pending unrestricted free agent and unless New York can somehow stop the bleeding and turn around its season, the Blueshirts will be sellers and open to flipping him. The 6-foot-3, 204-pound Borgen would fit nicely in South Florida. I think in many ways, pending unrestricted free agent David Savard is a more obvious fit for the Panthers given his past relationship in Columbus with Panthers general manager Bill Zito, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Florida tried for Savard if it’s looking for a rental, right-shot D with some physicality who won’t break the bank. But Borgen would be the more under-the-radar move if indeed the Rangers decide to make him available.
Will Borgen, right, has only played three games for the Rangers, but he could be on the move again. (Wendell Cruz / Imagn Images)
Johnston: Vancouver Canucks
The Canucks have struggled since losing Filip Hronek to a significant lower-body injury earlier this month, and they’re not expecting him to play again before February. That’s exposed a gaping need on the right side of the blue line that management has aggressively been trying to address. Enter Borgen, who excels in the less-celebrated parts of the game like penalty killing, which Vancouver can certainly use. The stay-at-home defender is a good skater who should be able to step into a second pairing on a team and brings the kind of size teams view as an added plus come playoff time. Borgen will have plenty of suitors ahead of the deadline, but there may not be anyone more motivated to pursue him than Vancouver.
Team: Seattle Kraken
Position: F
Shoots: L
Age: 32
Contract term: 2025 UFA
AAV: $3.5 million
LeBrun: New Jersey Devils
All signs point to the pending unrestricted free agent winger getting dealt ahead of the deadline if the Kraken aren’t in the playoff chase, which seems rather likely as of now. My understanding is there are several contenders waiting to see if/when Tanev is on the market because they want a crack at him. He brings the kind of grindy game most playoff teams are looking for. He’s an excellent penalty killer who leads Seattle in shorthanded ice time. He won’t back down from anyone. I like the Devils as a fit. They’re looking for a bottom-six boost, and I can picture Tanev finding a nice spot in that Cup-contending lineup that has no shortage of offensive talent but could use a little more sandpaper.
Johnston: Vegas Golden Knights
Vegas went into the NHL’s holiday break with the league’s best points percentage, and there’s a strong expectation it’ll be looking to beef up before the deadline yet again. In fact, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Golden Knights pursue two forwards – one with more offensive ability, and a bottom-sixer to round out other elements of the team. Tanev falls into the latter category and may end up being the strongest player with that skill set available. A high-end skater who plays the game hard, it’s not difficult to imagine him fitting in with a team accustomed to using all four lines to win.
(Photo of Mikael Granlund and Brandon Tanev: Eric Hartline / USA Today and Alika Jenner / Getty Images)
Maybe you woke up this morning haunted by the first four lines of W.H. Auden’s “The More Loving One” — or tickled by its tongue-in-cheek handling of existential dread. (Not ringing any bells? Click here to begin the Poetry Challenge).
This is a love poem. Perhaps that seems like an obvious thing to say about a poem with “Loving” in its title, but there isn’t much romance in the opening stanza.
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
Ada Limón, poet
Nonetheless, the poem soon makes clear that love is very much on its mind.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
David Sedaris, writer
The polished informality gives the impression of a decidedly cerebral speaker — someone who’s looking at love philosophically, thinking about how it works and what it means.
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Reginald Dwayne Betts, poet
Musing this way — arguing in this fashion — he stands in a long line of playful, thoughtful poetic lovers going back at least to the 16th century. He sounds a bit like Christopher Marlowe’s passionate shepherd:
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
Auden’s poem, like Marlowe’s, is written in four-beat lines:
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
Josh Radnor, actor
And it features strong end rhymes:
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Samantha Harvey, writer
These tetrameter couplets represent a long-established poetic love language. Not too serious or sappy, but with room for both earnestness and whimsy. And even for professions of the opposite of love, as in this nursery rhyme, adapted from a 17th-century epigram:
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell
The reason why I cannot tell.
But this I know and know full well
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.
There is some of this anti-love spirit in Auden’s poem too, but it mainly follows a general rule of love poetry: The person speaking is usually the more loving one.
This makes sense. To write a poem requires effort, art, inspiration. To speak in verse is to tease, to cajole, to seduce, all actions that suggest an excess of desire. That’s why it’s conventional to refer to the “I” in a poem like this as the Lover and the “you” as the Beloved. The line “Let the more loving one be me” could summarize a lot of the love poetry of the last few thousand years.
