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NHL Offseason Analysis

Brock Hebner
34 min readAug 4, 2021

Alright boys and girls, this is a big one. In this article we’re going to go team-by-team and take a look at what they have done up to this point in the offseason that is notable and provide a bit of analysis.

At the time of this posting, the Seattle Expansion Draft will have already happened, the entry draft will have taken place, multiple trades would have been made, and we will be a week past the start of free agency. Keep in mind that not every team is done with their signings or trades; more things can and will happen. This article is just based around what has happened up until this point, which is most of the big things.

Let’s get to it.

NOTE: These signings and trades are all from July 1st onward. I am not detailing absolutely everything a team did, just the players they acquired or that left them that might have some effect on the next season.

Anaheim Ducks

Current Cap Space: $19,180,000

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Anaheim is in the middle of a re-build, so there isn’t much they can really do outside of continue to grow their prospects, acquire draft picks, and sign veterans just for the upcoming year.

Unfortunately for the Ducks, they aren’t really in a position to trade anyone away, they’re in that develop prospects stage, which means they aren’t going to make any splashes with signings or trades. They’ve got $19M in cap space still, but I imagine that just gets divided up by other veteran signings or high risk players on cheap deals for just a year — if anything.

Arizona Coyotes

Current Cap Space: $9,121,383

Notable Entries/Extensions

  • Shayne Gostisbehere (D) — Trade w/PHI on. In addition; received a 2022 2nd & 7th round pick
  • Antoine Roussel (LW) — Trade w/VAN
  • Jay Beagle (C) — Trade w/VAN
  • Loui Eriksson (LW/RW) — Trade w/VAN on. In addition to Eriksson, Roussel, and Beagle, Arizona received VAN’s 2021 1st round pick, 2022 2nd round pick, and 2023 7th round pick
  • Anton Strålman (D) — Trade w/FLA on, also received a prospect and a 2024 2nd round pick.
  • Carter Hutton (G) — UFA Signing: 1 year, $750K
  • Dmitrij Jaskin (RW/LW) — UFA Signing: 1 year, $3.2M
  • Ryan Dzingel (C/LW/RW) — UFA Signing: 1 year, $1.1M
  • Connor Timmins (D) — Trade w/COL. Also received a 2022 1st round pick and a 2024 conditional 3rd round pick (only received if COL wins the Stanley Cup this year and if Kuemper plays in 50% of the games)

Notable Departures

Analysis

The Yotes seem to be in a perpetual state of rebuild, but they do it a bit differently. They’ve become the destination for bad contracts and old players. Did your guy leave the NHL and now you need to offload that contract? Arizona will do that for you. Did he suffer a career ending injury and you need to offload him? Arizona will take it on.

Things are a bit different though…Arizona for the last couple of years and during this offseason have been doing one thing, and one thing really well: acquiring draft picks for 2022. As it stands Arizona has 11draft picks in next years draft — 2 of which are in the first round and 5 in the second — which by all accounts is going to be loaded. So sure, they look like they’ve acquired a lot of guys and some recognizable ones, but the majority of these trades were to acquire draft picks, nothing more.

Now yes, Gostisbehere is more than that, he can bounce back in Arizona hopefully, and Connor Timmins is young and can develop. But Roussel, Beagle, Eriksson, and Strålman were acquired because teams needed to offload those contracts and the Yotes wanted picks. Easy as that. But I will say, I love their free agent signings; Jaskin, Dzingel, and Hutton are all low risk potentially high reward players that could do well here. Do I think Arizona is suddenly going to be good? No. Not at all. They’ve actually sort of downgraded with their moves, but they’re doing it on purpose and doing it right.

Boston Bruins

Current Cap Space: $1,089,326

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

The Bruins were busy this offseason and retooling a bit. Ullmark is going to be their starting goalie this year and we’ll see what happens when and if Tuuka Rask ever returns. Losing a young, promising defenseman in Lauzon is never good, but they replaced him with Derek Forbort — albeit overpaid a bit.

Additionally, they managed to resign Carlo and Reilly for the defensive core, and crucially resigned Taylor Hall who I imagine will have a great first full year in Boston now that he is surrounded by playmakers. Let’s just hope with Krejci leaving, they can find Hall a proper second line center to replace him.

Foligno, Nosek, and Haula are all great depth signings for the 3rd and 4th line, something Boston badly needed. They replaced some guys here, but overall this is the same hateable, very good Boston team. The interesting thing to look for is how they perform in net after this offseason.

