2 Unexpected Trades In The Pacific Division In 2022-23

The Pacific Division has been all over the place this season with big underperforming teams and a tight battle for the lead all season long. This has caused some teams to make quite a few moves while others have done nearly nothing. The two trades that we are going to look at that were unexpected this season both came before the trade deadline by the Vegas Golden Knights and Vancouver Canucks.

After Jonathan Quick was moved to the Columbus Blue Jackets in the deal with the Los Angeles Kings, we knew the Blue Jackets were going to try to flip him for a quarter of his salary. What wasn't expected was that he would go to the Golden Knights even though they didn't have a veteran presence in net. With Logan Thompson not expected to be out long and Adin Hill and Laurent Brossoit healthy at the time, the thought was that they already had enough help in net. As a team that is strong defensively, maybe they thought that Quick's horrible season in LA would do a complete flip. He was good for the first couple of games until he regressed back to his norm for this season.

The second unexpected trade of the season was when a seller, the Canucks, went and acquired a skilled, young, top-four defenceman in Filip Hronek at a time when it is best to lose the rest of the way out for a higher draft pick. It's no question that the Canucks needed and will still need work done to their defence, but it came early. The likely reason it had to happen at that time was because the Detroit Red Wings may have been talking to another team to move Hronek to instead. Still, the thought was that the Canucks would wait until the offseason to add.