NHL weekend rankings: Five reasons the deadline might not stink, the Morgan Rielly discourse, and more

We’re now less than a month away from the trade deadline, and things are looking bleak.

The top name on our most recent trade board, Elias Lindholm, has already been dealt. So has Sean Monahan, who came in at number four. Number seven was Andrei Kuzmenko, who was in the Lindholm deal.

And it gets worse from there. Trevor Zegras is injured, making it far less likely that he’s moved before the offseason. The Blackhawks, one of the few clearcut sellers, have been re-signing veterans instead of trading them. Guaranteed Cup ticket Pat Maroon is hurt. The cap is tight around the league, as always. And as Scott Wheeler has spent all week reminding us, contenders like Boston, Colorado, Toronto and Tampa Bay don’t have much in the way of prospects to move.

We’re at the point where Scoutt Laughton rumors are newsworthy. At this point, deadline day might just be 14 hours of Andrew Peeke coverage, which would presumably include pressing topics like who he is and which team he’s spent the season playing for.

So yeah, not great. But I’m an optimist, so I’m thinking it may not be as bad as it seems. Let’s use this week’s bonus top five to come up with a few reasons the deadline might not be a completely waste of time.

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