The NHL gave its fans a heck of a busy week.
The draft kicked things off on Friday evening with the first round, followed by rounds 2-7 on Saturday afternoon. The weekend was capped off by the opening of free agency on July 1st (which is Canada Day for those who reside outside of the great white north).
Since the pandemic, NHL GMs have been able to show more restraint than in years past with a mostly stagnant salary cap. Thankfully, for fans of chaos, the cap has rebounded nicely and big deals are back on the menu – especially long term deals for older players. Per Cap Friendly, there were 185 signings worth more than $1.2 billion after the first day of free agency.
With plenty of action over the past few days, it’s time to decipher which teams had a successful week, and who is celebrating Independence Day with more questions than answers.
Biggest Winners – Nashville Predators
When David Poile moved on from being the long term GM of the Nashville Predators, it was assumed that Barry Trotz would begin a potential youth movement as the team has rostered its share of stars but could never reach its ceiling. Instead, in his first offseason last year, Trotz went the veteran route, tinkering with the lineup and, most notably, signed a top free agent in Ryan O’Reilly.
Trotz did more than tinker this year, signing three of the biggest names in free agency available in Steven Stamkos (four years, $8 million AAV), Jonathan Marchessault (five years, $5.5 million AAV) and Brady Skjei (seven years, $7 million AAV).
Granted, it’s unlikely all three of these contracts will age gracefully – Stamkos is 34 years old and is showing signs of decline, Marchessault is 33, and Skjei is 30, meaning he’ll be making $7 million dollars when he’s 37 years old. But Nashville is clearly in win now mode, and this trio will join a star studded core of Filip Forsberg, Roman Josi and the newly re-signed Juuse Saros (eight year, $7.74M AAV extension), who are all in their primes and now locked up long term.
Nashville has been stuck in purgatory for far too long, and were essentially forced to rely on one forward line for offence most of last season. With the additions of Stamkos and Marchessault this year, and the signing Ryan O’Reilly last offseason, the Predators suddenly have one of the deepest forward groups in the NHL, particularly at center.
Skjei’s price tag was fairly surprising, especially with the long term commitment, but he was probably the most complete defenceman on the market. Skjei is strong defensively and can take care of the more difficult matchups, freeing Josi up for a more offensive role. Skjei is also fifth in the league in goals by a defenceman over the past two seasons, so he’s no slouch at the other end of the rink either. Skjei will more than fill the hole in the lineup that was left when the Predators traded Ryan McDonagh (and his $6.75 million cap hit) back to Tampa Bay, which was certainly a factor in the decisions that the Lightning made this weekend (more on that later).
Trotz might not be done yet either. With the team’s commitment to Saros long term, and the signing of veteran backup Scott Wedgewood, all of a sudden Yaroslav Askarov is an extremely valuable trade chip to dangle in front of a team looking for a young goalie who’s on the verge of becoming an NHL starter.
We might be laughing at the Predators cap concerns surrounding some aging players three or four years from now, but they’ve suddenly become actual cup contenders for this season without sacrificing any assets. Brilliant work by Trotz and company.
Losers – Winnipeg Jets
As NHL fans, we all seem to understand that trying to lure free agents to come play in the freezing winters of Winnipeg puts them behind the eight ball right away. Still, this was a disappointing offseason for a team that at times in the regular season looked like shoe-ins to make the Stanley Cup finals, before ultimately bowing out to the high scoring Colorado Avalanche in the first round.
Sean Monahan went from being traded with a first round pick to the Montreal Canadiens in 2022, to being traded for a first rounder to the Jets last February. Monahan was a perfect fit at center in Winnipeg, but he priced himself out of town, signing a five year, $27.5 million deal in Columbus once free agency opened. Monahan might be the biggest personal winner over the past year in the NHL. Tyler Toffoli also departed, weakening the team’s middle six forwards even further.
