What We Learned: This isn’t a division, it’s an arms race

Ben Chiarot, Claude Giroux, and Robert Hägg to the Florida Panthers.

Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Hampus Lindholm to the Boston Bruins.

Mark Giordano and Colin Blackwell to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

In the last few days, these are the only notable trades ahead of the NHL’s trade deadline. Throw in Ilya Lyubushkin to Toronto a while back, and you get a clear picture of what’s happening here: Everyone in the Atlantic Division knows it’s going to be a knife fight, know their cores can only be Cup-competitive for so long, and are therefore going more or less all-in.

And with the exception of a few trades made by the Calgary Flames and the Colorado Avalanche — the rival titans of the West this season — those swaps were the only significant trades made in the entire NHL. And