After that game, Avalanche players finally had a chance to publicly react to the trade, and the team's best player, Nathan MacKinnon, had one of the stronger reactions.

Will he re-sign in Carolina after this season -- and if not, where else? And what will other contenders do to keep pace ahead of the March 7 deadline?

Nathan MacKinnon was stunned. He used other words — shocked and sad were two — to describe the Colorado Avalanche trading Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night. The best way to describe how he looked about 18 hours after an “Earth-shifting hockey trade” though,