Winnipeg also lost a solid backup goalie in Laurent Brossoit, who also earned a pay increase, breaking up one of the league’s best tandems. Winnipeg did sign Eric Comrie and Kaapo Kahkonen to extremely reasonable deals to help support Connor Hellebuyck, but they’ll likely be a minor downgrade from what Brossoit brought to the team last season. Kahkonen will have a much better year not having to play behind the historically poor San Jose Sharks 2023-24 defence, and Comrie is a decent third goalie to have in the locker room. Nevertheless, this is still a net loss for the Jets.
While they were able to retain Demelo on defence, albeit at slightly above market value, the Jets bought out Nate Schmidt and weren’t able to come to terms with Brendan Dillon. The signing of Colin Miller doesn’t replace the depth that they lost in free agency.
The Jets were supposed to finally get over the hump last season, but failed to make noise in the playoffs. They might be working on making some major improvements – the Jets still have potential trade chips in Nik Ehlers (who has been rumoured to be on the market forever) and Rutger McGroarty (who’s reportedly not interested in playing in Winnipeg), so GM Kevin Cheveldayoff still has some potential moves to make to add to the core group. In such a competitive division, it would’ve been nice for the Jets to finally make a big splash to give the roster one final push through free agency. But, so far, it’s been quite underwhelming.
Winners – The Rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks
The past two number one overall picks are getting some support.
Connor Bedard had a rough start to his career despite winning the Calder Trophy for the 2023-2024 campaign. His most common linemates last season were a 36 year old Nick Foligno and Phillip Kurashev, a player who had never topped 0.36 points per game prior to last year. Chicago GM Kyle Davidson had an excellent offseason, bringing in some really strong players who will help Bedard, and the club as a whole, in year two.
Davidson was able to sign Tyler Bertuzzi (four years, $5.5 million AAV) and Teuvo Teravainen (three years, $5.4 million AAV) up front to give the team more forward depth. Bertuzzi had a slow start to his one year tenure in Toronto, but was heating up at the end of the season, scoring 15 goals in his final 29 games. Bertuzzi also brings some additional protection for Bedard, as he’s more than willing to drop the gloves to protect his teammates.
Foligno isn’t the type of player to turn down a fight, but at 36 years old, he should probably have someone else on the roster protecting the team’s franchise player. Teravainen is known as a high level defensive forward, but is an underrated playmaker. He could potentially slot in next to Bedard on the team’s top line and create turnovers on defence to set up Bedard to work his magic in the offensive end.
Giving Bedard more forward support was crucial, and the defensive additions of veterans Alec Martinez, T.J. Brodie, along with goaltender Brossoit, will help begin to patch some leaks on the defensive side. Brossoit has a .915 save percentage over his past 72 games (over three seasons) and will likely be sharing the net with incumbent netminder Petr Mrazek.
The best part of all of these additions is that none of the contracts Davidson gave out are longer than four years, giving them flexibility to continue to grow this year and giving them some enticing trade assets in a couple of seasons.
In San Jose, the Sharks are looking to support top overall selection Macklin Celebrini for this coming season. Tyler Toffoli is coming off of back to back thirty goal seasons and was lured to San Jose on a four year deal worth a reasonable $6 million per year. He’s a former cup winner and is a great leader who will put Celebini on the right path from day one. Grabbing Alex Wennberg on a risk free two year deal ($5 million AAV) gives the team depth in the bottom six, something that the Sharks were seriously lacking in 2023-24. Wennberg, along with Barclay Goodrow (who they claimed off of waivers from the New York Rangers) are able to take on a lot of defensive responsibilities, opening up Celebrini and the Sharks 2023 4th overall pick Will Smith to focus more on developing their offensive game at the NHL level.
The Sharks still have a lot of work to do on defence and in goal, but it’s still early in their rebuild, and their priority this offseason had to be insulating their future stars up front.
It would be surprising if either of these teams are close to making the playoffs this coming season, but both of their respective GMs made some nice developmental moves to push ahead their massive rebuilds without hamstringing their organizations going forward.
