Assessing The Canucks’ Direction
Reports surfaced earlier this month that the Canucks had re-engaged in contract talks with pending free-agent forward Kiefer Sherwood and were discussing a potential five- or six-year deal worth over $4MM per season. It’s hard to say whether the reports had merit, or whether the Canucks were serious about retaining Sherwood – or merely posturing to get a better trade return before the trade deadline.
Regardless of their true intentions, the Canucks’ direction is tough to figure out. They currently sit last in the NHL standings and, since New Year’s Day, are 0-7-2 and have been outscored 40-14. They don’t appear close to a winning run, yet there is little talk of a sell-off or a pivot into a rebuild. Their fans certainly like to talk on social media about embracing the tank, and the Canucks are reportedly willing to listen to offers for Elias Pettersson.
The truth about Vancouver is that it’s been a mess, off and on, for the better part of the last 10 to 15 years, from the top of the organization down to the players. There have been highs and moments of hope when it looked like the team was on the cusp of greatness, but those highs have been short-lived, followed by rapid declines.
The last two years are a clear example: the Canucks went from a team that was a win away from the Western Conference Final to one that missed the playoffs last season and appears destined to do the same this year. Those falls aren’t all that common (although the Rangers are living through a familiar descent) and are generally the result of self-inflicted missteps or a run of terrible luck.
In Vancouver’s case, it appears to be a mix of both, but there is no doubt that the J.T. Miller/Pettersson rift did irreparable damage that could have long-standing effects on Vancouver’s locker room.
Miller’s departure should have signaled the Canucks’ direction. Still, a quick trade for defenseman Marcus Pettersson and forward Drew O’Connor then implied that Vancouver intended to compete for a playoff spot last season, and the subsequent re-signing of both players certainly reinforced that notion.
Internal and external pressures aside, the trade to bring in Pettersson and O’Connor added to the Canucks’ depth, and they shed some bad contracts (Danton Heinen and Vincent Desharnais) in the deal with Pittsburgh. But the trades showed a lack of direction for Vancouver, and that carried into last year’s trade deadline as well as the summer, when the Canucks showed a lack of forward thinking. All of that leads us to this season, where Vancouver has spun its wheels despite rostering an ageing, expensive core.
The Miller trade to the Rangers had to happen, and while the return wasn’t great, it wasn’t awful either, as Miller has struggled to regain his form in the Big Apple. But the moves that followed the trade felt reactionary and forced, and ultimately proved in vain.
Pettersson was a top-pairing defender in Pittsburgh, but this season with the Canucks has been perhaps the worst of his career. The 29-year-old looks to be a shell of his former self and, like many players in Vancouver, has been terrible.
O’Connor has been fine in Vancouver, tallying 10 goals and seven assists in 47 games thus far while continuing to use his speed and size to be disruptive on the forecheck. That move, while tainted by Pettersson’s play this year, made sense at the time, but as the Canucks approached the trade deadline, some of management’s decision-making left a lot to be desired.
There was a moment after the Miller trade when the Canucks could have pivoted to a quick retool that might have been tough to stomach for the rest of last year and this season, but it would likely have yielded results next season. Instead, the Canucks did what they did, extended both Pettersson and O’Connor, and inked backup goaltender Kevin Lankinen to a deal that pays him $4.5MM per season for five years. All of it was reactionary, in the hope of getting the Canucks into the postseason last year. They didn’t.
The Canucks also tried to trade Brock Boeser last year at the deadline, but weren’t able to come to terms on a deal. It seemed all but certain he would bolt elsewhere in free agency last summer, but there he was on July 1, surprisingly signing a seven-year agreement with Vancouver that appears set to age like milk.
The Canucks added to their forward depth in another move, acquiring Evander Kane via trade from Edmonton. It was an acceptable deal in a vacuum; however, given Vancouver’s overall roster construction, it was a head-scratcher, as the Canucks used much of their cap space to fix the wing while watching their already thin center position get worse when Pius Suter departed in free agency.
Vancouver spent the rest of the summer making small roster changes in hopes that the core would find its mojo again. Still, a few months into the season, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen, which sparked trade rumours for their star defenseman, Quinn Hughes, whom they eventually dealt to Minnesota towards the end of 2025. The Hughes deal was actually a great haul for Vancouver given the circumstances, but it has officially put them into a hybrid retool that probably should’ve happened a year ago.
Hindsight is 20/20, but had Vancouver pivoted in early 2025 after trading Miller, they might have avoided some of the mistakes they’ve made over the past year, which have effectively set them back a few years. Instead, Vancouver is locked into long-term deals with underperforming forwards, a talented yet expensive goalie tandem that has injury and inconsistency issues, and a defense core that is now average at best.
Sure, they do have some nice young players who will likely become NHLers, but they will be surrounded by an old, pricey core unless the Canucks can start moving out from under some of the contracts they’ve locked in. No one is taking Boeser’s deal this year; the same could probably be said for Elias Pettersson’s.
But Vancouver could move their pending UFAs before the trade deadline and have nearly $17MM in cap space next summer to sign just two roster players (as per PuckPedia). That type of wiggle room could allow for additions before next season, but it’s not clear whether Vancouver should do that in the midst of what appears to be either a retool or a rebuild.
Patience might be the best thing for the president of hockey ops, Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin to exercise, but given their track records, that has not been their strong suit, and it is a big part of the reason the Canucks find themselves where they are.
