Reunion tours are all the rage in popular music and here’s a confession: I love them. In my experience, they rarely disappoint. Seeing Fleetwood Mac in 2019, with Mike Campbell and Neil Finn aboard and Lindsay Buckingham absent? Sure, it’s not the same as the 1980 tour, but it was still great. Just different.
I was thinking of reunions in the context of the NHL trade deadline and how rarely NHL teams reunite players with past histories of success. Maybe they should try harder. In that context, here are five potential trade scenarios where players would benefit greatly from getting the band back together.
From the Blackhawks to the Rangers to play alongside Artemi Panarin.
Artemi Panarin signed with Chicago as a free agent in May 2015, after a 62-points-in-54 games season in the KHL with St. Petersburg, so he was a 25-year-old rookie in 2015-16 when he and Patrick Kane developed such great immediate chemistry with the Blackhawks. Panarin won the Calder Trophy, edging among others Connor McDavid, by finishing ninth in the overall scoring race. Kane, meanwhile, ran away with the title that season, scoring 106 points. Second-place finisher Jamie Benn had 89. Kane described his partnership with Panarin as “how hockey should be played” and said that despite the language barrier, they figured it out “on the go” and ultimately developed the most “instinctive” chemistry he’s had. ever had with anyone in his career.
Ultimately, they combined for 346 points in two seasons before Chicago traded Panarin to Columbus. Panarin subsequently left to sign with the Rangers as a UFA and remains an elite-level player. Kane’s production has slipped during the Blackhawks’ restructuring and there is a suspicion he isn’t 100 percent healthy either. But the Rangers have a clear need for an established RW2 and the possibility of winning another championship in the bright lights of the big city could get Kane re-energized. Just in case anyone’s forgotten, Kane also has 132 career playoff points in 136 career NHL playoff games. Panarin understandably would be thrilled to see his old running mate in the fold.
From the Blues to the Avalanche.
The Avalanche drafted Ryan O’Reilly in 2009. O’Reilly had six productive years for the Avalanche but always seemed to be in a contract dispute with them – and once signed an offer sheet with Calgary that was subsequently matched by the Avs. That paved his way out of town to Buffalo who eventually traded him to St. Louis, where he was the MVP of the Blues’ 2019 Stanley Cup-winning team.
Colorado, meanwhile, won the Stanley Cup in 2022 and an important piece of the puzzle, beyond Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, was the work of Nazem Kadri as their second-line center. Alas, Kadri was a cap casualty this offseason and for the first half, the Avs have been auditioning replacements for him as the 2C. So far, JT Compher seems to be the best fit. O’Reilly, meanwhile, is on injured reserve in St. Louis, although the expectation is that he’ll be healthy again ahead of the trade deadline, which means he could well be integrated into the lineup by the time the Avs start their Stanley Cup defense.
O’Reilly has a winning pedigree. He turns 32 in early February and is obviously not the same player he was during the Blues’ Stanley Cup run. It’ll be almost eight years between the time the Avs traded O’Reilly away and this year’s trade deadline – more than enough time for old wounds to heal. And while O’Reilly’s fellow pending UFA Bo Horvat would provide a greater current impact for the Avalanche, Horvat is going to be far pricier and maybe more than Colorado can afford. A more cost-effective add would be O’Reilly, whose smarts and savvy would flesh out a lineup that will eventually also see Gabe Landeskog and Val Nichushkin return from injury. The Avs still need to finish in a playoff spot – they are on the bubble right now – but assuming they get that sorted out, there is probably no one better than O’Reilly to seamlessly slide into that spot vacated by Kadri at a price the Avs might be willing to pay.
From the Flyers to the Blue Jackets to play alongside Johnny Gaudreau.
Kevin Hayes is the Flyers’ No. 1 center, with 37 points in his first 42 games — decent production on a team destined to finish in the bottom third of the NHL standings. John Tortorella, in his first season as the Flyers’ coach, hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with Hayes and last month made him a healthy scratch, the sort of message-sending you see all the time from a hardline coach. trying to extract a more complete game from a player.
Hayes played four seasons at Boston College, and in the final three years, he and Johnny Gaudreau were dynamic teammates. In their last year together, 2013-14, Hayes scored 65 points in 40 games; Gaudreau, 80 in 40 games. Following that season, they went their separate ways; Hayes joined the Rangers (after being drafted by Chicago) and Gaudreau went to Calgary.
