The Trade Deadline has come and gone.

As expected, four teams in the Canadian Division were buyers and three were sellers. We’ve known for quite some time who the Canadian playoff teams were going to be, the only question up in the air was whether or not any of them would go all-in to separate themselves from the pack.

Let’s go through everything that happened…

The Leafs currently sit six and seven points ahead of the Jets and Oilers for the top spot in the Canadian Division. They’ve clearly established themselves as the team to beat in Canada this year and Kyle Dubas ponied up a significant price in order to improve the team’s roster ahead of the deadline.

Toronto’s big move was giving up a first-round pick and two fourth-round picks to acquire veteran Nick Foligno from the Blue Jackets. This move required some creativity by Dubas, as he laundered Foligno’s contract through San Jose and earned some LTIR bonus space by acquiring Riley Nash a few days earlier.

Foligno only has seven goals and 16 points this season but, for the Leafs, adding him is more about what he can bring on the defensive and physical side of the game. Foligno will be a boost to Toronto’s power-play and he’ll make them more difficult to play against.

Toronto also made a couple of depth moves, acquiring David Rittich from Calgary for a third-round pick and defender Ben Hutton from Anaheim for a fifth-round pick. The move for Rittich signals that we might not see Freddy Andersen play again this season.

The Jets already made a big trade a few months ago, sending Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic to Columbus for Pierre-Luc Dubois and there weren’t any more big splashes in the cards for Kevin Cheveldayoff. The only move that the Jets made was acquiring veteran, depth defender Jordie Benn from the Canucks in exchange for a sixth-round pick.

Benn doesn’t move the needle much but he provides the team with a veteran presence for their bottom pairing with more experience than the likes of Logan Stanley or Tucker Poolman. The other benefit of acquiring Benn from Vancouver is that he won’t have to do a seven-day quarantine as players acquired from American teams will.

Like the Jets, the Oilers had a quiet deadline day, doing nothing more than acquiring a veteran defenceman in exchange for a mid-round draft pick. Edmonton sent New Jersey a fourth-round pick in 2022 in exchange for Dmitry Kulikov, and that pick can become a third-round pick if the Oilers win a playoff series.

Kulikov is a nice addition for Edmonton as he can form a quality, shutdown pair alongside Adam Larsson. He’s an upgrade over Kris Russell and William Lagesson in that role. That being said, it’s obviously a little underwhelming of a day as a whole as many fans had hoped that Ken Holland would go out and acquire a top-six winger or a good third-line centre to really push the team over the top.

Both Edmonton and Winnipeg’s trade deadlines suggest that they don’t truly believe that they’re likely to come out of this division in the playoffs. If they did, they’d have been comfortable with a bigger investment that would have kept them on pace with Toronto.

Interestingly enough, it was the fourth-place Montreal Canadiens who made more moves than the two teams in second and third above them. The Habs acquired Eric Staal a couple of weeks ago and then added to their blueline, landing Jon Merrill and Erik Gustafsson for a couple of late draft picks.

Staal was obviously the big addition as he’s currently anchoring a veteran fourth-line alongside Corey Perry, but Merrill and Gustafsson give Montreal some added depth on defence. Merrill is an unheralded rock defensively and Gustafsson can produce offence in a sheltered role and he can move the puck effectively.

The hope for Montreal is that they can go on a bit of a run before the end of the season and catch either Edmonton or Winnipeg and avoid playing Toronto in the first round. I’m not sure these depth additions are enough for them to do that.

A few weeks ago, it looked like the Flames were in a difficult position with the decision to either buy and push for the playoffs or give up and sell. The team made that decision very easy for Brad Treliving by winning just two of their last 10 games.

The Flames recouped some futures by sending David Rittich to Toronto for a third and Sam Bennett to Florida for a second and a prospect who was recently drafted in the second round. All in all, given this year’s market, that isn’t an awful day for the Flames. They managed to get more for Bennett than Buffalo did for Taylor Hall.

Jim Benning had a weird day, but what else is new?

The Canucks sold off Jordie Benn for a sixth-round pick, which makes sense given their position as sellers. But then they also gave up a fourth-round pick to acquire Madison Bowey and dealt a solid bottom-six forward in Adam Gaudette for Matthew Highmore, a forward who has four goals in 76 NHL games.

Finally, there’s Ottawa, who sent off a trio of defenders, Mike Reilly, Braydon Coburn, and Erik Gudbranson, in exchange for a third-round pick and two seventh-round picks. They also claimed Victor Mete, an interesting young defenceman, off of waivers from the Canadiens.