The Maple Leafs Are At A Crossroads
The Maple Leafs are on a heater at the moment, and while it’s made some fans forget about their awful stretch of play to start the season, it was clear that the team was going through something, and it’s hard to put a name to it. Some might call it an identity crisis: the team is full of offensive talent yet chooses to play low-risk, safe hockey.
Others might say it’s the apparent outcome of losing Mitch Marner and not replacing him with another offensive star. Or maybe it was the injuries, which have tested the team’s depth. Whatever it was, Toronto is facing a crossroads, and the future of the roster is murky.
The team struggled to get off to a good start, but has been much better as of late. Where they go from here is anyone’s guess, as the team has been unpredictable up to this point in the season.
Even though they are finally winning, many Leafs fans seem indifferent as the team sits outside of a playoff spot. Toronto fans could be fatigued by a team that always seems to let them down when games matter most, or many folks in Ontario who are Maple Leafs fans may have had their interests shift after the magical run MLB’s Toronto Blue Jays went on just a few months ago. Whatever it is, the Maple Leafs – the organization and roster – likely won’t go on for the rest of the season the way they are, which means something has to give.
Toronto is 7-1-2 in its last 10 games and has a positive goal differential on the year. But the results of late have been more of the same. They are great at home and terrible on the road, play great offense and below-average defense, and don’t play fast or tough enough. The Maple Leafs are the perfect candidate to make a shake-up move to change their fortunes, but what would that kind of move even look like?
Many fans would have liked to see Craig Berube fired before their most recent hot streak, but he is a highly respected Stanley Cup-winning coach who knows how to win. Would that kind of move change the fortunes of the Maple Leafs?
It could. It has happened before to other talented teams lumbering through mediocre seasons despite gifted rosters. The 2009 and 2016 Penguins come to mind as two examples of teams that fired their coach midseason and went on to win the Stanley Cup. More recently, the Blues fired head coach Mike Yeo in 2018, only to go on and win the Stanley Cup in 2019 with a new coach behind the bench – Berube.
But is firing Berube really the right move? It probably never was, and it definitely isn’t after their most recent stretch of play, especially given that the coaching market isn’t exactly ripe with great options for Toronto, and they would most likely be recycling a less-than-desirable option through Toronto, which probably makes it the wrong move.
What about a big trade? Well, that’s another issue for Toronto. They don’t have much to trade to acquire a player who can help now. Their prospect system is among the worst in the league, and they have just three picks in this year’s draft, none of which are in the first two rounds. They also don’t have a first-round pick in 2027 or a third-rounder.
This is before we even get to cap space, which they have very little of. Toronto could do some cap gymnastics, but at the moment, they have less than $3.4MM available at the deadline (per PuckPedia), which likely makes any significant move out of the question. Plus, do you want to move out more futures for short-term rentals when you don’t even know if this group is a playoff team?
The following month will say a lot about the Maple Leafs. If they continue to hover outside of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, they are probably best off seeing if they can move their UFAs and punt on this season. But if they continue the current run they are on, that will change the calculus going forward and put any coaching change talk among the fanbase to bed.
How can Toronto turn the corner and make sure it remains a consistent team? Simply put, they need to figure out which style of play maximizes the talent on their roster. Scott Laughton has been a black hole offensively since arriving in Toronto late last season, with just six goals and two assists in 30 games this year.
The same could be said for Calle Jarnkrok, who was once a consistent 30-to-40-point player but has just six goals in 29 games this season. They also need to figure out how to manage injuries to key players, including defenseman Chris Tanev and goaltender Anthony Stolarz.
It’s never easy to replace top players; however, teams find ways to do it and tread water until their players return. The Penguins faced a stretch this season without their entire second line, yet they remained in the playoff hunt despite arguably having a worse roster than the Maple Leafs. Teams rely on structure, work ethic and a next-man-up philosophy to overcome injuries, and Toronto needs to dig deep to do the same.
Lastly, there is the Marner issue, and it is perhaps the biggest. Fans had a close-up last night of Marner in Vegas’ overtime win over the Maple Leafs. Toronto never replaced Marner, and to be honest, they never could.
Stars leave massive holes in rosters when they depart, but good management groups find ways to plug the gaps, and the Maple Leafs haven’t done that. Some fans and pundits have suggested Toronto make a move for Stars forward Jason Robertson, but that move doesn’t have legs for many of the reasons previously stated (lack of cap space, lack of assets, etc.). But there are players out there that Toronto could look at as potential assets to add before the trade deadline, should they be in the hunt for a playoff spot.
At this stage of their contention window, the Maple Leafs can ill afford to finish in the middle and miss the playoffs entirely, losing their first-round pick. The best course for them is to make the postseason this year and try to make a run, but if they are going to miss the playoffs, it would likely be better to finish low enough in the standings to get a top 5 pick, retain their first-round pick for this season, and retool in the summer. This situation would push them to give up first-round picks in 2027 and 2028, but the hope would be that they could get a top prospect this year who could make an immediate NHL impact.
The Senators Have Some Tough Decisions To Make
The Senators are facing a midseason crossroads. The season has not gone as planned, and they are well out of a playoff spot.
They could stand pat and hope James Reimer provides steady goaltending, push for short-term moves to improve the team, or pivot to a sell-off for this season and hope to reload in the summer. It’s a real dilemma in Ottawa, as the Senators are too flawed to contend but too good to tank.
Even if they wanted to aim for an impact prospect in the 2026 draft, they don’t have their first-round pick this year thanks to the Evgenii Dadonov debacle. The Senators are effectively in the worst possible situation this year, and the next few weeks will be crucial in determining where they go from here.
