Opinion: Blockbuster NBA Trade Shows Why NHL Should Limit No-Trade/No-Move Clauses

The blockbuster NBA trade that went down in the wee hours Saturday night may be the biggest trade in that league’s history. And if you look at social media, all you’re seeing is the shock and awe generated because one of the top five players in the entire league – now-former Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic – was dealt to one of its most storied teams, the Los Angeles Lakers. It’s all many sports fans want to talk about, and that’s good business news for the NBA. You want people to be interested in your product, and that’s what’s happening in the wake of the Doncic trade.

That said, when you consider how few NHL trades are as momentous as the Doncic trade, you see one of the key reasons for it: the proliferation of no-trade and no-move clauses. In the NBA, no-trade and no-move clauses are as rare as hen’s teeth, whereas in the NHL, they’re handed out like candy on Halloween.

See for yourself: go to PuckPedia and pick out an NHL roster – any roster – and look for those little symbols that denote no-trade clauses, either full or partial. You will be stunned to see how many NHLers have one, or at least a no-trade or no-move that allows players to stop a trade to at least a few teams.

For example, 11 teams have at least 10 players with some form of no-trade or no-move protection. The Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild, L.A. Kings and Vegas Golden Knights each have 10. The Pittsburgh Penguins have 11. The Toronto Maple Leafs, New Jersey Devils and Seattle Kraken each have 12. And the Carolina Hurricanes and New York Islanders lead the league with 13. In sum, nearly one-third of the NHL’s teams have almost half of their 23-man roster taken up with players who have some type of trade protection.

And it’s not as if many of these players with no-trade or no-move protection are Hockey Hall-of-Famers. Boston’s Joonas Korpisalo has one. So does Detroit’s Justin Holl, Montreal’s Christian Dvorak, Ottawa’s Travis Hamonic, Toronto’s David Kampf and Anaheim’s Brian Dumoulin. It’s absolutely mind-boggling how freely these no-moves or no-trades are awarded to players.

Now consider how many NBA players have some type of trade protection. You won’t have to check very long, because the answer is – drumroll, please – two. Two players in the entire NBA have a no-move or no-trade clause: Lakers icon LeBron James and Phoenix Suns star Bradley Beal. That’s it, and that’s all. The comparison is incredible because competition to acquire players via free agency and trade is just as fervent in the NBA as it is in the NHL. But somehow, the NHL has been overtaken by no-trade and no-move clauses in a way the NBA has not.

There is a formula NBA players must use in determining whether they’re eligible for a no-trade or no-move clause. To get one, they have to be signing a free agent contract, not an extension. They have to have at least eight years as an NBA player, and they must have spent at least four years with the team they’re signing that free agent contract with. That narrows down the field considerably, but even then, teams do not give NBA players no-trade clauses. It just doesn’t happen.

For that reason, we’re of the opinion the NHL should be revisiting this issue when the collective bargaining agreement is up for renewal in 2026. This is not an opinion that will be popular with NHL players, their families and their agents, but no-trades have gotten too far out of hand, and it’s one of the reasons why blockbuster trades are so difficult for NHL teams to pull off.

In fairness, NHL players are human beings who want some form of control about where their workplace is going to be. We understand that, and we also understand that no-trade and no-move clauses aren’t necessarily about players digging their feet in and staying in a market of their choice. Instead, they’re about giving players some say in where they’re ultimately traded to. But NBA players somehow manage to survive and thrive without no-trades or no-moves. And that’s why the Doncic trade was the talk of the town Sunday. He’s had a long and happy history in Dallas, but the Mavericks decided it was time for a significant change, and that led to Saturday’s mammoth deal.

There’s a reason the biggest trade in recent hockey history – the Mikko Rantanen to Carolina deal from a couple Fridays ago – was able to come to fruition: it’s because Rantanen didn’t have a full no-trade or no-move clause and neither did Martin Necas, the player Rantanen was traded for. Rantanen didn’t have a full no-move or no-trade, but who knows – the trade might have been even bigger if it involved another team that was on Rantanen’s list of teams he’d accept a deal to. And it might not have happened if at all if Necas had a no-trade or no-move, or if Rantanen had a full no-trade or no-move.

Related: Official: Hurricanes Trade For Mikko Rantanen, Taylor Hall From Avalanche, Blackhawks

You don’t want to be unfair to NHL players. They’ve negotiated no-trades and no-moves into the labor deal, and they’re well within their rights to land one if a team is willing to give it to them. But it sure feels like the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of no-trade/no-moves in the NHL, and they’re now exceedingly common in hockey’s top league. And if the NHL really wants to be the talk of the sports world with regular blockbuster trades of its own, addressing the boom in no-trade and no-move clauses in the next CBA could go a long way toward achieving that goal.

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