This week, we will continue our examination of Western Teams and some of the players they traded away or draft picks that have turned into useful players.

In week two we are going to look at Los Angeles, Minnesota, Nashville, San Jose, and Seattle.

Part One was here.

Los Angeles Kings

Brock Faber – D (22.9)

19th overall pick in 2022 (Liam Ohgren)

13th overall pick in 2015 (Jakub Zboril)

Losing Faber and the 19th overall pick in 2022 which became Liam Ohgren was the price to acquire Kevin Fiala.

Fiala has scored 87 goals and posted 205 points in the 232 games he has played with Los Angeles.

While the Kings would love to have Faber in their top-four currently, they had a pretty deep prospect pool of defenders in 2022 to move him to Minnesota for Fiala.

Ohgren would be competing for a roster spot on the Kings much like he will be in Minnesota. The Kings have a slightly deeper forward group at this point than the Wild.

Giving up the 13th overall pick in 2015 wasn't the loss of Jakub Zboril who Boston picked there, but with the players who would have been available for the Kings if they had the pick.

Jake DeBrusk, Mathew Barzal, Kyle Connor, Thomas Chabot, Joel Eriksson Ek, Brock Boeser, Travis Konecny and Sebastian Aho were all picked after that pick.

The pick was part of the trade that brought Milan Lucic to Los Angeles for the 2015-16 season where he had 20 goals and 35 assists in 81 games. It was his only season with the Kings as he signed in Edmonton the next year as a free agent.

Minnesota Wild

Kevin Fiala – F (29.0)

Jack McBain – F (25.5)

Fiala could surely help the Wild in terms of offensive production, but with the additions of Brock Faber and Liam Ohgren and the development of Matt Boldy, it might prove to be a trade win for the Wild in 5-6 years.

McBain was the 63rd overall pick in the 3rd round for Minnesota in 2018. In his last year of college hockey in 2021-22, his rights were traded to Arizona for a 2nd round pick in 2022 (Hunter Haight).

McBain informed the Wild that he wasn't going to sign with them as their roster was very strong and he didn't see a path forward with them in the short-term.

Minnesota did pretty well in getting a 2nd round pick in return for his rights.

Nashville Predators

Kevin Fiala – F (29.0)

Samuel Girard – D (27.2)

Eeli Tolvanen – F (26.2)

Yaroslav Askarov – G (23.1)

24th overall pick in 2015 (Travis Konecny)

Fiala was just 22 years of age when he was dealt to Minnesota in 2018-19 for Mikael Granlund.

Since then, Fiala has had 166 goals and 391 points in 447 games. Granlund has had 86 goals and 293 points in 441 games.

The Predators could surely use a 29-year-old Fiala who pots 25-35 goals on a yearly basis.

Girard was part of the package sent to Colorado in return for Kyle Turris in 2017. The Predators had depth on defense in 2017 and Girard was a smaller offensive defender, who they didn't really need with Roman Josi in the lineup. Girard has 220 points in 543 games with Colorado since being traded.

Turris had just 95 points in 182 games with the Predators and played his last NHL game in 2021-22. He was bought out by Nashville after three seasons.

The Predators placed Tolvanen on waivers after 13 games during the 2022-23 season. He played 135 NHL games with Nashville and had 25 goals and 26 assists. The Seattle Kraken claimed him and since then, Tolvanen has played 210 games with 55 goals and 48 assists.

It's not just that Tolvanen might be a regular in the lineup for the Predators currently, but it's the loss of an asset with nothing being acquired in return.

When Nashville picked Askarov at 11th overall in 2020, Juuse Saros was just cementing his future stake on the starting role in net. With that pick, they could have had Anton Lundell, Dylan Holloway, Seth Jarvis or Kaiden Guhle.

When they traded Askarov to San Jose, they received David Edstrom, Magnus Chrona and the 26th overall pick in 2025 (Ryker Lee). The value wasn't close to the players they could have had with that pick.

The Predators dealt the 24th overall pick in 2015 (Travis Konecny) to Toronto for Cody Franson and Mike Santorelli. Franson played 23 regular season games for Nashville while Santorelli played 22 in 2015-16. The team was knocked out in five games in the first round of the playoffs.

San Jose Sharks

Josh Norris – F (26.2)

Dylan DeMelo – D (32.2)

Tomas Hertl – F (31.7)

29th overall pick in 2016 (Trent Frederic)

34th overall pick in 2020 (J.J. Peterka)

3rd overall pick in 2020 (Tim Stutzle)

Norris, DeMelo and the 3rd overall pick in 2020 (Stutzle) were the cost to acquire Erik Karlsson just before the start of 2018-19 from Ottawa.

Norris has had injury issues and has never played more than 66 games in his career, but he has reached a career-high of 35 goals.

DeMelo has become a top-four defender on one of the better teams in the NHL (Winnipeg) and averaged over 21 minutes per game each of the past two campaigns.

Stutzle would be a welcome addition on any team, with the Sharks being right up at the top of that list. These scenarios where we look back don't really take into account that the team has Macklin Celebrini as a partial result of the trade for Karlsson, although that was never the intent.

The only reason I'm including Hertl here is because of the return on the trade, which was David Edstrom and the 26th overall pick in 2025 (Ryker Lee). If we expand the trade tree, we see that the Sharks sent both Edstrom and the pick to Nashville for Yaroslav Askarov. San Jose did not do well with the asset management for Hertl and sold him at 50 cents on the dollar. Hertl was not an impending UFA and had term left. If Askarov becomes the number one goalie for many years in San Jose, we can re-visit.

The 29th pick in 2016 (Trent Frederic) was sent with Sean Kuraly to Boston for goalie Martin Jones. Jones did play 327 games for the Sharks between 2015-16 and 2020-21 posting 170 wins with four straight 30-win seasons as part of that.

The Sharks traded down in the 2020 draft from 34th overall (J.J. Peterka) to the 38th overall pick (Thomas Bordeleau) for a 4th round pick (Carter Savoie) in that same draft. As a 23-year-old, Peterka has back-to-back 27 and 28 goal outputs in the NHL. Bordeleau showed some good early promise but has now played just 44 NHL games with six goals and 12 assists.

Seattle Kraken

Ryan Donato – F (29.3)

Morgan Geekie – F (27.0)

The Kraken haven't been around long enough to have many regrets in losing some players, but they do have two in my opinion.

Donato had a great campaign in 2024-25 with 31 goals and 31 assists in 80 games with Chicago. The Kraken didn't re-sign Donato after the 2022-23 season when he had 14 goals and 13 assists in 71 games. To be fair to Seattle, he did post just 12 goals and 18 assists in 78 games in his first year with the Blackhawks.

Geekie has a very similar story to that of Donato above. He wasn't re-signed by the Kraken after the 2022-23 season, where he posted nine goals and 19 assists in 69 games. He signed with the Boston Bruins and put up 33 goals and 24 assists in 77 games for them in 2024-25.

The Kraken didn't see either player as capable of playing above the bottom-six, but both proved in 2024-25 that they are.

Next week we will continue with St. Louis, Utah, Vancouver, Vegas and Winnipeg.

There are obviously events that happen in the NHL that are dictated by team ownership, team finances, coaching decisions and player happiness, that overreach the reasons that we see on the surface when players are dealt for below market value. This exercise is just an enjoyable peek down the rabbit hole.

Thanks very much for reading and if you have any comments or suggestions please reach out on Twitter @gampbler15