But who, in this case, is the beloved? This isn’t a poem to the stars, but about them. Or maybe a poem that uses the stars as a conceit and our complicated feelings about them as a screen for other difficult emotions.
What the stars have to do with love is a tricky question. The answer may just be that the poem assumes a relationship and then plays with the implications of its assumption.
This kind of play also has a long history. Since love is both abstract and susceptible to cliché, poets are eager to liken it to everything else under the sun: birds, bees, planets, stars, the movement of the tides and the cycle of the seasons. Andrew Marvell’s “Definition of Love,” from the 1600s, wraps its ardor in math:
As lines, so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet;
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
The literary term for this is wit. The formidable 18th-century English wordsmith Samuel Johnson defined a type of wit as “a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike.” “The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together,” he wrote; that kind of conceptual discord defines “The More Loving One.”
The second stanza is, when you think about it, a perfect non sequitur. A hypothetical, general question is asked:
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
Mary Roach, writer
The answer is a personal declaration that is moving because it doesn’t seem to apply only or primarily to stars:
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Tim Egan, writer
Does this disjunction make it easier or harder to remember? Either way, these couplets start to reveal just how curious this poem is. We might find ourselves curious about who wrote them, and whom he might have loved. Tomorrow we’ll get to know Auden and his work a little better.
Play a game to learn it by heart. Need more practice? Listen to Ada Limón, Matthew McConaughey, W.H. Auden and others recite our poem.
Question 1/6
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.
Your task today: Learn the second stanza!
Let’s start with the first couplet in this stanza. Fill in the rhyming words.
Ready for another round? Try your hand at the 2025 Poetry Challenge.
Edited by Gregory Cowles, Alicia DeSantis and Nick Donofrio. Additional editing by Emily Eakin,
Joumana Khatib, Emma Lumeij and Miguel Salazar. Design and development by Umi Syam. Additional
game design by Eden Weingart. Video editing by Meg Felling. Photo editing by Erica Ackerberg.
Illustration art direction by Tala Safie.
Illustrations by Daniel Barreto.
Text and audio recording of “The More Loving One,” by W.H. Auden, copyright © by the Estate of
W.H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. Photograph accompanying Auden recording
from Imagno/Getty Images.
Literature
Oedipa Maas from ‘The Crying of Lot 49’ (1966) by Thomas Pynchon
“The unforgettable, cartoonish protagonist of this unusually short novel is a California housewife accidentally turned private investigator and literary interpreter, and the mystery she’s attempting to solve — or, more specifically, the conspiracy she stumbles upon — is nothing less than capitalism itself,” says Ngai, 54. “As Oedipa traces connections between various crackpots, the novel highlights the peculiarly asocial sociality of postwar U.S. society, which gets figured as a network of alienations.”
Sula Peace from ‘Sula’ (1973) by Toni Morrison
“Sula arguably begins to disappear as soon as she’s introduced — despite the fact that the novel bears her name. Other characters die quickly, or are noticeably flat. This raises the politically charged question of who gets to ‘develop’ or be a protagonist in American novels and who doesn’t. The novel’s unusual character system is part of its meditation on anti-Black racism and historical violence.”
The speaker of ‘Lunch Poems’ (1964) by Frank O’Hara
“Lyric poems are fundamentally different from narrative fiction in part because they have speakers as opposed to narrators. Perhaps it’s a stretch to nominate the speaker of ‘Lunch Poems’ as a main character, but this book changed things by highlighting the centrality of queer counterpublics to U.S. culture as a whole, and by exploring the joys and risks of everyday intimacy with strangers therein.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
More in Literature
See the rest of the issue
Let’s memorize a poem! Not because it’s good for us or because we think we should, but because it’s fun, a mental challenge with a solid aesthetic reward. You can amuse yourself, impress your friends and maybe discover that your way of thinking about the world — or even, as you’ll see, the universe — has shifted a bit.
Over the next five days, we’ll look closely at a great poem by one of our favorite poets, and we’ll have games, readings and lots of encouragement to help you learn it by heart. Some of you know how this works: Last year more Times readers than we could count memorized a jaunty 18-line recap of an all-night ferry ride. (If you missed that adventure, it’s not too late to embark. The ticket is still valid.)
