Culture

NHL trade matchmaker: Predicting where top targets go by the deadline, part 2

Published

1 year ago

December 28, 2024

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)

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Culture

Video: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

Published

2 weeks ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

Video: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

new video loaded: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

To capture Jane Austen’s brief life and enormous impact, editors at The New York Times Book Review assembled a sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness she has brought to our lives.

By Jennifer Harlan, Sadie Stein, Claire Hogan, Laura Salaberry and Edward Vega

December 18, 2025

Culture

Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

Published

3 weeks ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.

Culture

Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

Published

3 weeks ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.

Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”

With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”

How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.

By ‘A Lady’

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)

Where the Magic Happened

Janice Chung for The New York Times

Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.

An Iconic Accessory

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.

Austen Onscreen

Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.

Jane Goes X-Rated

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.

A Lady Unmasked

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”

Wearable Tributes

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.

The Austen Literary Universe

Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)

A Botanical Homage

Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.

Aunt Jane

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.

Cultural Currency

Steve Parsons/Associated Press

In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.

In the Trenches

During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”

Baby Janes

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.

The Austen Industrial Complex

Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.

Around the Globe

Goucher College Special Collections & Archives, Alberta H. and Henry G. Burke Collection; via The Morgan Library & Museum

Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.

Playable Persuasions

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.

#SoJaneAusten

The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.

Bonnets Fit for a Bennett

Peter Flude for The New York Times

For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.

Most Ardently, Jane

The Morgan Library & Museum

Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”

Stage and Sensibility

Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.

Austen 101

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”