Losers – LA Kings
This hasn’t been a great offseason for Kings GM Rob Blake, beginning with the trade that sent Pierre-Luc Dubois and his remaining seven years ($8.5 million AAV) to Washington. Blake sent a haul to the Jets in the summer of 2023 to try and give the big skilled center a fresh start in LA. Unfortunately, Dubois lasted less than a calendar year as a King. Thanks to Dubois’ decline in both production and effort, Blake was only able to get a 34 year old declining asset in Darcy Kuemper in return. Kuemper has a worrisome injury history as well, and comes with three more seasons on his current deal. It was clear that the club needed to move Dubois out of the building, but this is a brutal return that won’t improve the team’s shaky goaltending situation.
Then in free agency, the Kings inexplicably signed defenceman Joel Edmundson to a four year, $15.4 million dollar deal. His AAV of $3.85 is more in line with what Edmundson should be making over the length of the entire contract, not what he is making per season. Edmundson is still a physical defencemen which helps in the playoffs, but he’s a 30 year old third pairing D with a history of back issues.
They also threw three years and a $3.5 million AAV at Warren Foegele, who at 28 years old, is coming off of the first 20 goal season of his career (which just happened to occur while playing with Leon Draisaitl). Foegele was a healthy scratch at multiple points of the Edmonton Oilers playoff run, so while you can argue that Edmundson can be an impact player in the postseason, nothing about Foegele’s game seems to translate when the intensity gets elevated.
The money spent on these two players would have been enough to retain defenseman Matt Roy instead of letting him walk out the door. Roy received a six year deal from the Capitals. And while that deal might not age well in the final two seasons, his $5.5 million AAV is more than reasonable for what he brings to the table.
The Kings have seemingly been pushing away the thought of a rebuild season after season as the ageless Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty refuse to let this team fall to the wayside. But while Nashville, Utah and Seattle all got better this season, the Kings, on paper, took a big step back.
Hold – Tampa Bay Lightning
There are multiple ways to look at the Lightning’s offseason. Losing longtime captain Stamkos stings for Tampa Bay fans, and trading away Mikhail Sergachev definitely weakens the defensive corps. Losing Tanner Jeannot, a player the Lightning gave up five picks and prospect Cal Foote, for a 2024 fourth and a 2025 second round pick in a cost cutting move also looks bad on the organization. So does trading picks to bring back 35 year old Ryan McDonagh’s $6.75 million dollar contract.
However, they did get the biggest name in free agency by inking Jake Guentzel to a seven year deal ($9 million AAV) to join Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point on top of their forward group. Guentzel, a two time 40 goal scorer, is four years younger than Stamkos and has more years left in his prime, but brings a different style of goal scoring than Stamkos. Guentzel won’t be parking himself on the left dot and firing one-timers into the twine like Stamkos made a career out of, but he’s creative in the offensive zone and has a deadly release.
Tampa Bay GM Julien BriseBois also was able to re-sign Victor Hedman, who’s likely to become the team’s next captain, to a four year extension prior to free agency, which will likely allow Hedman to retire as a Bolt.
Sergachev was a cap casualty to fit Guentzel in with Kucharov and Point’s matching $9.5 million AAV. While Sergachev has shown he can be a number one defenceman in his own right, the return on the deal wasn’t awful. J.J. Moser will join Ryan McDonagh to provide defensive depth, and Conor Geekie is a 20 year old power forward who could turn into a real interesting NHL player in a couple of years if the Lightning can develop him properly.
It’s hard to make the argument that the Lightning got better this offseason, but the addition of Guentzel makes it equally as hard to argue that they’re losers either. The team is aging, and their championship window might be closing. Remaining competitive despite losing their franchise leader in almost every offensive stat definitely isn’t a total wash, but it does leave a sour taste in your mouth. They’re likely now looking more towards the future after years of being at the top of the NHL.
-Devon Gallant
Twitter: @DevGallant
Photo: Jenn G. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.