The NHL trade deadline isn’t coming for over a month, but that didn’t stop two Western Conference teams from making a mega deal on Wednesday night.
Forward Elias Lindholm was dealt from the Flames to the Canucks in exchange for a 2024 first-round pick, Hunter Brzustewicz, Joni Jurmo and a conditional 2024 fourth-round pick, the teams announced Wednesday night.
The 29-year-old Swede was a target of the Rangers, according to The Post’s Larry Brooks, as the team discussed him even before forward Filip Chytil went down for the year.
Brooks added that the Rangers had discussions about Lindholm in the same vain as ones that were held last year before the team picked up Patrick Kane in a trade with the Red Wings.
Instead of going East, Lindholm stays in the Pacific Division but moves up to the top team in the West, as the Canucks sit atop the conference with 71 points.
The right-shot center has proven to be a force as both a playmaker and a goal-scorer, picking up nine goals and 23 assists this year and earning his first-ever All-Star berth.
Since entering the league during the 2013-14 season, Lindholm has four seasons of 20-plus goals, including a career-high 42 during the 2021-22 campaign.
He has been a net positive on faceoffs and in possession metrics during his career, winning 53.3 percent of his draws and holding 56 Corsi For percentage over his 11 seasons.
The Flames, at 49 points and 12th in the West, now will try to re-tool after dealing the star.
In Kuzmenko, Calgary gets a 27-year-old Russian forward who has 95 points (47 goals and 48 assists) in his first 124 NHL games.
Brzustewicz, a defenseman, was a third-round pick of the Canucks and spent two years with the U.S. National Team Development Program before going to the OHL last year.
He has eight goals and 61 assists in 47 games with the Kitchener Rangers this year.
Jurmo was a third-round pick by the Flames in 2020 and has spent the last four seasons in the Finnish Elite League.
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