The New York Rangers saw one part of a blockbuster trade on Sunday afternoon, when a point streak that lifted them back into the Eastern Conference playoff race was halted by Colorado in the final seconds.
In a three-team blockbuster NHL trade, the Carolina Hurricanes added two key forwards from Colorado and Chicago.
The Carolina Hurricanes pulled off one of the biggest in-season trades of the salary cap era this weekend, acquiring both Mikko Rantanen from the Colorado Avalanche and Taylor Hall from the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Carolina Hurricanes have quickly become a team to watch on the market ahead of the March 7 NHL Trade Deadline.
Welcome to Scott Wheeler’s 2025 rankings of every NHL organization’s prospects. You can find the complete ranking and more information on the project and its criteria here, as we count down daily from No. 32 to No. 1. The series, which includes in-depth evaluations and insight from sources on nearly 500 prospects, runs from Jan. 8 to Feb. 7.
A blockbuster three-team trade involving a pair of high-scoring forwards shook up the NHL world last Friday, and the Week 17 of the 2024-25 NHL
Rantanen is one of the NHL’s top playoff performers; he ranks fourth among active players in career playoff points per game (1.25) behind Edmonton Oilers forwards Connor McDavid (1.58), Leon Draisaitl (1.46) and his now former teammate MacKinnon (1.30) and helped Colorado win the Stanley Cup in 2022.
The Hurricanes wasted no time making their major cup-chasing move. Despite the NHL Trade deadline being over a month away, Carolina added the most-significant firepower imaginable by acquiring Mikko Rantanen from the Colorado Avalanche in a complicated three-way trade involving the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Hurricanes, in their history, have never traded for an in-his-prime superstar like Mikko Rantanen. This changes everything.
The first major domino on the NHL trade market has fallen. On Jan. 24, the Colorado Avalanche dealt elite winger Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for forwards Martin Necas and Jack Drury.
New York Islanders ride three-game winning streak into Saturday night matchup versus Mikko Rantanen and the Carolina Hurricanes