Friday, March 3 marks this year's NHL trade deadline.
Joonas Korpisalo is a pending unrestricted free agent after this season, and his name has been discussed in several trade rumors.
"I think the Leafs are most intrigued by Korpisalo.." @frank_seravalli on the latest DFO Rundown with @JasonGregor
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The best trade target for the #LeafsForever to go after is _____? Delivered by @DoorDash
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In 23 games this season, the 28-year-old Korpisalo has posted an 8-9-3 record, a 3.35 GAA, .906 SV%, and according to moneypuck.com, he's registered 3.1 goals saved above expected, which ranks 29th in the NHL.
Korpisalo's contract carries a $1.8M cap hit, per capfriendly.com, so if a team does indeed trade for him, it will not be a difficult cap crunch to fit him in, unlike other players who may be on the move.
With that being said, let's take a look a past trade deadline deals involving goaltenders.
Past Deadline Deals
March 21, 2022, was last season's trade deadline. On that day, the Minnesota Wild acquired 37-year-old pending UFA Marc-Andre Fleury (.908 SV% in 45 GP to that point) from the Blackhawks in exchange for a conditional second-round pick in 2022. In the trade, Chicago retained half of Fleury's $7M cap hit. After the season, the Wild and Fleury agreed to a two-year contract with a $3.5M cap hit.
On February 24, 2020, the Blackhawks sent 28-year-old pending UFA Robin Lehner (.918 SV% in 33 GP to that point) to the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for Malcolm Subban, the signing rights to Stanislav Demin, and a 2020 second-round pick. The Toronto Maple Leafs were also involved in this trade, as they technically acquired Lehner from Chicago who retained half his $5M cap hit, and then retained 44% of the remaining cap hit before sending him to Vegas. The Golden Knights also received the signing rights to Martins Dzierkals and the Maple Leafs received a fifth-round pick in 2020. After the 2019-20 season, the Golden Knights and Lehner agreed to a five-year deal with a $5M cap hit.
These are the two deadline deals over the last seven years that are similar to Korpisalo's situation. There were other deadline deals for goalies, but they were either younger with different contract situations or were not of the same caliber as Korpisalo.
Korpisalo has had a bounce-back campaign this season and will certainly be talked about more as we get closer to the deadline.