There will be no easy answers for a club that has dramatically underperformed. Rebuilding is absolutely out of the question, given how much long-term money Ottawa has spent on extensions over the last few years.
However, a quick retool could inject much-needed draft capital or prospects into the Senators’ pipeline and net them a fair amount of assets, given how tight the standings are and how few teams appear set to become sellers before the trade deadline. If Ottawa wanted to dump some of its pending UFAs, it could effectively set the trade market on its own terms rather than responding to what other clubs do.
If the Sens start shipping out veteran talent, they have a decent stockpile of players on expiring deals that could be made available, including several former Stanley Cup champions among the forwards: Lars Eller, David Perron, and Nick Cousins. On top of the trio of former winners, forward Claude Giroux and defenseman Nick Jensen are also pending UFAs, giving Ottawa a healthy list of potential players to move should they slide completely out of playoff contention.
But can the Senators move all of those veterans this year?
Giroux is having another solid season, with 32 points in 46 games. However, at 38 years old and playing close to home, does he really want to serve as a deadline rental?
It’s hard to say. On the surface, it seems unlikely, but Giroux is nearing the end of his career and is missing the one thing every NHL player covets: a Stanley Cup ring.
If Giroux agreed to a trade, he could theoretically make the move for a few months and then return next summer to Canada’s capital, or somewhere else close to home. That has happened in the past, albeit not for a long time.
Mark Recchi did it back in 2006 when he accepted a trade from the Penguins to the Hurricanes, only to return to Pittsburgh the following summer. Keith Tkachuk had a similar sequence when he was traded by the Blues in February 2007 to the Thrashers, only to be returned in a separate trade in June.
Jensen is another interesting case and would have been a highly sought-after trade piece before this year, given that right-shot defensemen are always in demand. But this season has been one to forget for Jensen, who was a healthy scratch just a couple of weeks ago and has been trying to find his game for much of the season.
Ottawa has attempted to manage the 35-year-old’s workload, dropping his playing time from over 20 minutes a night to just north of 16 minutes per game in an effort to keep him fresh, but it hasn’t done much to improve Jensen’s play. The biggest knock on Jensen at the moment is that his once-fluid skating now looks disjointed and robotic, which isn’t surprising given his injury history and the fact that he had offseason hip surgery and missed Ottawa’s training camp in September.
Jensen hasn’t looked like himself this year, and the Senators’ goaltending has been terrible, which has only magnified his struggles and dropped his trade stock and, ultimately, his future contract prospects significantly.
Returning to Eller, he is a low-maintenance, plug-and-play fourth-line center who doesn’t contribute much offensively anymore but can still skate and has reasonable puck-handling ability. The 36-year-old has just two goals and four assists in 32 games this year, but has buried himself in a defensive role, which suits his skill set at this late stage of his career.
Eller is the perfect low-cost veteran for contending teams looking to add depth. He is making just $1.25MM on a one-year deal, and with such a low cost, if the Senators move him before the deadline, they should be able to grab a mid-round draft pick.
As for Cousins, no one should want to acquire him, given that he was voted by the players as the NHL’s most punchable player. That said, he is likely only disliked until he plays on someone’s team.
Cousins is the kind of player that teammates love, and opposing players despise. He has a unique skill set that is often overlooked, but he adds physicality, plays a pest-like game, and brings energy that can spark a team, particularly in the playoffs.
The Belleville, Ontario native has historically drawn a lot of penalties and can chip in with offense (six goals and six assists in 45 games this year), although his defensive work leaves a lot to be desired. Cousins is on a one-year deal, making just $825K this season, so, like Eller, there should be demand given that he can fit into almost any team’s salary-cap structure.
Finally, there is Perron, who has been much better this season after posting just 16 points in 43 games last year. The 37-year-old already has nine goals and 14 assists in 46 games this year, and his underlying numbers are much better than they were a year ago.
Perron is no longer a perennial 20-goal, 50-point scorer, but he remains a useful depth scorer and should be in demand if Ottawa makes him available. He’s one of, if not the, slowest players in the NHL, but he hits and is reasonably productive offensively at this late stage of his career.
Perron isn’t going to net Ottawa a first-round pick, but it’s entirely possible they could get a second-rounder should they opt to trade him. He will likely want to stay close to home, but his 15-team no-trade list covers less than half the league and would leave the Senators with plenty of potential suitors for Perron. It’s also possible that he would embrace the move to a team on his no-trade list if Ottawa is out of the playoff picture and a team is appealing enough to him.
Ottawa has rattled off a couple of wins in the last few days, which could be the start of a turnaround. Ironically, the Senators have been deploying Cousins, Eller and Perron as their de facto fourth line in those two games, and they’ve been terrific as a unit.
But even with four points in their pocket, the Senators sit five points back of a playoff spot, with six teams to leapfrog for the final playoff spot. There is also the consideration that those two wins came against the teams sitting at the bottom of both conferences, the Canucks and Rangers.
If Ottawa is going to go on a run, it will need to beat some outstanding teams in the coming weeks. The next two to three weeks will be crucial for the Senators and could ultimately dictate their short-term intentions.
The Full Teardown Rebuild Doesn’t Work Anymore
A few years ago, it was common for NHL fanbases to call for their favorite team to bottom out when it came time to rebuild the organization’s roster, and for good reason. The bottom-out rebuild had become trendy because most Stanley Cup champions during the 2010s had used that method of roster construction, and other teams began copying it, as is often the case.
