Both the Stars and Flames are in for some serious evaluation -- in Dallas, it starts in the front office; in Calgary with a veteran roster that may require turning iconic captain Jarome Iginla into trade bait. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

While everyone is talking playoff matchups and predicting the number of stitches that doctors will need to close the combined wounds of the Penguins and Flyers, there are 14 other clubs who are packing up for the summer and planning for next season. Here’s a roundup of the NHL’s also-rans and what might be in store for them during the offseason. We’ll start at the bottom of the league and work our way up.

Columbus – Yes, the Blue Jackets won seven of their last 11 games and ownership continues to back the hockey department, but the team’s dreadful start when so much was expected, its last place finish, the coaching change, the fan protest, and the Rick Nash mess all made for a dreadful season. The future of interim coach Todd Richards is uncertain, but the huge question mark is Nash’s fate. If he is traded — which is widely expected — what will embattled GM Scott Howson get in return? Will it be enough to reverse this club’s direction and win back the many discontented fans? Michael Arace of The Columbus Dispatch summed it all up over the weekend.

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Players on at least one other NHL team are wondering why Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson treated Rick Nash as he did by revealing the star's trade request and possibly damaging his reputation as a team leader. ( Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images)

Amidst all the deals that were made leading up to the NHL deadline (including the 16 trades and two waiver claims on Monday), the ones that didn’t happen prompted the biggest reaction, causing some to declare the day boring — which it was by some standards.

But it wasn’t boring in Columbus, even though Rick Nash remains a Blue Jacket. The fallout from that will probably put more focus on that franchise than it has ever had, and not for a good reason.

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Rick Nash, at the center of this year's deadline intrigue, will not be going anywhere until the summer. (Kathy Willens/AP)

5 PM: Well, let’s try to wrap this up. Not many trades. The biggest news might be who didn’t get moved and not just Nash. Also lots of guys rumored to be moving stayed up, which speaks to our general thinking about rumors. (Cue Marvin Gaye singing “People say believe half of what you see, son, and none of what you hear” From “I Heard It Through The Grapevine.”) But the Vancouver-Buffalo deal, Hodgson for Kassian was a big one, and because the players are so young, it may have reverberations for seasons to come.

We’ll let the dust settle here and take a look at this whole thing tomorrow here on Red Light and see what has changed, what hasn’t and what it might mean. Thanks for hanging with us, and lots of you did. It was fun.

4:46 PM: New NYR defenseman/forward/pugalist John Scott says (per Chris Kuc of the Chicago Tribune tweet). “I thought I’d be the last person to get traded. I’m excited to go to New York but also sad to leave Chicago. I just had a baby a couple of months ago. It will be tough to pack up and leave everything.”

4:44 PM: NHLN’s E.J. Hradek tweets, “Howson comment likely spurred by the Saturday remarks by Nash agent Joe Resnick, which was an effort 2 squeeze the team into making deal now”

4:42 PM: SI’s Sarah Kwak tweets, “Howson admitting Nash asked for trade opens up more options for trade later. Nash won’t nix very much to get outta there now.”

4:32 PM: Quite a statement by Scott Howson that Rick Nash asked to be traded. Never heard that before, in fact, the thinking was Nash would never make that request. Now Nash has to be captain of a team that he wanted to leave? Jeez, that’s not a good situation.

4:29 PM: For Red Wings fans, George Malik of Kukla’s Korner linked to GM Ken Holland interview http://dlvr.it/1FlmRy

4:25 PM: Howson won’t say how many teams made offers for Nash, only that he had “substantial” discussions today. “The price was high. I don’t apologize for that. It had to be high.”

4:21 PM: Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson addressing media says they made big steps this week. Regarding Nash, he had approached the CBJ to consider trading him. Howson said what was offered was not in team’s best interest. “We will continue to keep all our options open to improve our hockey club in the coming months.”

4:19 PM: Pittsburgh GM Shero: “We were not active today. Nobody going, nobody coming. Our roster is our roster going forward”

4:15 PM: Chicago GM Stan Bowman on Oduya: “His style really fits in with what we do here.”

4:14 PM: From Mike Farber: “The Winnipeg Jets took a piece off their roster in D-man Johnny Oduya, but he is able to walk as a UFA after the season. Great pick-up of a pair of draft choices. Winnipeg is in a unique position. The Jets are playing with house money. Maybe they make the playoffs. Maybe not. But in either case, they gave added nicely to their inventory. “

4:10 PM You can’t discount the fact that the deals that have been made earlier this month have had an impact. Nor can you dismiss the ongoing importance of the salary cap in keeping some teams from making deals, and the financial restrictions other teams have.

4:08 PM: Plus, some teams did make some very interesting moves that change their team going forward. And more will be done around the draft.

4:04 PM:  There are 14 trades confirmed so far today, certainly less than some of the crazier days in the last few years. Lots of talk that the day is overhyped (Jay Feaster just said that in his press conf. and Brian Burke has implied it as well), that there are too many teams asking for unrealisitic prices, over valuing players, which is why the deals don’t get made. But it’s also about parity in the league, GMs not wanting to break up the chemistry on their teams.

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Jeff Carter scored 15 goals with 10 assists in 39 games for the Blue Jackets. (Matt Pearce/Icon SMI)

There have been few trades consummated as the NHL approaches the trade deadline and none involving players who could be considered top-end talent. But the Thursday evening swap between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Los Angeles Kings — in which the Kings gave up defenseman Jack Johnson, a former third overall draft pick, and a future first-round pick in exchange for another former first-round pick, Jeff Carter — marked a deal involving big names that could kick start more movement as the Monday deadline approaches.