Lastly let’s talk about the big loss. Krejci is leaving the NHL. A staple in Boston for the last 15 years. Losing his presence will definitely be felt, but him leaving now is just a sign of what Boston’s future looks like as guys like Bergeron and Marchand get older and older. Unfortunately for Boston though, they need a 2nd line center, so it’ll be interesting to see how they’ll be able to address that with minimal cap space left.

Buffalo Sabres

Current Cap Space: $28,602,237 — UNDER — $7,302,237

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

One of the great mysteries of the NHL universe is whether Buffalo will EVER figure it out. They’ve missed the playoffs for the last 10 years, and in those 10 years, they’ve finished in the bottom of their division 6 times, never getting higher than 6th — out of 8.

This has allowed them to acquire many great prospects, and do absolutely nothing with them but wear them down and trade them to the highest bidder while acquiring more draft picks to draft more good prospects then do the same thing over and over again. Time is a flat circle in Buffalo.

As far as their offseason goes, gone is Ristolainen, Reinhart, and Ullmark. All great players who’ve been bogged down in an awful system. Who replaced them? One of the worst goalies in the league Aaron Dell and a goalie who was supposed to be retired, Craig Anderson, and a few other guys nobody has ever really heard of, and oh yeah, Will Butcher — a young guy who New Jersey was so sick of they just wanted to get rid of him. This is the Buffalo way.

I look forward to them trading away Jack Eichel to acquire more draft picks and let the cycle continue and to finally allow him to flourish in a proper franchise. I’ll also be surprised at how they can make up $7M in cap space…who is going to really want to go to Buffalo.

Lastly, poor Owen Power. Please don’t ruin him.

Calgary Flames

Current Cap Space: $12,175,000

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

The Expansion Draft didn’t really hurt many teams, but if it did hurt one team the most, it was the Flames. Mark Giordano has been with Calgary for 15 years and was their Captain for the last 8 seasons. He’s had an incredible impact on the city of Calgary and the organization as whole; replacing him is near impossible, but the Flames have to trudge on.

There’s still a bit of room for Calgary to sign some guys, but as of right now I think they’ve done a great job. Pitlick is a solid 4th line winger that you need on a team; Coleman immediately makes them a better two-way team — even if that 6 year term might bight in them in the rear — and Zadorov will slot into the 2nd or 3rd pairing.

This should turn into a more gritter Flames team. There will be times that both Milan Lucic and Nikita Zadorov are on the ice together, and heads will roll because of it. Just look at this text Lucic sent him after he was acquired.

Carolina Hurricanes

Current Cap Space: $12,326,417

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

I just have one question for the Carolina Hurricanes, just one; what are you doing?

Nedeljkovic comes in 3rd for the Calder, but you aren’t willing to give him $3M per year for a couple of years so you ship him off to Detroit for a guy — Jonathan Bernier — who you didn’t even resign? You then traded away one of your best defensive prospects and let your best defenseman — by a lot — walk when you had the space to resign him...it doesn’t make any sense.

I understand letting Mrazek and Reimer walk, but not getting rid of Ned. I can understand letting Hakanpää walk — thanks for that from a Stars fan — and I can understand letting Paquette walk too. But I don’t understand the other parts.

How did you solve some of this though? Well you brought in a streaky goaltender in Anderson and old Antti Raanta — hope that works out for you. You also signed old Ian Cole to do what, take the place of Hamilton? Oh, no, that was probably reserved for that doofus DeAngelo — give him a google if you want to find out what he’s all about.

All in all, I’m a bit shocked at how Carolina has handled this offseason. They were once a budding franchise with so much promise, one piece away from a Stanley Cup, and now they’ve flat gotten worse.

Chicago Blackhawks

Current Cap Space: OVER — $667,547

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Let’s just get this out there real quick; we’re not going to talk about the unbelievable and disgusting sexual assault cover up that is currently dominating the team. That’s for a different time and place, so with that out of the way, let’s talk about what they did this offseason.

The Blackhawks did a couple of good things, a few stupid things, and some questionable things.

Let’s start with the good: Offloading Duncan Keith to Edmonton was a great move, how they did it we’ll never know, but good move. Additionally, getting rid of Brent Seabrook’s contract for Tyler Johnson is also great. Johnson still has ability and could bounce back in Chicago. Lastly, they traded for Seth Jones, a fantastic young defenseman who we’ll be the top of their core for the next while.

