Panthers stay active at NHL trade deadline, adding goalie Vitek Vanecek

The defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers continue to be active in the lead up to the NHL trade deadline.

The Panthers acquired goaltender Vitek Vanecek on Wednesday from the San Jose Sharks for 25-year-old forward Patrick Giles, the teams announced.

The NHL deadline is Friday at 3 p.m. ET.

Vanecek gives Florida depth in net, along with Chris Driedger, behind two-time Vezina Trophy-winning starter Sergei Bobrovsky, who backstopped them to their first Cup championship in franchise history last year. The Panthers also signed Jesse Puljujarvi a month after the Finnish winger mutually terminated his contract with Pittsburgh.

Those are depth moves, and the real one Tampa Bay is responding to was the Panthers acquiring top-four defenceman Seth Jones from Chicago in a weekend blockbuster that sent goalie Spencer Knight and a first-round pick to Chicago.

The Sharks held Vanecek out of their game Tuesday night at Buffalo in preparation of trading the 29-year-old from the Czech Republic

"It's part of the business," said Sharks goaltender Alexandar Georgiev, who was traded there from Colorado for Mackenzie Blackwood earlier this season. "Unfortunately sometimes players get moved. … Hopefully it's a good opportunity for him."

The Sharks in Giles get a young player to add to their core built around No. 1 pick and rookie-of-the-year candidate Macklin Celebrini. Giles appeared in nine NHL games for the Panthers earlier this season without a point. He has mostly been with the team's American Hockey League affiliate in Charlotte, N.C.

San Jose in a corresponding roster move recalled Georgi Romanov from the Barracuda of the AHL.

The Sharks also did a little buying, acquiring 28-year-old defenceman Vincent Desharnais from the Penguins for a 2028 fifth-round pick. Desharnais, who is under contract through next season, has been traded twice in five weeks after going from Vancouver to Pittsburgh in the deal that got the Canucks Marcus Pettersson.

The goalie market ahead of the deadline remains thin outside of perhaps Anaheim's John Gibson, but other talks continue to pick up around the league. After signing pending free agent tough guy Mathieu Olivier to a six-year, $18 million US extension, Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell signalled he's open for business, to a certain extent.

"We're certainly making calls and taking calls," Waddell said. "I've said all along: We're not in the position to trade first-round picks for rental players or anything like that. If we can add around the edges, certainly we're going to try that. I'm more interested in hockey deals with maybe players that have term left on their contract. We're exploring obviously as many of those as we can."

The Blue Jackets have a handful of other pending UFAs, who Waddell does not expect to re-sign before the deadline but might keep just to help his team fight for a playoff spot.

"If I rip a guy out of this locker room right now [who is] playing a role for us on this hockey club right now, I think that's pretty devastating to our team," Waddell said. "I think it's the wrong message from my end. I think it's the wrong message to our fans, the coaches and the players."

Gourde returning to Lightning

The Tampa Bay Lightning answered the Panthers' additions with a big move of their own.

The Lightning acquired forwards Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand from Seattle in a three-team trade that also involved Detroit facilitating by retaining salary. They sent conditional 2026 and '27 first-round picks, a second-rounder this year and winger Mikey Eyssimont to the Kraken and a fifth-rounder this year to the Red Wings.

Tampa Bay also received a 2026 fifth-round pick and the rights to unsigned prospect Kyle Aucoin as part of another aggressive maneuver by two-time Cup-winning general manager Julien BriseBois, who is again bolstering his team to try to make a long playoff run.

"We're adding two players that are going to play significant minutes for us and two players that are highly competitive, have had success in the post-season in the past, have raised, have elevated their game when it matters most," BriseBois told reporters in Tampa. "They're skilled. They can play 200-foot games. They can be used in all sorts of situations."

Reacquiring Gourde, who was part of those back-to-back title teams in 2020 and '21, and adding Bjorkstrand gives coach Jon Cooper and the Lightning, currently the hottest team in the league with 10 wins in their last 12 games, some valuable depth. Gourde just returned Tuesday night from sports hernia surgery to repair an injury that caused him to miss the past two months.

The Kraken retained half of Gourde's salary and the Red Wings another quarter, so the Lightning get him at the bargain cap hit of just under $1.3 million US. The first-round picks the next two years are top-10 protected, and Seattle could receive additional compensation as a result.

"Oliver and Yanni were tremendous players for our organization who led by example on and off the ice, and I wish them all the best in their next chapter with the Lightning," Kraken GM Ron Francis said. "Decisions like these are never easy, but creating this valuable cap space and draft capital allows us to be active in improving our team moving forward."

BriseBois is glad to have Bjorkstrand, who turns 30 in April, under contract through next season and expressed optimism about also re-signing Gourde, who is back with Tampa Bay at age 33. Gourde did not choose to leave the Lightning but rather was taken by the Kraken in the expansion draft in 2021.

Of course, trading one or more first-round picks to make deadline deals has become a nearly annual tradition for BriseBois. He did so for Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman in 2020, David Savard in 2021, Brandon Hagel in 2022, and Tanner Jeannot in 2023. The Lightning don't have a first-rounder again until 2028, but BriseBois expects to be picking between 20-32 every year and has pointed out the value there is not the same as No. 1.

Plus, he'd rather be responsible for championship banners hanging from the rafters than choosing 18-year-old prospects in the draft.

"I'd rather have a lineup full of good players than a bank of a ton of draft picks because I think ultimately what we're trying to do is win hockey games," BriseBois said at his news conference. "What guides us, what drives us is trying to win a championship and that's really hard."

While the odds of the final featuring a team based in the state of Florida for a sixth consecutive year went up, the path through the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference is a difficult one.

One player who now seemingly won't be traded is Sabres winger Jordan Greenway, who re-signed for $8 million over the next two seasons.