The NHL trade deadline is less than two weeks away on March 7, and there is plenty of adding to be done for the contenders. As is always the case, not every playoff team is a Stanley Cup “contender.” We focus here on nine of the top teams based on the standings, with sustainable underlying numbers and key strengths heading into the playoffs.

A few principles that many GMs abide by when building a contender for the playoffs: you can never have enough defensemen, confidence in goaltending, and forwards with tough skill — the kind of skill that allows players to be difference-makers when games get tighter. Management and coaches want players they can trust, and often those players are the physical, defensively responsible types. Shoring up those areas often becomes a more pressing priority than acquiring depth scoring, or a high-end player.

With those parameters in mind, here’s a look at the current weaknesses of top five teams in the Western Conference and four from the Eastern Conference — and what they might do ahead of the deadline to alleviate them.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Coach Josh Heupel is adding former Oklahoma offensive coordinator Seth Littrell to his staff at Tennessee in what is expected to be an analyst’s role, sources confirmed to ESPN on Tuesday.

Heupel and Littrell were captains on the Sooners’ 2000 national championship team.

Littrell spent parts of the past two seasons on Oklahoma’s staff. On Oct. 20, he was fired as offensive coordinator after the Sooners lost three of their first four SEC games and were ranked 128th nationally in total offense. They were plagued by inconsistency at quarterback and a rash of injuries at receiver.

Littrell, 46, was the head coach at North Texas from 2016 to 2022. He was 44-44 overall and led the Mean Green to six bowl bids and two Conference USA championship game appearances but was fired after the 2022 season when North Texas finished 7-6. He spent the 2023 season as an analyst at Oklahoma before he was promoted to co-offensive coordinator before the 2024 season when Jeff Lebby left for the Mississippi State head coaching job.

Heupel was the quarterback and Littrell the fullback for the Sooners in 2000, and both ended up being fired as offensive coordinators at their alma mater. Bob Stoops fired Heupel after the 2014 season.

The Vols beat the Sooners last season in Norman on their way to their first appearance in the College Football Playoff. They play again this season Nov. 1 in Knoxville.

Volquest first reported Littrell was joining Tennessee’s staff.

DALLAS — Leaders of the College Football Playoff are asking for more information before they decide whether to change the way teams are seeded in the 12-team playoff this fall, CFP executive director Rich Clark said Tuesday following a day of meetings at the DFW Grand Hyatt.

The 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua — an 11-person group called the CFP management committee — are considering a “straight seeding” format this year, which would reward the selection committee’s top four teams with a first-round bye instead of the four highest-ranked conference champions as was the case this past season.

“We laid the groundwork,” Clark said, following a roughly seven-hour meeting. “There’s still some things the [management] committee wants from us, some research we need to do for them on their behalf so they can make good, informed decisions. They do want to make not just data-informed, but informed — they don’t want to go into this on a whim. They want to make these decisions really strong.”

The management committee has to unanimously agree to any format changes in 2025. Last week, at a meeting in New Orleans involving the SEC and Big Ten conferences, both SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said they would vote in favor of a straight seeding model. In that format, No. 3 seed and Mountain West Conference champion Boise State and No. 4 seed and Big 12 champion Arizona State would not have earned first-round byes because they weren’t ranked in the committee’s top four.

This was the first time, though, that the full management committee discussed it in person. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said “it’s too early” to determine if he would vote in favor of changing the seeding.

“We had a really good discussion,” Yormark said. “The CFP is going to run some models and then come back to us next month. Good, heartfelt conversations — everyone gave their point of view — we’ll vet it out and see what happens.”

There’s a $4 million payout that comes with advancing to a quarterfinal — that’s in addition to $4 million for reaching the playoff for a total of $8 million earned by a team’s respective conference.

“That’ll certainly be a part of the decision,” Clark said, “because whatever changes happen — if changes happen — that would be a part of it. I don’t know how to quantify how much of it is about that, but whatever we use, there’s going to be a financial model that goes with it.”

After the meeting, both Sankey and Petitti left without speaking to reporters, and multiple commissioners declined to comment and were scrambling to catch flights. American Athletic Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti said the group looked at a model as to how the CFP would have played out this past season with straight seeding.

“And then everybody had questions and asked for more information,” Pernetti said, “so the CFP is going to come back to us with some analysis, a couple things that were asked for, but I can’t get specific beyond that.”

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said any decisions for 2025 have to be made with the new six-year contract, which begins in 2026, in mind.

“You’ve got to look at it in totality,” Phillips said. “It’s one contract coming to an end and a new six-year cycle, but those things have some linkage to them as well.”

Though the possibility of automatic qualifiers has generated conversations both publicly and privately, Clark said the idea was discussed, but not at length, and the Big Ten and SEC did not present any specific model for consideration. Phillips said the CFP was still considering multiple options for 2026 and beyond, including fields of 12, 14 and 16 teams.

“All of it is open for us,” Phillips said. “What you do is you believe in your coaches, you believe in your program, and you want the best format that you possibly can for college football. We all have our own constituents, but that can’t be the only thing that drives what you do with the CFP now and in the future. It’s really important to get this thing right. Access is why we expanded from four to 12, and if we go to 14 or 16 or stay at 12 — and I would just say that — none of those models were taken off. … We just haven’t dug in exactly on which of those we prefer.”

The CFP’s management committee will meet again in March, but it could be a virtual conference because of the hectic scheduling nature of basketball season. Clark said that any decisions about the seeding for this fall could happen next month or at the annual CFP spring meeting in April.

“It’s important we make these decisions for ’25 now,” he said, “because they’re going to impact what happens in ’26 and beyond.”