Mailbag: Impact of Olympics on trade activity; 5-forward power plays 

NHL.com's weekly Over the Boards mailbag is in full swing this season. Every week, senior writer Dan Rosen sifts through your questions sent to him on X and answers them.

To participate in future mailbags, send your questions to @drosennhl on X and use #OvertheBoards.

What do you think the trade deadline looks like if so many teams remain in the playoff mix? -- @SJimmerd20941

There will be activity leading up to the 2026 NHL Trade Deadline on March 6, which comes 12 days after the NHL Olympic roster freeze is lifted. The roster freeze goes from Feb. 4-22.

While we see a lot of teams in the playoff mix now, counting Wednesday there are still 248 games to be played before the trade deadline. That's nearly 20 percent of the season. As is the case every season, buyers and sellers will emerge over that period of time. There will be a demarcation. So, there should be an active trade deadline with New York Rangers forward Artemi Panarin, Vancouver Canucks forward Kiefer Sherwood, Calgary Flames defenseman Rasmus Andersson and forward Blake Coleman, Buffalo Sabres forward Alex Tuch, St. Louis Blues defenseman Justin Faulk and goalie Jordan Binnington, and Devils defenseman Dougie Hamilton as some of the impact players that could be on the move or at the very least, featured prominently in trade talk around the NHL.

It's fair to view Feb. 4, the beginning of the Olympic roster freeze, as a soft deadline, but it's more reasonable to consider teams interested in becoming buyers in the market wanting to wait until after the Olympics to conduct their business. They may have a player or players going to the Olympics and want to be certain those players return home healthy, leaving their plans intact. They may be interested in acquiring a player who is going to the Olympics and, similarly, want be sure he's healthy coming out of the tournament.

Where do you see Patrik Laine fitting into the Montreal Canadiens lineup upon his return from injury, which, now that he's skating, feels somewhat imminent? -- @kavanyoung

Laine's return is not imminent just because he's skating. Montreal announced on Oct. 25 that he had core muscle surgery and is expected to be out 3-4 months, which puts him in line to return later this month or early February. It's possible, if not likely, that Laine isn't ready until after the Olympic break. He is not taking any contact yet.

At this point, it's hard to determine where Laine would fit in the Canadiens lineup, if at all, when he is ready to play because there's still weeks to go before that happens. In that time, an injury or a slump could create a hole in the lineup that Laine could fit into. It could be a natural fit for a player with Laine's ability to score goals who hasn't played since Oct. 16.

However, for now the Canadiens are playing well and have solid top-nine depth on the wing with Alexandre Texier, Ivan Demidov, Brendan Gallagher, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky and Zachary Bolduc. Forwards Jake Evans, Alex Newhook and Kirby Dach are expected to return at some point. They're fairly stacked even without Laine.

Obviously, any team in need of a goal-scoring punch could find a place for Laine, including the Canadiens, but if they stay status quo, one of two things could happen when he's ready to play; he becomes available in a trade or the Canadiens keep him as an expensive depth forward.

Laine is in the last year of a four-year contract that has an $8.7 million average annual value. It's a high number that limits the teams that would be in the market for him, but GMs have been known to get creative when they want to acquire a particular player. It's unlikely the Canadiens would want to retain salary to make trading Laine more palatable for another team unless the return is good enough. The Canadiens could easily keep Laine and have him in reserve. They're in a good situation because of all the depth they've built.

After Monday night's Devils-Wild game and all the emotion behind the "Hughes Bowl" do you feel that a trade that sends Jack Hughes and Luke Hughes to Minnesota this year is possible and who would you see going back to New Jersey? I would love to see Matt Boldy and Brock Faber going to Jersey. -- @KXPriestess

I love the creativity in your question, but let's be conservative and say there's maybe a 1 percent chance that the Devils would trade both Jack Hughes and Luke Hughes to the Wild this season. There's less than a 1 percent chance that the Wild would send Boldy and Faber back to New Jersey in a trade for the Hughes brothers. I'm just spitballing on numbers, but hey, there's always a chance, right?

Look, I get that Devils fans understandably are looking for a shakeup, but moving Jack and Luke would be akin to an earthquake running through New Jersey, and moving Boldy and Faber would basically be the same in Minnesota. I live in New Jersey. We don't get earthquakes very often, though they have happened recently. Minnesota isn't exactly on a fault line either.