However, late in the decade, another trend began to surface: the teams that were bottoming out couldn’t turn the corner in their rebuilds and remained in a perpetual state of losing. That leads us to the past couple of seasons, when some of those teams, namely the Sabres, have remained at the bottom of the NHL standings, while others, such as the Capitals, have successfully orchestrated softer retools.
At this point, it’s becoming evident that the bottom-out rebuild no longer works in today’s NHL.
There are many reasons it doesn’t work. Most notably, the draft is no longer a safe bet for bottom-feeders to land generational talent. Ten years ago, high picks were nearly a guarantee if you finished at the bottom of the standings, and now, with the new draft odds, it’s much harder to win a top pick.
Teams can no longer rely on a top draft pick to secure elite talent, which has reduced the incentive to tank via roster construction. After all, you still need fans to buy tickets and merchandise, and they won’t do that if your club is getting beaten every night.
This leads to another point about tearing down the roster. If you do acquire young talent who have no one else to play with and play in a culture of losing, that type of environment does seem contagious.
You can simply look at Edmonton and Buffalo in the 2010s. They couldn’t shake the stink of a losing culture, and it seeped into much of their young talent. Buffalo is a particularly egregious example, as many of their top draft picks more or less forced their way out of Buffalo to go on and win Stanley Cups in other cities.
This culture also shapes the development outcomes for younger players and explains why some young players get drafted late but, once in an NHL environment, find new levels in their games they had never reached before. It was no accident in the 1990s and 2000s that the Red Wings consistently found stars late in the draft. They had built a development machine and a culture of excellence that brought out the best in all of their young players. That dynamic can go the other way if you have a culture of losing. There is a real irony to all of it. The worse your team is, the less equipped your organization is to develop the players who might save your franchise.
Even if you hit the lottery and draft elite players, it doesn’t compound year after year the way it used to when the Penguins could grab Marc-André Fleury, Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, and Jordan Staal. The new rules from 2022 mean that a team cannot win the lottery more than twice in five years. Now, technically, that wouldn’t change things in the case of Pittsburgh, as they traded up to draft Fleury and drafted Malkin and Staal second overall, but it does reduce the incentive to ice a poor roster.
It’s also difficult to sustain the financial costs of an NHL roster in the salary-cap era while intentionally fielding a poor roster for several seasons. Back when Pittsburgh and Chicago were building their bottom-feeding rosters, they could literally sign every player to the league minimum (and they almost did) because the salary-cap floor they had to meet to be cap-compliant was much lower. Now, with an elevated floor, very few NHL teams could afford to reach the floor and ice a poor roster year after year without suffering a significant drop in gate revenue.
Speaking of money, another wrinkle in the bottom-out rebuild is that if you somehow draft elite players and develop them into NHL stars, they are set to exit their entry-level contracts and cash in big. Young stars can demand bigger extensions earlier, meaning the cheap years of their careers are behind them, and the team has to allocate massive amounts of cap space to them and can’t insulate them with other players. Stated differently, once your rebuild starts to bear fruit, the discounted years are over.
Then there is the issue that it’s tough to deconstruct an NHL roster, and even when you try to tear it down, you might end up with a team that falls into the mushy middle. This has happened to the Penguins this season: they tried to trade many of their veterans this past summer (Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust, Erik Karlsson) but weren’t able to, and now find themselves in a playoff hunt.
It would have been foolish for Pittsburgh to give away its top players for very little, and whether they were serious about moving them is known only to management. Still, they elected to hold onto them and continue to ice a team that is competing for a wild-card spot. This is different from 20-plus years ago, when there was no salary cap, and Pittsburgh could simply call the Rangers or the Capitals to dump their star players.
Finally, there is the difference that social media and modern society make in rebuilding a team. Twenty years ago, entertainment options were much more limited, so fans stuck around to watch their favorite team, even when it was bad. This meant that management and coaches had a longer leash to rebuild and develop young players, as ownership had more patience because supporters were more committed and less distracted by other forms of entertainment. Nowadays, though, fans have a million choices for their leisure time, and if their favorite club is bad, they can do other things to fill their time.
Social media also plays into this, as fans have a louder voice than ever, which can put pressure on ownership if the naysayers get too noisy or create their own narratives. A rebuild used to be allowed to breathe for months at a time with minimal criticism, but nowadays it is litigated on social media daily. This can accelerate impatience and force management and ownership to show progress more quickly, making the long, painful rebuild a near impossibility.
Then there is self-preservation, which is often the primary motivator in management, leading to avoiding the long rebuild or not fully committing to a teardown. GMs notoriously shorten their own timelines and make job-saving trades that often turn out to be poor moves for the organization and for themselves (Kevyn Adams in Buffalo, for example).
The modern reality of a rebuild is that it is no longer about losing for a long time and collecting top picks. You can do that and still go nowhere, as evidenced by many teams in the last ten years. Rebuilds have become about timing long-term contracts.
They’ve become about layering prospects so they arrive in consistent waves year after year, keeping your depth intact when your internal players become too expensive to retain. They’ve become about patience and development, avoiding giving up on players too early, moving them prematurely, getting impatient with your current roster, and making a bad move. And finally, they’ve become about protecting your assets, draft picks, roster players, and cap space.
The teams that win now are no longer the ones that lose their way to the top; they are the disciplined ones that build the right way.
Ottawa’s Contention Window Could Be Short
The Senators have struggled to start the year, despite high hopes and promises that this would be the year they finally made some noise. However, some three months into the season, the only noise out of Ottawa is the collective sighs as the team’s inconsistency drives its most loyal supporters up the wall.
