Maybe some general managers thought it was a leap year.
That’s one theory to explain why expected buyers Edmonton, Ottawa, Calgary and Toronto let Wednesday’s 3 p.m. NHL trade deadline come and go without making much noise. Maybe they thought February had 29 days, not 28, and the March 1 deadline was actually one day later.
If so, it might have been the best thing to happen — at least for Canadian teams.
Neither Montreal nor Ottawa ended up getting Matt Duchene. Toronto acquired depth forward Eric Fehr and depth defenceman Steve Oleksy, but didn’t get a top-four defenceman.