With due respect to the Hughes brothers since you're clearly asking this question from a Devils' fan point of view, you have to look at this from the Wild's perspective. Boldy is 24 years old, a potential 50-goal, 100-point player who is on the ice in all situations. Faber is one of the best young defensemen in the NHL. Why would they trade them? They're cornerstone players for Minnesota now and years to come.

I love the creativity in your question and the thought process, and it's understandable to think about a trade that would essentially be Jack Hughes for Boldy and Luke Hughes for Faber. But the Wild are having a strong season, and they seem to have great chemistry. They're not going to mess with that.

There's a much better chance of the Devils keeping Jack and Luke and hope that after next season, they can sign Quinn Hughes.

What do you make of several teams going on long winning streaks this season? Just a fad or did you see it coming prior to these runs? -- @MrEd315

A quick comparison shows that there have already been four winning streaks of 10 or more games this season as opposed to two in each of the past two seasons and three in 2022-23. So we can call it out of the ordinary, but I wouldn't call it a fad. The Colorado Avalanche have done it twice. They've clearly been the best team in the NHL from the start of the season. The Tampa Bay Lightning are on one of those heaters now, but it seems like a market correction for them. They had a slow start, but even then, the expectation was for them to become one of the upper echelon teams in the League. That has happened in the past few weeks. There was no way to see the Buffalo Sabres going on a 10-game winning streak based on how they were playing, but they got saves, played strong defensively, paid attention to the details of the game and, voila, look what happened.

However, the measuring stick in a league with this much parity shouldn't be double-digit win streaks. Cutting it in half and analyzing the number of winning streaks of five or more games shows this season is pretty much in line with previous seasons, give or take a bit.

Entering Tuesday, there were 19 winning streaks of five or more games this season (the Vegas Golden Knights, Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs each had four-game winning streaks entering the night). There were 17 at this point last season, 22 in 2023-24 and 20 in 2022-23. So what we're seeing is fairly normal, save for the number of double-digit win streaks, the most since there were four in 2021-22, when, by the way, there were 26 streaks of five or more consecutive wins by Jan. 14.

What are your thoughts on the five forward power plays that seem to be on the rise? Is there any statistical data that favors zero, one or two 'D' power play units? -- @WagnerHimself

I don't have any hard data to offer on the impact of power-play units that feature zero, one or two defensemen, but having watched both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Rangers try to implement a five-forward power play this season, I'll just say that I'm not a fan of it.

While putting your best five forwards on the ice at the same time with a man advantage makes sense in theory, you're also asking at least one of them to play out of position on the point, with the dual responsibility of being the quarterback and defensive conscience of the unit. You'll see short-term success in some instances, like the Los Angeles Kings had in the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Edmonton Oilers last season with Anze Kopitar, Kevin Fiala, Quinton Byfield, Adrian Kempe and Andrei Kuzmenko. Kopitar played a lot at the point. He's a two-time Selke Trophy winner as the League's best defensive forward. He can handle that role. The Toronto Maple Leafs made it work too with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, John Tavares and Matthew Knies. Marner was primarily at the point. He has been in the top-10 in Selke Trophy voting. But if you don't have that type of forward, it can be a struggle.

The Rangers tried Artemi Panarin in that spot in the absence of defenseman Adam Fox in December. It didn't go well. Panarin didn't look comfortable at all. He's a playmaker who handles the puck and moves around on the power play looking for passing and shooting lanes. He looked out of place on the blue line, far too stationary for his skillset. They then tried Mika Zibanejad in that spot thinking his shoot-first mentality would help create loose puck opportunities in the slot. But Zibanejad is better on his off wing with a one-timer than at the point. So in 14 games without Fox from Dec. 2-29 the Rangers, using primarily a five-forward first power-play unit, went 6-for-39 on the power play (15.4 percent) and also allowed four short-handed goals. Not surprisingly, with Fox out now, they have not gone back to the five-forward unit.

Toronto went to a five-forward set up again this season, but with Matthews at the point because Marner now plays for the Vegas Golden Knights. It didn't last long with Morgan Rielly going back to the top power-play unit. They were 8-0-2 and 7-for-22 on the power play in 10 games before playing the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday. That was with Rielly running the point on the power play.