The stupid things: Trading for Seth Jones is good, signing him to an 8 year deal at $9.5M per year…NOT GOOD. Look, I like Jones, but I don’t like him that much. I’ll put it this way, he makes more per year than Cale Makar, Miro Heiskanen, Dougie Hamilton, and Victor Hedman. All of those defenseman are better than Seth Jones, by a lot. I just don’t understand how you do a great thing in offloading two bad defenseman contracts and then strap yourself with an even worse one. On top of that, why did you let Kämpf and Suter walk? They’re cheap, young, and good! It doesn’t make sense.

Now to the questionable: Marc-Andre Fleury. We’ll talk more about this when we get to Vegas, cause I got some thoughts, but from the Chicago perspective I don’t quite get it. On one hand, yes, he’s the Vezina winner and as your starting goaltender he immediately makes you a better team…but are we sure he’s going to do well there? Fleury had the benefit of a great defense in front of him in Vegas and I’m not sure if Chicago can provide that for him. In either case, Flower is a great goaltender and if he plays to his potential, they’re better because of him.

On the other hand though, a lot of people are claiming ‘Chicago is back’ and ‘Rebuild over’ but I don’t buy it. They may be statistically better now, but I don’t think it helps them solidify a playoff spot in a stacked Central Division.

Colorado Avalanche

Current Cap Space: $2,380,203

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Man this team has been hurt. They trade Graves to Jersey so they don’t loose him in the expansion draft, but loose Donskoi instead — still not good. They can’t meet up with what Saad wants, so he moves on. Nemeth and Bellemare go to other teams, hurting their defensive and offensive depth. Then the big one, they lose their goaltender Grubauer who played such a key role in their success — even if I don’t think he’s that good.

But, it could have been worse. They managed to resign Landeskog when it seemed like they wouldn’t and they managed to to knock out an extension for Makar as well. Two huge parts of that team and so their offensive core stays together.

They also managed to trade for Kuemper, a fantastic goaltender — when he’s healthy. When healthy, Kuemper has potential to be a Vezina finalist, he’s that good, but that’s the problem — his health. So we’ll see how this turns out.

Like I said, things could have been way worse for Colorado, but they managed to keep the most important parts together.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Current Cap Space: $11,234,138

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Somehow they didn’t lose Domi in the expansion draft…they lost Bayreuther — a career AHLer — instead and still managed to sign him back to their team.

Columbus also made the right decision in moving on from Jones, let Chicago take that ridiculous cap hit and term. Except you then turn around and give Werenski a similar deal — albeit 2 years shorter. I like Werenski, but not at $9.5M+…allow me to reference you back to what I said about Jones in the Chicago section, same thoughts.

The bottom line is, when you give out $9M+ to a defenseman, you expect them to win a Norris Trophy at some point and I don’t think Werenski can do that.

Other than that though, not a lot of important new signings, however I do like the trade for Voracek. He can provide some much needed scoring up front that they badly need.

All in all, they haven’t done much, but for the most part, it works for me.

Dallas Stars

Current Cap Space: OVER — $4,072,072

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

I’m going to sound bias here because well, I am a massive Stars fan, but I LOVE what they’ve done so far in the offseason.

Losing Oleksiak to the expansion draft sucks, but replacing him with Ryan Suter was absolutely perfect. Yes, the years are a lot for a 36 year old guy — he’ll be 40 at the end of it — but we didn’t sign him for 4 years, we signed him for right now. That’s important.

Additionally on the defensive side, I love the Hakanpää signing. He’s Finnish — one more for the Finnish Mafia, he hits a lot — great, he blocks shots — even better. He’ll be perfect on that third pairing and dare I say, the Dallas Stars have the best defensive core in the NHL.

On top of all that, having to trade Dickinson and losing Cogliano does hurt, but replacing them with Luke Glendenning and Michael Raffl is fine by me and provides the Stars with much needed offensive depth. I imagine Raffle takes Cogliano’s sport on that 3rd line and Glendenning is our 4th line center and 2nd PK center.

Fun fact: Glendenning was the best face-off guy in the entire league outside of Patrice Bergeron, that’s pretty damn good.

Let’s get to the big elephant in the room to round things out for the Stars; the goaltender situation. A lot of people — including myself — were a bit shocked at the signing of Holtby. But it makes sense. Nill has stated now that they don’t know if Ben Bishop will even play this year and he didn’t want to take that risk like he did last season.

This creates some good competition as well, it’s up to Oettinger and Khudobin to compete for that starting spot and that backup spot, and if one of them fails to take one, Holtby is there to cover. Holtby is also there in case someone gets hurt if he isn’t the starter or the backup — good goaltender depth overall.

Detroit Red Wings

Current Cap Space: $25,777,777 — UNDER — $4,477,777

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Look at you Stevey Y, you’re in a big rebuild and doing the best you can. Leddy has a bad contract, but it’s only for a year. Additionally, resigning Marc Staal for just a year is also good; his best days are far behind him, but at that cap hit, you can’t knock the deal.

When you’re in a rebuild and lose prospects, it’s never good, especially in an expansion draft, but it could have been way worse. So you got lucky in my book.

The big news here though is trading for Ned. That’s your goalie of the future if he can build off his stellar rookie campaign this past season. Good on your for taking advantage of Carolina’s stupidity.

Now take that $4M you have to spend and grab a few other guys on the cheap and be more competitive this year.

Edmonton Oilers

Current Cap Space: OVER — $1,548,968

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Locking up RNH is good, even if he isn’t what his 1st overall draft pick status from 2011 says he should be. He’s a solid 2nd line center for you, so keep that around.

What I don’t understand those is re-signing Mike Smith when your GM has stated there wasn’t much out there for you to go and pick him in the goaltender department…THERE WERE TONS OF OPTIONS. Also, that Hyman deal…he’s broke the 40 point mark once and you’re going to pay him more than RNH? Weird.

Also, Cody Ceci deserves 4 years? He had an okay year in Pittsburgh, but that sounds like scrambling to me after losing Adam Larsson in the expansion draft…so does acquiring old man Duncan Keith’s bad contract. Weird stuff.

But hey, as long as you have McJesus and Draisaitl then you should be okay.

Florida Panthers

Current Cap Space: $7,830,378

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Let’s start with Driedger. He came off of an incredible year after Bobrovsky went down with an injury. Losing him hurts as solid goaltending is hard to come by, but given Florida’s cap space, it was unlikely he would resign there anyways.

On the other side though, extending both Duclair and Bennett is great for the team. They’re young, solid players to have on your team, and neither are making too much than their worth. Additionally, trading for Reinhart I think is quite good. He’s also young and I would think that getting out of Buffalo and and land on a young promising team like Florida is good for him. I’d imagine that what they have left in cap space will be used primarily to resign him.

Good moves all around for Florida.

Los Angeles Kings

Current Cap Space: $2,737,912

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

When you’re in a rebuild like the Kings are, the last thing you want is to be up against the cap and well, here they are.

I like the signings and acquisitions they’ve made — even if Danault’s contract is a bit rich for his ability, especially for 6 years, — but hey you should be better with him, Arvidsson, and whatever Edler has left in the tank.

Just probably not good enough to really push the needle still.

Minnesota Wild

Current Cap Space: $19,714,745

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

The entire offseason of the Wild is centered around one thing, and one thing only: resign Kirill Kaprizov. That hasn’t happened yet, and it may not, but boy is Minnesota trying to make sure they can do it.

The most significant thing they’ve done is buyout both Parise and Suter, a questionable move in my opinion for a team that is trying to still compete, but it did free up a good chunk of cap space.

Apparently, Kaprizov has demanded they sign a good center for him to play with next year and well, Goligoski and Kulikov are not centers. They’ll likely have to trade for one too now because well, there aren’t many I’d imagine he’d be happy with left available.

It’s a bit of a mess out there, but we’ll see how it plays out.

Montreal Canadiens

Current Cap Space: OVER — $2,276,370

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Well Montreal didn’t lose Carey Price or Jonathan Drouin in the expansion draft…not sure if they’re happy or sad about it? Supposedly Drouin is now ready to come back to the team and Price’s injuries aren’t as bad as they seemed to be…before the expansion draft.

Shea Weber’s status is a bit of an unknown. He apparently had so many injuries during the season and the playoffs that he won’t be playing at all this upcoming year and he may just retire which would be a big blow to Montreal.

Signing Armia for a few more years is great for the team as well as grabbing Savard to fill that spot Weber is leaving behind. I also really like the Hoffman signing; there’s your goal scorer Montreal.