The Sens have a relatively young team, and with youth comes growing pains. But this group has been together for quite a while now, and it’s fair to wonder if this is who they are: a talented group of individual players who, together, form a flawed team with a window to win that grows smaller by the day.
When the Senators began tearing apart their core in 2018, it was clear that dark days lay ahead, but in the background, there was always hope for a brighter future, and for good reason. Many of the teams that tore down their roster to the studs rebuilt their systems and competed for Stanley Cups.
Whenever fans discussed the bottom-out rebuild, they would bring up the Penguins, Blackhawks, Kings and Lightning, and the collective 10 Stanley Cups those four teams won over 12 years. However, tearing down the roster was never a guarantee of success.
For every Chicago or Pittsburgh, you had a Buffalo or Edmonton. Teams that had bottomed out, but never built anything worth talking about. And now, with the Senators nearing the halfway point of the season at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, it’s fair to start asking whether they are more Buffalo than Chicago.
Ottawa is still framed as a team on the rise. They are young, talented, and one would think poised to break through once the pieces fall into place.
But aren’t the pieces already in place? You would think so, given the players they’ve brought in over the past five years, such as Jakob Chychrun and Alex DeBrincat, two men who were brought in for a season or two and shuffled out quickly. Ottawa likely pounced too early when they brought in those players, sensing they were closer to winning than they actually were, and exposing some of the problematic elements of a rebuild that are often forgotten.
The Senators have a ton of talent in their core. There is no doubting that.
Just because a core is talented doesn’t mean there is synchronicity. Ottawa has some pieces nearing their prime, while others have long passed it, and some are just learning what it takes to be a full-time NHLer and are being asked to do too much. Talent isn’t really the issue in Ottawa; timing is.
In fairness to the Senators, they did most of what a rebuilding team is supposed to do. They hit on their top picks (Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle), had some big trade wins by shipping out veterans (Erik Karlsson), and signed their top stars to very reasonable contracts (Jake Sanderson, Stützle, Tkachuk). But once those players are signed, it becomes much more challenging to layer the roster with inexpensive depth, and that is generally done through drafting, which the Senators have struggled with outside the first round. This has begun to rear its head.
There has long been a mentality among Senators fans that the team would figure out who to surround their stars with later on, but the time to figure it out is now, and they don’t look like they have the solutions. The trouble with a competitive window in the case of the Senators is that when you make big bets and lose, the window to win doesn’t get delayed or kicked down the road; it shrinks. The Senators could be in the midst of finding that out.
The Senators’ stars have been out of the development stage for a few years now, and one has to wonder how long their star players will remain patient. They were supposed to be past the learning years and into the progression years, and while last year felt like a step in the right direction, this year feels like two steps back, with little help on the way in the form of prospects or significant additions.
Ottawa’s farm system ranks bottom-10 in the league (23rd on Elite Prospects, 25th on Daily Faceoff), and they are without a first-round pick this year. They have a healthy stash of draft picks outside of that, but don’t have a ton of cap room to make major splashes.
Speaking of the salary cap, Ottawa has $23MM available next summer with eight players to sign (per PuckPedia). Assuming defensive prospect Carter Yakemchuk makes the jump to the NHL, that leaves Ottawa with around $22MM and seven players to sign to NHL deals.
That’s not a bad number by any stretch, but realistically, they will be looking to sign a top-four right-handed defenseman, a top-six winger, a backup goaltender, and a few bottom-six forwards. It’s not a daunting task, but it doesn’t leave much wiggle room, and you have to wonder whether their roster will be much better next year.
And make no mistake, the years are about to matter a whole lot more to the players on the roster and the team. Drake Batherson has one year remaining on his deal after this one, as does defenseman Artem Zub, while the likes of Tkachuk and defenseman Thomas Chabot have two.
Batherson has been a massive bargain on his current deal, carrying a cap hit of just $4.975MM on a six-year deal and delivering 60-plus points per season. Batherson is also consistently in the lineup, having dressed for 82 games in each of the previous three seasons. His defensive play, on the other hand, is not something to write home about, but that can be said for many goal-scoring wingers in the NHL.
Batherson has given Ottawa a ton of value over the life of his current contract, and like it or not, he’s going to want to claw a lot of that back on his next deal, which figures to be a seven-year deal and will probably top teammate Shane Pinto’s $7.5MM deal. Does Ottawa want to pay Batherson $8MM or more annually? Hard to say, but they can’t get that deal wrong, and what kind of message would it send to trade him right before the Tkachuk negotiations start?
Speaking of Tkachuk, he is the heart of the team and one heck of a competitor. You have to believe that if Ottawa can’t show forward progress in the next 18 months, he won’t be in a hurry to sign a long-term deal with the Senators when he is eligible to do so in July 2027.
Tkachuk negotiated in a very tactical and aggressive way during the last round of contract talks, and you have to believe he won’t be an easy player to lock up long-term if real results aren’t shown. Tkachuk is being paid handsomely at the moment, carrying an AAV north of $8.2MM. Steve Warne of The Hockey News has reported previously that his father, Keith Tkachuk, doesn’t believe he will leave Ottawa, but losing does a lot, as does winning, and Ottawa’s results will have a lot of say in what Tkachuk does.
The Senators have no choice but to win often and soon. They can ill afford to let the years go by without success. Windows to win don’t usually slam shut; they close quietly when contracts age poorly, teams fail to develop players, and depth erodes. It happened to those aforementioned Stanley Cup champions, in Chicago’s case, much earlier than expected and in Pittsburgh’s case, much later. It will happen to Ottawa at some point, and the question is whether they will win before it does. Much of that will be determined over the next 18 months.
