Hey, it’s the end of the 23rd week of the NHL regular season. And we’re finding out once again that the waiting is the hardest part.

With the trade deadline looming, but major transactions on and off the trade market itself already taking place, everything made it feel as though the games played this week were extremely beside the point. 

Nowhere was that more evident than in Claude Giroux’s swan song in Philadelphia on Thursday night, where everyone in the building and around the hockey world knew that he was finishing out his 1,000th game and then going elsewhere (at least for now; I bet he comes back to Philly as a free agent this summer).

So it should come as no surprise that the three stars of the week mostly aren’t being recognized for on-ice achievement.

Let’s go: