There was never really that many trades until closer to the trade deadline in the first place. Teams are usually trying their best to win in the first half of the season so there is never a great trade market until there are teams starting to look to next season. Even if there was a lot of teams with cap space I wouldn't have expected many deals up until this point. The only guys that usually get traded early have issues surrounding them like not wanting to play with their current teams. You don't typically see a lot of hockey trades early in the season.