Photo by Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports
Ryan Shea Is Going To Get A Big Raise This Summer
Saying that Penguins defenseman Ryan Shea is having a career year would be a massive understatement. The 28-year-old has two goals and 14 assists in 41 games, is a +15, and averages over 19 minutes a night.
While plus/minus is a flawed statistic, it is eye-opening to see it that high. Shea has played up and down the Penguins’ defense this season, pairing with the likes of Kris Letang, Jack St. Ivany, Harrison Brunicke, and Parker Wotherspoon. No disrespect to any of those players, but St. Ivany has been a tweener to this point in his career, Brunicke is back playing in the World Juniors, and Letang has been a mess defensively for most of the year, making the +15 all the more impressive.
Shea spent much of the season paired with Letang, but in the last week, Shea and St. Ivany have formed an effective shutdown pairing for the Penguins, coinciding with an intense stretch of play for the team. Shea’s adaptability and offensive emergence couldn’t have come at a better time for the three-year NHL pro, as he is slated to be an unrestricted free agent on July 1 and is set to earn a healthy raise from the $900K he is making this year.
Shea signed that one-year deal last March, and it seemed like an odd bit of business for the Penguins at the time, as they were busy selling off at the trade deadline and Shea was a candidate to be moved. Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas clearly saw something he liked in Shea’s game and gave him a raise and guaranteed NHL money for this season in an extension that has been a windfall for Pittsburgh at a time when they needed a left-handed defenseman to step up and fill a massive weakness.
Not only did Shea step up, but he also effectively became the type of player Pittsburgh needed to acquire if they wanted to contend for a playoff spot, which may or may not have been the plan. Regardless of the intentions, Pittsburgh is in the playoff hunt, and Shea has been a massive part of that.
So, what is the plan for Shea now? That is the million-dollar question, or in Shea’s case, the multi-million-dollar question.
At the beginning of the season, AFP Analytics projected a one-year deal worth $1.075MM for Shea next season. That number is obviously going to be different now, but it’s fair to wonder how different it will be.
Shea has a lot working in his favor in his contract negotiations. He is still relatively young, doesn’t have a lot of NHL mileage on his body, and capable defensemen are always in demand.
Just look at one of his predecessors as Letang’s partner, Brian Dumoulin, who is much older and worn down, and who got three years and $12MM as a UFA last summer. On the flip side, Shea doesn’t have a long NHL resume, having played 111 games and entering his third season.
He also doesn’t have a track record as an impact defender outside this year. Shea had pedestrian results last season in 39 games, posting two goals and three assists, but he was leaned on heavily defensively. He didn’t have too many opportunities to chip in offensively.
His free agency is going to get interesting over the next two months, particularly if the Penguins stay in contention for a playoff spot and opt to hold onto him. Pittsburgh gave Shea his NHL opportunity, signing him to NHL money before he ever played an NHL game, demonstrating faith in his ability to become an NHL defenseman.
That 2023 signing showed absolute trust from Dubas and the Penguins, and it makes one wonder whether Shea will reward the team with a discount in negotiations. There is also a precise fit for both Shea and the team.
He fills a need well, and even on an extension, he won’t cost more than a potential replacement would in free agency or a trade. That said, there is always a risk in signing a one-hit wonder, as his play could be a mirage, and you end up locked in long-term with a player who can’t cut it in the NHL.
If the Penguins fall out of contention, on the other hand, it could change the complexion of Shea’s future, particularly if they deal him to a different team. Therein lies the risk for Shea, because if he gets traded elsewhere and falls flat on his face, it would pretty much tank his prospects for a long-term deal on the open market. But if he gets moved and succeeds, it removes a significant question mark surrounding him.
It remains to be seen whether Pittsburgh will even deal Shea if they fall out of contention. They didn’t last year, when Shea was more of an unknown, and it would seem silly to trade him now, when you have a better idea of what he can be in the NHL.
Pittsburgh might just sign him even if they fall out of contention, because they have the cap space and know what they have in Shea. They also have a ton of other pending UFA defensemen who don’t figure to be part of their future, and they could move those instead.
What could Shea be looking at in terms of a contract extension? It’s hard to predict, given the current economic climate.
Still, there are a couple of comparables, such as the Flyers’ Emil Andrae and the Flames’ Jake Bean. AFP Analytics has Bean pegged for a two-year deal worth $2.25MM per season, while Andrae is projected at $1.7MM AAV on a two-year deal. Declan Chisholm of the Capitals is another decent comparison in terms of career numbers. He signed his contract extension as an RFA, inking a two-year deal worth $1.6MM annually.
The issue with the Chisholm comparison is that he was an RFA, while Shea is unrestricted. However, using the framework of all the aforementioned contracts, it seems likely that Shea is headed for a two-year deal, possibly three, at a rate that probably tops the Bean projection.
However, this is the NHL, and it wouldn’t be shocking to see Shea sign a four-year deal worth $3MM or more annually, given the surging salary cap and teams’ desperation for reliable defenseman.
Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.
Assessing The Kraken’s Goaltending Situation
The Kraken entered the break on a strong note with three straight wins, but they’ve only won four of their last 14 games. Thanks to many of their tweener companions in the West struggling, they’re only three points out of a playoff spot with four games in hand on the Mammoth.
