5 NHL Trades Ideas For Teams Struggling Already

The first two weeks of the 2025-26 NHL season have produced some expected results and some really surprising results.

We've got your positive surprises (Pittsburgh, Detroit, Utah, Seattle) and negative surprises (Toronto, Tampa Bay, New York Rangers).

It is still very early, and there is plenty of time for things to change on both ends of that spectrum.

Here, we are going to look at some teams that have been struggling through the first two weeks and try to cook up some trade ideas that might make sense for them. Either in terms of positions or players to look to acquire, or trades they might need to make to start looking ahead to the future.

If the Boston Bruins were hoping the 2024-25 season was the outlier and the fluke, the first two weeks of the 2025-26 season can not be encouraging. They look ... rough, and already have a six-game losing streak that was finally snapped on Sunday by holding on for a win against the Colorado Avalanche.

This just isn't a particularly good team anymore, and it is lacking key pieces across many important areas.

They do not have many high-end offensive players beyond David Pastrnak; they have made some bad free-agent investments in recent years, and their farm system is still not particularly strong. They need to develop young talent in the organization and bring in more long-term assets to start reshaping the roster and the organization.

One way to do that would be moving out one of their centers, all of whom fit the same profile: pretty good, but not great; not terrible contracts, but not exactly bargains.

They have been rotating in centers over the past two years to try to replace Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, and it has resulted in them spending a lot of money and assets on different versions of the same player: Pavel Zacha. Elias Lindholm. Casey Mittelstadt.

Zacha might be the most attractive of the trade options because he is the cheapest of the three and, so far, the most productive, while already generating early-season trade interest around the league. It might be a good idea to cash in on that sooner rather than later.

James Hagens and Frazer Minten are two prospects in the system that offer some long-term hope and upside, and even if they are not ready this season, the Bruins are going to have to create some room for them at some point.

Moving Zacha could do that in the long term while also bringing back some much-needed long-term pieces. This is not just a slow start. This is simply not a very good team that needs to stop fooling itself about where it is and what it is capable of this season.

This has seemed like a matter of when, and not if, for a while now. And we might be getting closer to when.

Calgary was one of the NHL's biggest surprises a year ago, staying in the playoff race all season during a year that was supposed to be a retooling.

The Flames had spent more than a year dumping almost every marketable veteran on the roster and went into the 2024-25 season with almost no expectations.

Then they ended the regular season tied for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference, only to lose out on a tiebreaker.

Their biggest Achilles heel was the fact that they simply could not score goals, and if they had an even slightly better offense, it might have been enough to make the difference in the playoff race.

After entering the offseason, they did practically nothing to upgrade the roster or address offensive deficiencies. Now they are nine games into the season and have exactly one win.

The playoffs always seem to slip out of reach, and Andersson is a free agent after this season. It probably does not make much sense to re-sign him when they have already traded away so many other similar players over the years.

Whether it is now or closer to the trade deadline, that move has to be made to get more future assets back into the organization.

Whether or not it makes sense for the New York Rangers to go all in on this season is irrelevant. They have already decided that they are with their roster moves over the past year.

They traded the No. 12 pick in the draft and two other young players for 33-year-old J.T. Miller.

They spent big money to bring in a two-time Stanley Cup-winning head coach in Mike Sullivan.

They spent big money in free agency to sign Vladislav Gavrikov to pair him up with Adam Fox on their first defense pairing.

Everything they have done over the past year points to a team that, rightly or wrongly, believes it should be winning this season. So why would they not continue to act that way this season?

Through the first two weeks of the Sullivan era, the Rangers are not where they want to be in the standings, despite some strong underlying and possession-driving numbers under his watch.

They seem to believe that as long as they keep the same process (except for the past two games), the goals will come to them. But that is assuming an awful lot. It is assuming the current roster has enough finishing ability to turn those chances into goals.

They might not. They might simply need more talent.

They might need a trade to bring in some more scoring depth. Whether that is somebody like Alex Tuch, Nicholas Robertson, Alexander Wennberg, Pavel Zacha, or somebody else, the Rangers are going to likely need some sort of a move between now and the trade deadline.

This roster does not have the finishers to win the way it envisions itself winning, especially with Vincent Trocheck sidelined for the time being.

The Sharks are still deep into a rebuild and, despite having some impressive young talent, are a long way from serious contention.

They have just one win in eight games entering play on Sunday and have won just eight of their past 47 games since the second half of the 2024-25 season. That's not good.

They are clearly still going to be sellers going into this year's trade deadline, and Wennberg is the most obvious trade candidate on the roster.

He is also reportedly already drawing interest early in the season.

The Sharks don't have much use for him in the short-term outlook or long-term outlook, and with 2025 first-round pick Michael Misa on the roster, they could open up a roster spot to get him more playing time while also bringing back some more draft pick capital or another prospect.

Things just feel off with this Maple Leafs team. Even more so than usual.

The offseason plan to trade Mitch Marner and replace him on the roster with Mattias Maccelli, Dakota Joshua, and Nicolas Roy does not seem like a winning formula—even if breaking up the core was long overdue. You can't replace quality with quantity and expect to win.

Along with all of that, forward Nicholas Robertson remains on the trade block—as he perpetually seems to be—and we know what has happened to the Maple Leafs in the playoffs so many times over the past decade. They don't score enough goals. They didn't score enough goals with Marner. They won't score enough goals in crunch time against good teams without him. Right now, they are not doing enough early in the season.

Another top-six forward seems like it will need to be added at some point.

The best outside option might be Buffalo's Alex Tuch. The problem the Maple Leafs are going to run into is that he is a free agent after this season, and they don't have many assets to move to get him or a similar player. Their prospect pool is thin, their draft pick capital is depleted, and they do not really have a ton of salary-cap space.

This is going to take some creativity. But if the Maple Leafs intend to make the playoffs and actually do something this time around, another top-six forward feels like it needs to happen, whether it be now or closer to the trade deadline.