All in all, outside of the draft…Montreal has done okay here. They got pummeled in the Stanley Cup final and they’re doing what they can to retool and give it another crack.

Nashville Predators

Current Cap Space: $20,008,857

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Rinne retiring isn’t something that necessarily hurts Nashville — his best days had been long gone — but he was a staple of that team for a long time, so some effect will be felt. They brought in Rittich to fill that backup slot as Saros takes full control of the starting position.

Trading Arvidsson was a dump move to free up cap space and so was trading Ryan Ellis. Good on them though for taking the most intriguing piece of that Ellis trade (Nolan Patrick) and flipping him to Vegas for a solid young defenseman in Cody Glass.

Losing Jarnkrok will definitely hurt Nashville this upcoming year. Nobody on their team could do just about everything like he could and anytime a player like that leaves your team, it hurts.

New Jersey Devils

Current Cap Space: $21,242,765

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

There is definitely more that New Jersey is going to do here. They’ve got $21M left in cap space and their moves so far are suggesting a team that should be more competitive. Are they going to trade for Tarasenko? Eichel? I’m not sure, but a team that’s made these kind of moves and still has that much cap space isn’t done.

I love them being able to take advantage of Colorado’s unfortunate position and acquiring Ryan Graves. They then turn around and sign Dougie Hamilton on a deal that is absolutely worth it for a player of his caliber. That’s likely Jersey’s new top pair and I dig it a lot.

Also being able to replace the really bad Aaron Dell with Jonathan Bernier is a solid move. Bernier was the only bright spot on a bad Detroit team last year, and if he can build off of that Jersey will be better for it.

New York Islanders

Current Cap Space: $17,670,812

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Old Lou managed to free up quite a bit of cap space prior to free agency. Managing to offload Andrew Ladd’s contract, Nick Leddy, and having Eberle picked in the draft brought back $15.375M in cap space back to the team.

However, losing Eberle is going to sting a bit if they can’t replace him. He was one of their primary goal scorers, but I imagine they will get it figured out.

The Isles are a contender, so something else is looming because well, they haven’t done anything yet in free agency. The big rumor is either a Tarasenko trade and/or signing Zach Parise. We’ll have to see what they do because they are certainly taking their time.

New York Rangers

Current Cap Space: $14,487,698

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

The Rangers do know that by signing Goodrow to a 6 year deal doesn’t mean that both Gourde and Coleman are coming as well right? I’m puzzled by this deal. Goodrow is a solid player, but he was the weakest link on that famed Tampa Bay third line so to see him get 6 years is kind of insane.

Trading Buchnevich away is something that made sense, even if I don’t like it. They weren’t going to resign him, so why not trying to get something for him before you let him go free. I can’t help but feel that if they don’t grab something big before the season, they’ll feel his departure more than they think

On the flip side, they traded for Ryan Reaves. One of the last true enforcers of the game, he is only there to do one thing: bash heads. I don’t like the guy, but the Rangers just got immediately tougher to play against with him there, and now Panarin has a bodyguard. I will say too, New York vs. Washington…Wilson vs. Reeves…multiple times a year…oh boy.

Ottawa Senators

Current Cap Space: $29,751,667 — UNDER — $8,452,667

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

I’m not entirely sure what Ottawa is doing here…they’re a bad team, but I never know if they’re rebuilding or not. They have close to $30M in cap space, and the best they can do is acquire Holden in a trade and sign Del Zotto?

It’s all a bit weird, and since they’ve not really done anything, there isn’t much to say. They have to spend at least $8M before the season to get their cap up, but nothing out there is going to move the needle anymore, so we’ll see.

Philadelphia Flyers

Current Cap Space: $8,010,477

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Philly is retooling a bit. Out are former staples in Voracek and Gostisbehere, underwhelming top prospect Nolan Patrick, and the dumbest pick in the expansion draft Carsen Twarynski. In are the new faces of Atkinson, Ristolainen, and Ellis.

They also brought in Martin Jones to back up Carter Hart — lets hope the both of them have bounce back years. I also like the 1 year signing of Yandle. If anything, Philly should be a better defensive team this year, and with replacing Voracek with Atkinson, we’ll see how they do on the offensive side.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Current Cap Space: $1,846,795

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

McCann was a solid 2nd liner who just gets better and better; they had to trade him to insure they got something back on one of the two guys who would likely be taken in the draft, and Hållander is a solid prospect to get back.

