CHICAGO -- Mike Smith was preparing for a game with the Dallas Stars at the St. Louis Blues on Feb. 26, 2008. It was NHL Trade Deadline day, and the backup goaltender had been mentioned in rumors, but he didn't think much of it.
NHL Trade Deadline can stir emotions for players, teams
Those on move, or rumored to be, face uncertainty, sometimes quick turnaround
"When you're that age, you think you're going to play for the same franchise your whole career," said the Calgary Flames goalie, who was 25 at the time. "Maybe I was naive about that at the time."
Before Smith walked into the visiting locker room he got the news: The Stars had traded him, forwards Jeff Halpern and Jussi Jokinen, and a fourth-round pick in the 2009 NHL Draft to the Tampa Bay Lightning for forward Brad Richards and goalie Johan Holmqvist. Smith went from playing for the Stars, who were bound for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, to the Lightning, who finished last in the Eastern Conference.
"When you're traded from a contender you lose a chance on the ultimate goal, which is to play in the playoffs and win the [Stanley] Cup," Smith said. "I don't think I watched much hockey that playoffs."
This season's trade deadline is Feb. 26 at 3 p.m. ET. For players linked to potential trades, this can be an emotional time. When a trade happens, it is sometimes a whirlwind.
Stars goaltender Ben Bishop has been traded leading up to the deadline three times. When the Lightning traded him to the Los Angeles Kings last season on Feb. 26, he was notified at about 6 p.m. and had to be on a flight from Tampa to Los Angeles at 9 p.m. Bishop said media members called nonstop while he was trying to pack.
"I don't think there's any other] profession in the world where someone tells you you're traded, you have to pack up your life in a matter of hours and move to a new city. And you have no choice," Bishop said with a laugh. "It's hard to describe it. You see it happen, but the fact that it's real life, that, 'Hey we have a flight for you in three hours,' and you're like, 'OK, goodbye.' You can prepare yourself but until it happens, you don't know what it's going to be like."
How much trade talk affects that player or his team depends on who you ask.
"As a coach, you live in fear of the word getting out that one of your players is available because it's a total distraction," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. "When the word is out in your [dressing] room that this guy might be moving or this guy might be moving, it is really difficult to keep the player's focus."
***[RELATED: [2017-18 NHL Trade Tracker | Complete Trade Deadline coverage]*
Bishop said, "You hear it but it's one of those things, when you go to practice or to play the game, that's the last thing on your mind. Afterward it's just dealing with having to answer questions about it, seeing it and hearing the rumors."
For Anaheim Ducks forward Antoine Vermette, it was tougher. When the Chicago Blackhawks acquired him from the Arizona Coyotes on Feb. 28, 2015, for defenseman Klas Dahlbeck and a first-round pick in the 2015 NHL Draft, his wife, Karen, was pregnant with their second daughter.
"It's a big change that will be affecting your family, so you're wondering what's going to happen," said Vermette, who won the Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks that season and celebrated at the parade June 19, one day before his daughter was born. "You want to tune it out and you say you control what you can control, and that's the reality of what you have to do. That being said, it's still a lot of unknown."
Players joining playoff-bound teams have to adjust to a new system quickly. Teams saying goodbye to a star, a leader or both, go through their own emotions.
"When a guy's leaving, the first thing I have to do is talk to the leaders and see what impact this is going to have with the rest of the group," Hitchcock said. "If it's an impact player or a guy who has a lot of emotional control of the locker room, you have to talk through that stuff because players are angry and disappointed and you have to let the feelings come out. If you don't, there'll be this void in your room where nobody's saying [anything] but everybody's thinking, and that's what you want to avoid."
Players and coaches deal with the emotions of the trade deadline in their own ways and when it passes, everyone is a little relieved, Bishop said.
"It's nice to have it over with, one way or the other," he said. "Even if you end up moving it's nice to be done with it, go to your new team and start a new chapter. And if nothing happens you can put it on the back burner and focus on hockey."
