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Playing games on deadline day -- unfair?

Darryl Sutter

Darryl Sutter, the new coach of the Los Angeles Kings, talks to reporters in El Segundo, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011. He says he feels comfortable with his knowledge of the NHL hockey team after watching the previous five games on television and going through video of prior games. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

AP

There are five games on tonight’s NHL schedule, all of them involving teams that could be highly involved in today’s trade dealings.

The Rangers, believed to be the lead contenders to land Rick Nash, host New Jersey at Madison Square Garden. So what if Brandon Dubinsky gets traded? Pretty sure Nash won’t make it to New York in time to replace him.

Nashville, reportedly still looking to add players after acquiring Andrei Kostitsyn, host Los Angeles, another team that could be active today.

Edmonton, Anaheim, Winnipeg, Colorado and Calgary are all playing, and each of them could be without roster players after the 3 p.m. deadline expires.

Not to mention, today is a massively stressful and distracting day for players.

Kings coach Darryl Sutter weighed in on the issue last week, as per LA Kings Insider.

“It’s hard to believe that, on the trade-deadline day, you’ve got to play games,” he said.

“It’s really unfair to players, coaches. It’s really not fair to anybody. Sometimes there’s nothing better, but usually there’s nothing worse than being traded. … There’s a grace period, where your roster opens up and you have extra players and all that stuff, so how do you do it on that day, when you’re playing? You could have a 40-man roster, but you can’t have what you want.”

Anyway, just something to chew on as we wait for things to get a little busier.