This past summer, Gaudreau left Calgary to sign with Columbus as a free agent. He’s under contract until 2028-29. On a Columbus team going nowhere, Gaudreau has played well, although there have been a variety of different centers deployed there – from the veteran Boone Jenner to some of the youngsters coming through the system. Eventually, maybe one of them settles in as Gaudreau’s center. Alternatively, they could trade for Hayes and reunite the BC products, which would buy time for the Blue Jackets’ youngsters to find their NHL stride. Columbus and Philadelphia have a history of making trades and there’s even a precedent for a reunion here in Jakub Voracek, who started with the Jackets, went to Philly, and then returned this year in the Cam Atkinson trade. Hayes signed a seven-year, $50 million contract with the Flyers back in June 2019. This is Year 4 of the deal. The first three years, Hayes had a full no-move. It has evolved into a modified no-trade this year and for the three remaining years until the contract expires in 2025-26. If Columbus were to take on all of Hayes’ contract, they would likely get him practically for free because Philly would love nothing better than to unload that deal. If Philly were to eat some contract, you would likely have to compensate them for doing so. But still – Gaudreau and Hayes together again. It’d make both happy and motivated. Why not?
Jack Campbell with the Kings in 2019. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
Trading places in Edmonton and Los Angeles.
Work with me on this one. Jack Campbell, 31, landed in the Kings organization in a minor-league trade in the 2016-17 season. That year, Campbell played 52 games for the Kings’ AHL affiliate and was able to rebuild his game. Cal Petersen, meanwhile, signed with the Kings as a free agent in 2018. During the 2018-19, Campbell played 31 NHL games for the Kings and Petersen made his NHL debut, getting into 11 NHL games, performing respectably (.924 SP, 2.61 GAA).
In effect, the Kings were developing two candidates to potentially replace Quick, as Quick aged out. Ultimately, they decided Petersen had the greater upside and as a result, traded Campbell to Toronto, where he had a series of up-and-down moments with the Maple Leafs before landing in Edmonton this past summer as an unrestricted free agent, signing a Five-year, $25 million contract.
Petersen signed a three-year extension with the Kings that kicked in this season, worth $15 million. The AAV is identical. The term isn’t – Campbell has two more years on his contract. Both players have been overwhelming underachievers this year. Campbell lost the starting job in Edmonton to Stuart Skinner. Petersen fell even further – he’s back in the AHL trying to rediscover his form. In the meantime, Pheonix Copley has taken advantage of the opportunity for regular NHL duty and essentially worked his way – for now – into the starter’s role in Los Angeles.
This feels like the goalie version of James Neal-for-Milan Lucic. Neither player has any real value as a trade chip; in fact, they both have negative value because their contracts don’t justify current performance levels. It would be a provocative exchange and require a leap of faith from both sides – that a change of scenery, a fresh start, a new goalie coaching voice, something – could get both players back to the levels they were at when they earned those $5 million per season contracts in the first place. It’s possible that sticking with the status quo, and hoping the solution comes internally, gets one or both back on track. Or maybe the answer for Campbell is getting back to the team where he found his NHL footing in the first place.
Together again after a successful partnership in Florida.
In the 2020-21 season, Sam Bennett asked the Flames to trade him. In April of that year, they were finally able to oblige him. Calgary received a second-round draft pick, plus prospect Emil Heineman in exchange. Bennett went to Florida and was an overnight sensation, playing five-on-five minutes on the second line with Huberdeau. He had 15 points in 10 games for Florida following the trade and then contributed a career-high 28 goals last season, largely because of Huberdeau’s playmaking.
This past summer, the Panthers traded Huberdeau to Calgary in the Matthew Tkachuk blockbuster. Without Huberdeau getting him the puck, Bennett’s numbers have slipped – nine goals in his first 42 games. Without Bennett accepting those passes (and not playing with the great Aleksander Barkov on the PP), Huberdeau’s numbers have dropped precipitously as well. When Huberdeau signed an eight-year contract extension last year with Calgary, it didn’t seem too unreasonable to offer $10.5 million a year for a player who was second in the NHL in scoring last year with 115 points. It does seem pricey today, with Huberdeau on pace to score about half that this year.
Now, even in this make-believe world, there is no scenario on earth in which Bennett would want to return to Calgary, or for that matter, Huberdeau goes back to Florida. In order to reunite the pair, they’d need a third party. Like Montreal. The Canadiens were said to be interested in Huberdeau as a possible UFA signing in July 2023 – or before he inked that extension with Calgary. There’s no reason to think there wouldn’t be interest there again. Montreal, meanwhile, owns Florida’s first-rounder in 2023, thanks to the Ben Chiarot deal. Theoretically, they could go out and acquire Bennett by sending that pick back and then add Huberdeau if Calgary were to take a Josh Anderson or a Brendan Gallagher contract back. Understandably, injuries color their respective values. But Calgary would then get out from under an $84 million commitment to Huberdeau and add the sort of heavy player (Anderson) or energy bunny type (Gallagher) that coach Darryl Sutter approves of. Montreal, meanwhile, gets an instant second line to support Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield.
(Top photo of Artemi Panarin and Patrick Kane: Bill Smith / NHLI via Getty Images)
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