Who team should win the Conned Smythe award for worst trade with the Cup winner?

We’re down to four teams left in the playoffs, and longtime readers know what that means: It’s time to take a look at the field for one of the league’s most prestigious award, the Conned Smythe.

Yes, Conned. If you’re new to the concept, the Conned Smythe goes to the team that made the worst trade that had the biggest impact on each season’s eventual champion. Sometimes it’s a relatively obvious call, like when Flames fans watched the Panthers win Cups with Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett, or when the Avs won in 2022 and the Conned went to the Maple Leafs for handing them Nazem Kadri. Other years, there are almost too many candidates for a given team.

We want to avoid feeling overwhelmed, so it’s smart to get organized now. Here are the ten teams that are in the best shape to win this year’s Conned Smythe, based on the trades they made with the conference finalists.

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Which NHL team should win the 2025 Conned Smythe for worst trade with a contender?

With the conference finals well underway and the Stanley Cup final looming, it’s time to focus in on the top candidates for the game’s most important playoff award: The Conned Smythe.

Yes, that’s “Conned” and not “Conn”. We all know about the Conn Smythe, given to the playoff MVP. But that’s an individual award, and as we’re constantly being reminded, hockey is a team game. And the Conned Smythe is a team award. Specifically, the award that goes to the team that had the biggest impact on the playoffs by making the worst trade with a contending team.

This is a fake award I invented a few years ago, and it’s been retroactively awarded for every year of the cap era. The 2023 Golden Knights gave us a ton of strong candidates, and last year’s field was competitive. You might be wondering if this year’s contenders are just going to be a rehash of last year’s list, given three of the four finalists are the same. But with plenty of big moves in the year since, some shifting dynamics among those teams, and a “no repeat winners” rule that I basically just made up to be nice to Sabres fans, there’s actually plenty of turnover in this year’s candidates.

As always, these need to be player trades – no trading of future draft picks who turned into guys, and no waivers or free agency. We’ll count down ten candidate teams, from weakest to strongest, based on how the field looks right now.

And yes, you think you know where this is going. But it’s going to be a tougher call than you think.

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Ranking the 16 possible Stanley Cup final matchups, based purely on narratives

Once the first round of playoffs was over, we could say goodbye to eight teams. And more importantly for our purposes today, we could also say goodbye to 48 potential Stanley Cup finals.

Sorry, anyone hoping for Blues vs. Canadiens in a rematch of the 1969 final, or Kings vs. Senators in a re-litigation of the Dion Phaneuf trade. Losing half of our playoff teams means we lose three-quarters of our possible final combinations – thanks, math – bringing us down to a manageable 16. Gosh, that almost feels like the right number for a ranking.

To be clear, we’re going to be going from the worst possible matchup to the best, based purely on narratives and vibes. After all, why was Stars/Avalanche the best and most memorable series of the first round? Because the two teams were super-talented and played close games at a high level? Fool! It was because of Mikko Rantanen, and the power of the revenge game.

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Greatest revenge games in sports, from Mikko Rantanen’s Game 7 to Brett Favre to Luka Dončić

We love a good revenge game, don’t we folks?

It’s an irresistible sports trope. A player leaves a team under murky circumstances — maybe against their will or maybe there’s a footprint on their back as they head out the door — then, inevitably, they get to face their former team, and they teach them a lesson. And the lesson is: You done messed up.

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NHL weekend rankings: An unpredictable trade deadline shakes up the Top 5

Well, that was something.

The annual trade deadline didn’t deliver huge numbers as far as the actual volume of trades, but the ones that did happen were significant, with more big names moving than just about any year in recent memory. A lot has changed since we last did this one week ago, and the rankings will reflect that.

We’ll get to those in a minute. But first, let’s close the book on a fascinating week with a few final deadline thoughts.

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Weekend rankings: The Mikko Rantanen blockbuster shakes up the league

The word “blockbuster” gets thrown around a little too often in today’s NHL, often for trades unworthy of the term, in the same way that anything might feel like a five-star meal to a starving man. But the deal that dropped on Friday night? That one deserves the title, no questions asked.

First, the details if you somehow missed them:

Trade official:
Colorado trades Mikko Rantanen to Chicago in return for UDC Nils Juntorp
Chicago trades Mikko Rantanen (50% retained) and Taylor Hall to Carolina in return for Chicago’s own 2025 3rd round draft pick
Carolina trades Martin Necas, Jack Drury, Carolina’s own 2025…

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) January 25, 2025

There’s a lot there to unpack, but the basics are jaw-dropping enough on their own: The Avalanche traded Mikko Rantanen. And the Hurricanes gave up Martin Necas to get him.

Let’s get into it.

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Puck Soup: Death to the shootout

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- John Tortorella is tired of the shootout and he's right
- John Carlson is good
- David Pastrnak is crazy good
- When is it OK to text after a big hit or a fight?
- Mikko Rantanen's leg is not supposed to bend that way
- A dumb Star Wars quiz that goes exactly as well for me as you'd think

>> Stream it now:

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