Winners and Losers from Day 2 of the NHL Draft (2024)

The 2024 NHL Draft ended on Saturday with plenty of excitement, thrills and chills for everyone to enjoy.

Well, unless your favorite team didn't do anything you liked, then it was like watching a nightmare unfold in slow motion, but the draft is always a fun occasion because things like that can happen.

Not every team or player can come away with their hopes and dreams fulfilled. Plenty of teams saw players they wanted to fall into their laps while others saw them slip through their fingers. Then you've got trades and not every deal can be one where both sides look victorious.

In sports, there are winners and losers and you can have them too during NHL Draft weekend. That's what we'll determine today after a Saturday full of action. We've got some folks on top of the podium, and we have others who only wish they could've been near it in the first place.

We've got it all figured out for you, so come join us and see who came away with their heads held high and those who are just kicking the dirt in disgust.

Remember on Friday when we lamented the lack of action on the trade front after the first round of the NHL draft? Clearly, many of the general managers around the league heard our cries and decided to step up in a big way on Day 2.

A day after there were no player-for-player trades made, there were nine trades that involved current NHL players and/or the rights to them. Utah Hockey Club made a pair of them, and big ones at that, as did the hometown Vegas Golden Knights, Washington Capitals, New Jersey Devils and Tampa Bay Lightning.

The pick-for-pick trades were common, but nothing thrills a live audience like the announcement of a trade involving current players. Utah acquiring Mikhail Sergachev from Tampa Bay elicited gasps from the fans inside Sphere as did Washington acquiring Logan Thompson from the hometown Golden Knights.

The draft in itself is exciting, no doubt, but nothing gets the crowd buzzing like a juicy trade and after a sleepy first day on that front, the second day really brought the thunder.

The 2024 NHL Draft was also the big welcoming party for Utah Hockey Club and their owners Ryan and Ashley Smith. With new ownership in place of what used to be the Arizona Coyotes and how acrimonious their exit from the Phoenix area was, it made it difficult for a lot of fans to feel good about Utah joining the party.

"You can't boo us, we haven't done anything yet," owner Ryan Smith said before announcing Tij Iginla as their first draft pick.

He probably didn't hear the Coyotes fan in the stands who shouted, "You took our team," but after drafting Iginla in the first round on Day 1, they made the biggest splashes via trade on Day 2.

Utah acquired defenseman Mikhail Sergachev from the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for defenseman J.J. Moser and prospect center Connor Geekie. GM Bill Armstrong then dealt their second-round pick this year and a 2025 second-round pick to the New Jersey Devils for defenseman John Marino and a fifth-round pick.

It was known that Utah was going to be aggressive this offseason and they followed through in a big way by shoring up their defense with an absolute No. 1 defenseman in Sergachev and a solid top-four guy in Marino. Draft picks and prospects are their most abundant assets and using them to vastly improve an area of weakness is a great way to kick off summer.

One effect of the trades the Tampa Bay Lightning made sending Mikhail Sergachev to Utah and Tanner Jeannot to the Los Angeles Kings was they opened up a lot of salary cap space. Those two moves, according to Cap Friendly, helped give them $16.5 million dollars of freedom under the cap ceiling.

The thought that came to mind initially was that freed-up cap space would allow them to re-sign captain Steven Stamkos and allow him to finish out his career with the team that drafted him. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear likely.

Lightning GM Julien BriseBois said they've been trying to find common ground in negotiations with Stamkos, but what Stamkos is seeking does not match up with what they're looking to do even with the added cap space.

"Unless something changes between now and July 1, and it doesn't look like it will, we will get to July 1," BriseBois told reporters following the draft on Saturday.

It's not set in stone that Stamkos is a goner from the Lightning but allowing a superstar like Stamkos to get to July 1 and enter free agency heightens the risk that he'll leave. Allowing the rest of the league the opportunity to talk to him when the free agent market officially opens makes it a dicey proposition.

Stamkos had the chance to hit free agency back in 2016, but received an 8-year, $68 million offer with a full no-move clause from the Lightning ahead of July 1 to stay. It's never over until it's over, of course, but the vibe around all of this doesn't feel like one that ends with him returning to Tampa Bay.

Being a goalie in the NHL is already the hardest job to have in the sport. Goalies bear the brunt of everything and even if they play outstanding, they can still lose and then wind up eating all of the blame from fans. It's a harsh reality.

What's even tougher is being a goalie and having to go somewhere else all of a sudden because the team they were playing on decided they wanted a different goalie.

Look at what happened with the Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators earlier in the week with Linus Ullmark going to Ottawa for Joonas Korpisalo (and more). But sometimes the goalie gigs go wild with how they play off each other.

Like a chain reaction, Darcy Kuemper going from the Washington Capitals to the Los Angeles Kings as part of the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade gave the Capitals a need for someone to back up Charlie Lindgren. That opening was filled Saturday by acquiring Logan Thompson from Vegas.

Thompson's exit from Vegas meant the Golden Knights needed to add a goalie to their organizational pool of 'tenders.

Fortunately for them, the New Jersey Devils suddenly had a lot of goalies and not enough ice time or places for them to play after they added Jacob Markström from Calgary.

That lead to New Jersey sending 24-year-old Akira Schmid to Vegas along with Alexander Holtz for Paul Cotter and a 2025 third-round pick in one of the cheekier trades during Day 2. Not only does Vegas immediately get someone to replace Thompson, but they get a goal scorer in Holtz who was in desperate need of a fresh start.

As part of the festivities around the NHL Draft, Vegas Golden Knights goalie Logan Thompson took part in an autograph signing at Sphere where fans could meet and get all kinds of goodies signed. But a funny thing happened during the signing: Thompson was traded to the Washington Capitals.

Well, at least it was announced that he was traded to Washington at that time. The reality of the situation is much more wholesome.

Getting traded can be a traumatic experience for any player. You have to uproot your life and move to where it is you've been sent to and then get to know new teammates and coaches and get used to new styles of play. Even though it's the offseason and there aren't any games or ice time to be had until September, it's a lot to process.

Being traded seems like it would be the perfect opportunity to hide out and process everything that's going on and figure out the next steps to take for a new chapter in life. Instead, Thompson turned it into a farewell party of sorts to see the fans and thank them for their support in Vegas.

For a situation that initially seemed like it was a big losing moment, it wound up being a really proud one.