This time, we’re training our telescopes on W.H. Auden’s “The More Loving One” — a clever, compact meditation on love, disappointment and the night sky.
Here’s the first of its four stanzas, read for us by Matthew McConaughey:
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
Matthew McConaughey, actor and poet
In four short lines we get a brisk, cynical tour of the universe: hell and the heavens, people and animals, coldness and cruelty. Commonplace observations — that the stars are distant; that life can be dangerous — are wound into a charming, provocative insight. The tone is conversational, mixing decorum and mild profanity in a manner that makes it a pleasure to keep reading.
Here’s Tracy K. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, with the second stanza:
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Tracy K. Smith, poet
These lines abruptly shift the focus from astronomy to love, from the universal to the personal. Imagine how it would feel if the stars had massive, unrequited crushes on us! The speaker, couching his skepticism in a coy, hypothetical question, seems certain that we wouldn’t like this at all.
This certainty leads him to a remarkable confession, a moment of startling vulnerability. The poem’s title, “The More Loving One,” is restated with sweet, disarming frankness. Our friend is wearing his heart on his well-tailored sleeve.
The poem could end right there: two stanzas, point and counterpoint, about how we appreciate the stars in spite of their indifference because we would rather love than be loved.
But the third stanza takes it all back. Here’s Alison Bechdel reading it:
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Alison Bechdel, graphic novelist
The speaker downgrades his foolish devotion to qualified admiration. No sooner has he established himself as “the more loving one” than he gives us — and perhaps himself — reason to doubt his ardor. He likes the stars fine, he guesses, but not so much as to think about them when they aren’t around.
The fourth and final stanza, read by Yiyun Li, takes this disenchantment even further:
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
Yiyun Li, author
Wounded defiance gives way to a more rueful, resigned state of mind. If the universe were to snuff out its lights entirely, the speaker reckons he would find beauty in the void. A starless sky would make him just as happy.
Though perhaps, like so many spurned lovers before and after, he protests a little too much. Every fan of popular music knows that a song about how you don’t care that your baby left you is usually saying the opposite.
The last line puts a brave face on heartbreak.
So there you have it. In just 16 lines, this poem manages to be somber and funny, transparent and elusive. But there’s more to it than that. There is, for one thing, a voice — a thinking, feeling person behind those lines.
When he wrote “The More Loving One,” in the 1950s, Wystan Hugh Auden was among the most beloved writers in the English-speaking world. Before this week is over there will be more to say about Auden, but like most poets he would have preferred that we give our primary attention to the poem.
Its structure is straightforward and ingenious. Each of the four stanzas is virtually a poem unto itself — a complete thought expressed in one or two sentences tied up in a neat pair of couplets. Every quatrain is a concise, witty observation: what literary scholars call an epigram.
This makes the work of memorization seem less daunting. We can take “The More Loving One” one epigram at a time, marvelling at how the four add up to something stranger, deeper and more complex than might first appear.
So let’s go back to the beginning and try to memorize that insouciant, knowing first stanza. Below you’ll find a game we made to get you started. Give it a shot, and come back tomorrow for more!
Play a game to learn it by heart. Need more practice? Listen to Ada Limón, Matthew McConaughey, W.H. Auden and others recite our poem.
Question 1/6
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.
Your first task: Learn the first four lines!
Let’s start with the first couplet. Fill in the rhyming words.
Monday
Love, the cosmos and everything in between, all in 16 lines.
Tuesday (Available tomorrow)
What’s love got to do with it?
Wednesday (Available April 22)
How to write about love? Be a little heartsick (and the best poet of your time).
Thursday (Available April 23)
Are we alone in the universe? Does it matter?
Friday (Available April 24)
You did it! You’re a star.
Ready for another round? Try your hand at the 2025 Poetry Challenge.
Edited by Gregory Cowles, Alicia DeSantis and Nick Donofrio. Additional editing by Emily Eakin,
Joumana Khatib, Emma Lumeij and Miguel Salazar. Design and development by Umi Syam. Additional
game design by Eden Weingart. Video editing by Meg Felling. Photo editing by Erica Ackerberg.
Illustration art direction by Tala Safie.
Illustrations by Daniel Barreto.
Text and audio recording of “The More Loving One,” by W.H. Auden, copyright © by the Estate of
W.H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. Photograph accompanying Auden recording
from Imagno/Getty Images.
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