It would appear teams missed the memo that the NHL Trade Deadline isn’t until Friday, because on Wednesday, the hot stove heated right up. After the Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars struck a deal that saw Tyler Myers head to the Lone Star State, some other teams decided they wanted in on the action.

On Wednesday afternoon, word broke via Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman that the Calgary Flames were working to send defenceman Mackenzie Weegar to the Utah Mammoth. There was a long break in between that update and more concrete news, mostly because Weegar’s contract carries a no-trade clause that Weegar needed to agree to waive in order to make the deal happen. Shortly before 5 PM, Sportsnet’s Eric Francis shared that Weegar had agreed to waive his NTC.

Weegar is in year three of an eight-year contract he signed with the Flames after coming over in the Matthew Tkachuk trade with the Florida Panthers. His contract carries a cap hit of $6.25 million. Heading back to the Flames are Olli Maatta, Jonathan Castagna, and three 2026 second-round picks. Wow.

The Flames now have eight picks in the first three rounds of this year’s NHL Draft.

Finally, the Edmonton Oilers acquired centre Jason Dickinson (hey, we know him!) along with 23-year-old Colton Dach from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for Andrew Mangiapane and a top-12 protected 2027 first round pick. Again, this one was held up because of players needing to waive no-trade clauses.

Of course, Canucks fans will remember Dickinson’s name because the club gave up a third-round pick to acquire him from the Dallas Stars, only to trade him and a second round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks to get off of his $3 million contract. Now, the Blackhawks have turned him into a first overall pick by retaining and taking back some inefficient money in the form of Mangiapane.

As an aside, I can’t remember the last time this many deals got leaked to insiders before players had actually agreed to waive their trade protection. Obivously we don’t know the exact details of each, but I can’t imagine players or their agents would be too thrilled about that information getting out before they’ve had the chance to decide whether or not they’ll waive.

This one was officially official before any insider could throw it out there: the Predators announced that they were sending defenceman Nick Blankenburg to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for a fifth-round pick.

Blankenburg, 27, has put up 21 points through 49 games with the Preds this season and adds to Colorado’s depth on the right side of their blue line.

Around the same time as the Weegar news started being shared, word broke that the Buffalo Sabres were acquiring Colton Parayko from the St. Louis Blues. TSN’s Darren Dreger reported that “part of” the return to St. Louis was prospect defenceman Radim Mrtka and a 1st round pick.

That, of course, seems like a bit of a steep price to pay for Parayko, who is 32 and still has four years left on his contract at $6.5 million annually. Buffalo clearly feels that Parayko will be the blue line reinforcement they need as they look to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since the 2010-11 season.

Like the Weegar deal, this one took a while to be announced officially because Parayko has a full no-trade clause and hasn’t agreed to waive it. And an interesting twist came later in the afternoon when St. Louis-based Jeremy Rutherford reported that “there’s been no official decision from Parayko about waiving his no-trade clause to Buffalo.”

Will this one actually get done? We’ll have to wait and see…

Be sure to check out Daily Faceoff’s 2026 NHL Trade Deadline trade tracker all week long by clicking here!

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