Making the NHL Trade Deadline Something Worth Watching

One of my favorite escapist activities when I need a mental break is to ruminate on things I would do if I happened to be the commissioner of the NHL. Silly? Absolutely. But hey, it keeps me sane sometimes. My ideas range, but one thing I've always thought about is making the NHL trade deadline something worth watching.

Held at the end of February or the beginning of March, the trade deadline is at 3 PM ET, and in Canada is a day many people are glued to any source of news. However, it seems with each passing year that there's less and less activity.

This was brought to my attention again today as I was listening to the preview of a new, promising hockey podcast: 31 Thoughts with Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman. It will cover Friedman's can't miss once-a-week insider article, 31 Thoughts. And low-and-behold, they talked about changing the way the NHL trade deadline works.

Now, this is not new ground for Marek. He's often spoken about how he wishes they could get all 31 front offices in the same arena on trade deadline day like they do for the draft. A great idea, but something that will likely never happen. However, what was new was Friedman talking about how he believes Rogers (the Canadian media company that now owns the NHL national rights in Canada) asked the NHL if it was possible to move the deadline to primetime and make it more of an event without any games played. Give it a listen below:

The 31 Thoughts preview pod is up at iTunes (and features an interesting bit about Rogers' initial plans for NHL Trade Deadline). First show next Wednesday. Subscribe away, folks.https://t.co/1yL99caBdc pic.twitter.com/WNDgNGq5ni

— Jeff Marek (@JeffMarek) January 6, 2018

Honestly, those are obvious fixes. Move the deadline to somewhere around 9:00 PM ET and don't have games on the same night. Seems perfectly within reason and manageable. 

However, I'm not sure it's enough. 

In recent years, both the quantity of quality of trades has been going down. So in order to make this an actual event, something needs to be changed. 

My suggestion? 

Allow teams to exceed the salary cap by 10% starting on trade deadline day and going until the start of the next season. Also allow teams to go under the cap by 10% on the same day and until the start of the next season. 

This is already the case for teams during the offseason, so it's not completely out of left field. 

It allows more options for both buyers and sellers while also providing a major reason to make moves on the actual trade deadline day (teams right now have the most cap space possible on that day due to the way cap space is calculated, but it clearly isn't enough as many trades get made before the deadline day). 

One may argue it ruins the parity of the game, but I say if a team recognizes they're a buyer or a seller at that point, it only enhances the rest of the season if they can make more moves. People will come to see new players on teams contending for the playoffs. People who are fans of bad teams will come to see young players get worked into the lineup to see if they have a shot at making an impact. 

All I know is, I could certainly see myself watching that night on TV (NHL Network or NBC Sports here in the US) and I would definitely be much more likely to watch that than a game occurring that evening. The NHL needs more events and/or benchmarks, and this could certainly be one.