Tanev is a weird case, he’s a solid third liner, but those can be found anywhere. What hurts the team though is how much their fans love him. They replaced him with Brock McGinn who should fill his role easily, but other than that, Pitt hasn’t really done much of anything else.

They’re in this perpetual state of contender where it’s one piece goes, another piece comes in, and let’s see if that works.

San Jose Sharks

Current Cap Space: $5,536,666

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

What a mess this team is. The one good thing that really happened was they didn’t lose anyone that could effect them really in the expansion draft.

Currently, San Jose is in a rebuild. The problem is though you can’t rebuild when you’re paying 6 guys — 4 who are over 30 — $6M+ per year and only one could fall off in a couple of years. Just an absolute mess.

The one positive here is they got Adin Hill to replace Jones, a great young goaltender who could be their goalie of the future. They also brought in Reimer to back him up, we’ll see how that goes but I imagine they’re better in net automatically now.

I also do like the signings of Bonino and Cogliano. Both are great 3rd/4th line forwards who will give you everything they have, and Cogliano is a great veteran to have there for your younger guys.

The bottom line though is that San Jose will be better, but not near enough to ever truly compete. Unless they can move those big contracts off in a year or two, they’re going to be stuck in the position they’re in for a while.

Seattle Kraken

Current Cap Space: $16,393,334

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

So the notable departures thing here is meaningless for Seattle — we don’t know how any of these guys would have performed. But those are all guys they took and then sent either back to their old team or elsewhere in the league so that’s why they’re there. If you want to know how I felt about their draft, click here.

As far as their acquisitions since the draft though, I like them. Wennberg is the weird outlier here; I like him, but I’m not sure if $4.5M per year is worth it.

Schwartz is a great pick up and immediately starts on the left side for them and Grubauer is going to be their starting goaltender. I don’t think Grubs as is good as everyone thinks he is, but a tandem of him and Driedger should actually be quite good.

OH and they had the chance to draft Matty Beniers, and they did! One of the two actual proper NHL prospects in the draft that can play immediately. What’s great for him is he could actually start on their second line to start the year, but more than likely I’d say their 3rd line if he indeed signs his entry level contract. There’s no reason in their position to not have him play.

Seattle may not be a total dumpster fire in their first season after all.

St. Louis Blues

Current Cap Space: $3,531,151

Notable Entries/Extensions

  • Pavel Buchnevich (RW/LW) — Trade w/NYR on 7/23 then signed 4 years, $5.8M per year
  • Brandon Saad (LW/RW) — UFA Signing: 5 years, $4.5M per year
  • Jordan Kyrou (RW) — Extension: 2 years, $2.8M per year

Notable Departures

Analysis

Grabbing Buchnevich was a great pick up for the Blues. He’s young and can score, let’s just hope he lives up to that contract and continues to grow.

Losing Vince Dunn hurts though. St. Louis was hoping that Seattle would take Tarasenko, but they instead made the right pick and took the good young defenseman. We’ll see just how much this effects St. Louis this next season, but I bet they’ll feel the loss.

I’m a bit confused by letting Hoffman walk and then signing Saad…they could have easily signed both and would be much better for it. But Saad is a great signing and takes the places of Hoffman’s goal scoring.

But none of this is important right? Because Vladimir Tarasenko is still with the team at the time of this writing and it doesn’t feel like anyone is making big moves to trade for him…

I’ll be shocked if he actual plays for St. Louis next season, but we’ll have to see what happens.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Current Cap Space: OVER — $5,740,955

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Well lot’s of work here is being done to get Tampa under the cap and still maintain competitiveness. The team lost their entire stud 3rd line of Gourde, Goodrow, and Coleman and I don’t think they can really replace that, so that will be the big story going in to next year for them.

They also couldn’t hold on to solid defenseman David Savard or depth defenseman Luke Schenn. They were able to trade Tyler Johnson though for Brent Seabrook’s contract, which has allowed them to use LTIR to open up some cap space.

With that, they brought in Bogosian for their 3rd d-pairing, Bellemare and Perry for their 3rd line, and Brian Elliot to be the new backup.

Tampa is going to look different next year, but still the same in ways as they managed to extend Brayden Point early as they should have, because he’s incredible.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Current Cap Space: OVER — $1,394,783

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

The biggest loss is Zach Hyman, but I don’t blame them for not resigning him given what he got from Edmonton. The main story here is dropping Freddy Anderson for Petr Mrázek to pair with Jack Campbell which I think is really good move.