Seattle isn’t a surefire playoff team by any stretch at a record of 15-14-6, but given the level of goaltending they’ve received thus far from Joey Daccord, Philipp Grubauer and Matt Murray, they should be able to at least stay in the mix until the trade deadline. Seattle’s issue has clearly been its offense this year, which ranks third-last in the league at 2.54 goals per game. On the defensive side, Seattle’s 2.97 goals against per game rank 13th.
Earlier in 2025, two NHL contracts that seemed unmovable were those of Grubauer and Tristan Jarry. Jarry was dealt to the Oilers earlier this month after passing through waivers a year ago. However, his play this year opened the door for the Penguins to move him and his entire $5.375MM cap hit, even though it had another two years after this one.
Something that seemed impossible a year ago happened, and the Penguins netted two roster players and a second-round pick. The trade highlighted the limited goaltending options available across the NHL, which brings us to the Kraken and, specifically, Grubauer.
The 34-year-old has been a disaster since signing with Seattle as a free agent in 2021. The Stanley Cup winner signed a six-year deal worth $5.9MM annually, and he has never been able to give the Kraken anything close to the goaltending he provided to the Avalanche in his few seasons as their starter.
Grubauer was a Vezina Trophy finalist in his platform season, finishing third, and posted a 30-9-1 record with a .922 SV% and a 1.95 GAA. As impressive as those numbers were, his underlying numbers painted a clearer picture, minimizing Grubauer’s overall impact and suggesting a goaltender playing behind an excellent team. Grubauer still had to stop the saveable pucks and avoid the bad goals, and that’s precisely what he did, but he only registered 5.2 goals saved above expected (as per MoneyPuck), 11th in the league.
Fast-forward to that summer, when Seattle thought they were getting a netminder capable of backstopping them on deep playoff runs. Now, his contract has become one of, if not the, least movable agreements in the NHL, until perhaps this season.
Grubauer has started the season well, even though traditional metrics don’t necessarily reflect it. He has played 11 games this season, going 5-3-1 with a .911 SV% and a 2.59 GAA. Those numbers are nothing to write home about, but a deeper dive shows that Grubauer has 7.1 goals saved above expected on the year – the best figure on the Kraken.
That great start to the season could give Seattle the chance to move him, if he agrees. Grubauer has a modified no-trade clause in his contract, which further complicates a trade even if Seattle were able to find a dance partner.
To add to an already complicated dynamic, the third-string Murray is injured. Unfortunately, injuries have derailed a career that once looked incredibly bright. That said, when Murray returns to the lineup, the Kraken will presumably have three capable NHL goaltenders and will need to move one or assign one to the AHL.
This is where it gets really complicated. Losing Grubauer for Murray is a lateral move at this point, but is Seattle really willing to roll the dice with Murray as the backup? Hard to say, but talent-wise, Murray is more than capable, and the risk of moving Grubauer might just be worth it if it means shedding his massive contract, especially if the Kraken remain out of the playoff picture.
It’s not dissimilar to what the Penguins had to do to shed Jarry’s contract. They took back Stuart Skinner and are rolling with him and Arturs Silovs, but the big win is not having Jarry’s money on the books, which opens the door for Pittsburgh to do a lot next summer. Seattle could put itself in a similar spot if it moved all of Grubauer’s deal, which would bring it to $40MM in available cap room for 2026-27 with just six players to sign (as per PuckPedia)
Seattle has already begun selling off free agents, as evidenced by the Mason Marchment trade to the Blue Jackets, and is signalling that it plans to punt on this season. Murray is a pending free agent, but even if Seattle were to trade the two-time Stanley Cup Champion, it wouldn’t get much for him given his play in previous seasons and his long injury history. The Kraken’s best course of action is to try to move Grubauer for something, anything really, to clear the books and make some bigger moves next summer.
Now, teams are obviously desperate for goaltending, but that doesn’t mean Seattle can move all of Grubauer’s contract. They should be able to move half or more, but they have to do it soon, so his play doesn’t fall back to the level it was at in the last few seasons. They also need to be concerned that a team like Pittsburgh tries to move Skinner, which would further diminish Seattle’s trading partners.
The Flyers Need To Add A Goalie To Stay In The Hunt
As we push into the second half of the NHL season, we’ve seen more chatter about goaltending and the rare in-season goalie trade involving the Oilers and Penguins. While Edmonton is still in the hunt for a new backup option after acquiring Tristan Jarry, they likely aren’t the only ones looking to add depth. One team that should consider a goaltending acquisition is the Philadelphia Flyers.
At first glance, you might ask yourself why the Flyers need help. They are currently seventh-best in the NHL at limiting goals against, thanks mainly to the unbelievable play of Daniel Vladar.
He entered the holiday break with a 13-5-3 record, a .910 SV% and a 2.39 GAA. Vladar’s underlying numbers look even better, as he’s 10th in the league with 14.6 goals saved above expected (per MoneyPuck). These numbers are terrific, but there are concerns about Vladar’s longevity as he tracks to eclipse 30 starts in a season for the first time in his career.
He could surpass that mark before the end of January, starting 21 of 36 so far. The 28-year-old Vladar had been a career backup with the Flames and Bruins before this season.
He wasn’t a particularly good No. 2 option either, posting below-average numbers in almost every season of his career. He signed a somewhat surprising two-year contract with the Flyers this past summer worth $3.35MM per season. No one could have expected him to perform the way he has, which has to make one wonder whether he can carry this play throughout the season, or whether he has simply started the year on an extended heater.
