NHL Insider says that we could see more 3-way trades than normal at this year's deadline

With a number of high-priced players available at this year's deadline, including Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Ryan O'Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko, just to name a few, there are almost no teams - certainly no contenders - who could afford to take on their full cap hits. This is where a broker team comes in handy.

As Seravalli points out in his article below in a hypothetical example, if the Colorado Avalanche want to make a push for Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews and involve a third team, the Avs could end up on the hook for just $2.625M of his $10.5M cap hit. How would that happen? Well, Seravalli pointed out that if Chicago retained 50% of his salary and then passed him through a team like the Anaheim Ducks and had them retain half of his remaining $5.25M salary, eating up $2.625M, he would only account for $2.625M against Colorado's cap.

The Leafs have done this multiple times in recent years, including the infamous Nick Foligno deal, where Foligno came to Toronto through San Jose, with the Leafs being on the hook for just $1.375M of Foligno's over $5M cap hit. The Buds also entered a deal as a broker in 2020, taking on $1.1M of Robin Lehner's cap hit as he passed through Toronto from Chicago en route to Vegas. The Leafs received a 5th round pick as compensation in that deal.

With so many teams so tight up against the cap, Seravalli believes we'll see a spike in these sorts of deals this season. Given the fact that the Leafs have engaged in these types of deals before, it's fairly likely that we'll see them use these types of deals again this year - especially if they end up going after a big fish.