I also like grabbing Bunting, Kämpf, Ritchie, and Kase for their depth on the 3rd/4th line. Great young players with a lot of upside.

Will these moves get them out of the 1st round of the playoffs? Who knows.

Vancouver Canucks

Current Cap Space: $14,064,341

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

So. Many. Changes.

They were able to drop the majority of their bad contracts and re-tool quite a bit. OEL likely slots into the 1st pairing alongside Hughes? But we’ll see. Garland is a bigger get from that trade and they managed to sign him to a really good deal.

I also like them acquiring Dickinson and Dowling — even if I didn’t care for them in Dallas. Dickinson goes right to their 3rd line and Dowling is great for depth. But they absolutely overpaid at least in years for Tucker Poolman, that guy should not be getting 4 years.

The biggest change though is dropping Holtby for another veteran goaltender in Halák. Holtby was terrible for them, but Halák wasn’t that great in Boston either…so we’ll see what happens.

Overall, I think they made some great moves and were able to free up a lot of contracts to be able to extend Petterson, Hughes, and Dickinson who just acquired. Let’s hope that $14M is enough.

Vegas Golden Knights

Current Cap Space: OVER — $37,439

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

Trading away Glass may not have been the best move, but defense isn’t the issue with Vegas, it’s scoring. I’m not sure if Dadonov or Patrick are going to fix that, but they’re promising, so we’ll see what happens.

The biggest news in their offseason though was trading away their VEZINA WINNING GOALIE for quite literally, nothing. Fleury became the face of the franchise since their inception, their owner told him he would retire as a Golden Knight, and oh yeah, HE WON THE VEZINA THIS YEAR, and you trade him.

I know that Lehner is the younger, more sensible option to keep, but it blows my mind that they didn’t consult with him on this and make sure he got traded to a place he wanted to go to and actually get something for him. Oh, and let’s not forget, he found out he was being traded through Twitter. Freaking Twitter.

I’ll just leave that there.

Washington Capitals

Current Cap Space: $2,668,740

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

  • Brenden Dillon (D) — Trade w/WIN on 7/26. WSH also received a 2022 3nd and 2023 2nd

Analysis

Initially, I thought losing Vanecek would hurt, as he was taken by Seattle in the expansion draft, but since Seattle signed Grubauer, Vanecek was traded back to Washington. Good for Washington.

Outside of that, nothing really happened here except for, ya know, resigning the greatest pure goal scorer we have probably ever seen. No amount of money will ever be enough for Washington to be able to hold on to Ovi, and that 5 years means he has a legitimate chance to break one of the unbreakables — Gretzky’s goal record.

Just average 33 goals per year — super doable for him — and take that record. Become the Gr8 One.

Winnipeg Jets

Current Cap Space: $6,065,355

Notable Entries/Extensions

Notable Departures

Analysis

It was either going to be DeMelo or Appleton, and Seattle opted for the younger forward. Either of them getting picked wouldn’t help Winnipeg much, but it’s not terrible.

Acquiring Dillon & Schmidt was needed for the Jets, they’ll slot in to their top-4 immediately as Winnipeg badly needed some better defenseman. Dillon is the better of the two as Schmidt had a really poor year, but maybe he’ll bounce back a bit.

If you managed to read all of this, I applaud you. If you just skipped to your favorite team and now to the bottom, I understand.

If you want to see a list of the current free agents that have yet to be signed, click here. Also, those teams that I show as being over the cap; they all have somebody on LTIR (long-term injured reserve) and are able to go over the cap because of it. Additionally, the teams that are labeled as under need to clear up that under limit before the start of the season to hit the cap minimum.

For reference, the Upper Limit (cap ceiling) is $81.5M and the Lower Limit (cap floor) is $60.2M.

I’ll be coming back to the topic of hockey closer to the start of the season. I’m contemplating on either do a preview of each time by division, so like one article covering the Central Division and all it’s teams and how I think they’ll shape up, etc.. Or an individual article for each team, like a 32 days of 32 teams type thing.

Let me know what you might like better and let me know how you think your favorite team did this offseason.

NHL
Hockey
Free Agency
Offseason
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Brock Hebner

Written by Brock Hebner

5 Followers

A Father, a Nerd, and a Lover of Sport

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