“This isn’t a rental. This isn’t your classic trade deadline deal,” Kings GM Dean Lombardi said Thursday night. “This is a good young player for a good young player. This is a hockey deal.”

It’s a deal that theoretically helps both teams. The Kings, who have won once in their last seven games and twice in their last 10, are fighting for their playoff lives after many believed they’d be a Stanley Cup contender this year. They are the worst scoring team in the NHL, averaging only 2.05 goals a game, which is low by historic proportions. They’ve been shut out three times this month and held to one goal four other times. In Carter, they get a forward who has three times topped the 30-goal mark when he played for the Flyers and in 2008-09 hit for 46.

He’s got good size, is an excellent skater with a hard shot and has the ability to play either wing or center and kill penalties. The Blue Jackets acquired him to be the center they’ve never had for Rick Nash, their excellent winger, who has been the subject of the most trade speculation the last few weeks. But the chemistry wasn’t right. Carter is not a distributor of the puck as much as he’s a sniper himself. If he produces, he’ll be a big asset for the Kings.

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The face of the Blue Jackets, Rick Nash could turn a strong team into a surefire Stanley Cup contender. (John Grieshop/Getty Images)

If Rick Nash is traded during the next two weeks, it would likely be the single biggest deal of the deadline period. It’s tough to imagine a player with more potential impact changing places.

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Blue Jackets fans have had little to cheer since the team's first season in 2000-01. (Terry Gilliam/AP)

As this unusually calamitous NHL season pauses for a few days, the bleary eyes of the hockey world will try to focus on the big All-Star Weekend party in Ottawa. But about 650 miles to the southwest, a much smaller hockey gathering on Saturday will be less jovial. In fact, it will be somewhat angry.

In front of Nationwide Arena in Columbus, perhaps a few hundred fans will gather to protest the state of the Blue Jackets, the league’s worst team and a franchise that has never really achieved much of anything. They want team president Mike Priest and GM Scott Howson replaced — things that owner John P. McConnell told Aaron Portzline of The Columbus Dispatch in Friday’s edition he is not contemplating — and they want a fresh start for a team that had only 13 wins in 49 games before the break. This stands to become the Blue Jackets’ worst season yet.

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Like so much that has gone wrong for the Blue Jackets throughout their history, adding Jeff Carter (left) to help set up sniper Rick Nash (right) has turned out to be a miserable failure. (Photo by Terry Gilliam/AP)

It seemed as if the electrician arrived shortly after the Blue Jackets’ lost 7-4 to the no longer mighty Ducks on Sunday to fix the lightbulb over GM Scott Howson’s head. When it went on at last, a bright idea arrived: It was time to fire the coach of the NHL’s 30th-best team.

The truth is, the Jackets aren’t exactly swimming in money and they didn’t relish the thought of having to pay yet another coach not to coach. Further to Howson’s credit, he was loyal to Scott Arniel, his hand-picked selection, for longer than anybody expected. Arniel might well have what it takes to be a good bench boss — the players never quit on him – but Scotty Bowman couldn’t turn this impoverished group into winners. That task now falls to Arniel’s former assistant, Todd Richards, who had been head coach of the Minnesota Wild for the last couple of years while not getting them to the playoffs either time.

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Ex-Penguins favorite Jaromir Jagr is stunned by the level of animosity that Pittsburgh fans have for him. (Cliff Welch/Icon SMI)

With cameras everywhere, especially from HBO, the Flyers play their biggest rival on Thursday night in Pittsburgh. It will be the first trip back in the hated orange and black for two notable ex-Penguins, Max Talbot and Jaromir Jagr.

The welcome for Jagr likely won’t be any friendlier than it was when he returned with the Capitals and Rangers. He was loudly booed in the city where he began his career and once ranked second only to Mario Lemieux in adoration. In fact, the fans’ hostility might be more amped considering that Jagr flirted with signing with Pittsburgh last summer before reaching a deal with Philly.

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The Red Wings have long wanted to move east, but losing the gate attraction of Detroit's stars and excellent teams would be a huge financial blow to Western franchises. (Andrew Weber-US PRESSWIRE)

As the NHL Board of Governors meets today in Pebble Beach (the Govs never meet in garden spots like Bismarck, ND, or Gary, IN, or Trenton, NJ, do they?), it will have two crucial items on the agenda: realignment and the collective bargaining agreement.

We discussed some issues related to the CBA on Friday, so let’s look at realignment today.

UPDATE: The Board approved the proposal for a four-conference league on Monday evening, based primarily on geography. Two conferences will have eight teams and the other two conferences will have seven teams. When passing the proposal, the Board authorized Bettman to get input from the NHLPA prior to implementing it.
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Ken Hitchcock is a Stanley Cup-winning taskmaster expected to whip the underachieving Blues into shape. (Jeff Roberson/AP Photos)

Sunday evening, the axe fell for the first time this season on an NHL coach: Davis Payne, who told Jeremy Rutherford of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch the move was “shocking and disappointing.” Other than Payne, not very many people were shocked because the only disappointing thing was his Blues’ record (6-7-0). The bigger surprise to some is that Ken Hitchcock has replaced Payne, because the NHL rumor wire — which has only a fleeting relationship with fact — had Hitchcock resuming his old job as coach of the Blue Jackets.
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