The Flyers haven’t played playoff hockey since the bubble in 2020 and haven’t hosted a home playoff game since Jake Guentzel put up a four-spot against them in Game 6 of the first round in 2018. They are due for playoff action in Philadelphia, and it would be a disaster to let goaltending be their downfall, as it has been so many times before. Their hot start has them second in the Eastern Conference with a .625 points percentage, fueled by some of the league’s best defensive results at 5-on-5.
Outside of the team defense and Vladar, the bright spots are limited. Their offense ranks 24th in the NHL in goals scored. On top of that, Philadelphia doesn’t have a reliable goaltending option outside of Vladar to lean on.
Sure, Samuel Ersson has shown glimpses before. This year, in 14 games, he’s been middling with a 6-4-4 record, an .872 SV%, and a 2.96 GAA. Ersson’s numbers don’t tell the whole story, as he hasn’t played as poorly as those traditional numbers would suggest, but the Flyers need better goaltending than that if they hope to make a playoff push.
Behind Vladar and Ersson is Aleksei Kolosov, who has seen limited NHL action this season, playing just two games. Only one of those appearances was a start, and Kolosov lost it. Still, he played well overall, posting a .929 SV% and a 1.62 GAA.
It’s tough to get overly excited about Kolosov’s play, given his more conservative .900 SV% in the AHL this season. The 2021 third-rounder is still just 23 years old and has room to grow, but for a team with legitimate postseason aspirations, there isn’t a slot for him as a legitimate backup option with a starter as historically untested as Vladar.
All of that to say, the Flyers have to look outside the organization for one of two options. The first option would be to find a tandem goaltender to pair with Vladar and deploy a platoon. The other option would be to find a higher-ceiling traditional backup to play behind Vladar. This is where it could get complicated for Philadelphia, as goalie trades are notoriously tricky in-season. Still, they can be done, as evidenced by the recent Stuart Skinner-for-Jarry swap.
As for available options, there are few. If Philadelphia wants a platoon option, the only choices truly in the rumor mill have been Jordan Binnington of the St. Louis Blues or Skinner. Skinner is a less likely candidate given that the Flyers and Penguins rarely trade with one another, but moving Skinner to Philly could be a win/win for both teams.
There are some outside-the-box options for the Flyers, however. Cam Talbot of the Detroit Red Wings has been phenomenal this year, posting better numbers than partner John Gibson. But Talbot is a UFA this summer, and with Sebastian Cossa waiting in the wings, Detroit could look to move Talbot for the right price. A similar situation is unfolding in Carolina, where Brandon Bussi has effectively taken over for veteran Frederik Andersen. Depending on how generous the Flyers are willing to be in their trade offer, they could potentially pry one of those two away.
That being said, the tightness of the playoff picture in the East still makes it conceivable they’ll fall out of it entirely. They might not want to blow many future assets on a veteran netminder this year. They could look at lower-tier options as well, such as David Rittich of the New York Islanders, Elvis Merzlikins of the Columbus Blue Jackets, or even one of the Seattle Kraken’s backups, Matt Murray or Philipp Grubauer.
Merzlikins and Grubauer are two massive gambles, with term left on their contracts beyond this season, but the Flyers have cap space and could gamble on one of them returning to the form they showed earlier in their careers. While those moves might give the Philadelphia more depth, it’s probably not the best course of action for a team chasing a playoff spot. Murray could be the best fit of the bunch, but with his injury history, it would be hard to count on him regularly.
What Will Quinn Hughes’ Next Contract Look Like?
Now that the dust has settled on the Quinn Hughes trade to the Minnesota Wild and the superstar defenseman has settled into the Twin Cities, it’s fair to speculate about his future and whether it will include the Wild. Hughes is a little over 18 months away from becoming an unrestricted free agent. At a time when many superstars are taking the guaranteed money and staying put, it will be interesting to see whether he forgoes the free market for stability with the Wild. Hughes’ free agency case could be a landmark one, with so few players going to UFA and a salary cap soaring.
While the 27-year-old is a UFA on July 1, 2027, he can sign an extension in about six months. With the new CBA rules that cap the term at seven years instead of the previous eight, it could impact the term that Hughes will take. Does he lock in for the seven years early with his current team – or still eight if he signs before Sep. 15 – or will the allure of going to market convince him to accept a six-year term? The money will be there for Hughes either way, as will the term, but whether he wants to leave money on the table will be up to him.
In early October, Matt Sekeres and Blake Price discussed with Daily Faceoff’s Jeff Marek the potential for Hughes to become the NHL’s first $20MM player. Marek didn’t outright say he believed Hughes could become that player. Still, he did discuss the cascading effect of other players around the NHL coming to terms on lucrative deals, which will no doubt impact Hughes’ negotiations.
Many wondered if Connor McDavid could become the NHL’s first $20MM man, but he punted that opportunity and opted to remain in Edmonton at his current rate of $12.5MM. Hughes could make a similar move to McDavid and take a short-term deal at a discounted rate, but given that he was just traded, one has to think he won’t feel the same loyalty to the Wild that McDavid showed to the Oilers. Another wrinkle for Minnesota in getting Hughes to sign for a discount is that the Wild has already demonstrated they will pay a superstar’s market value to retain them, as they did with Kirill Kaprizov when they signed him to his massive record-setting extension earlier this year.
Given that the cascading effect is in play, there’s no greater impact than looking over at a talented teammate who got every cent they wanted and believing you should get it too. No one knows whether Hughes feels that way except himself, but with the allure of the free market and the temptation of playing with his brothers on a talented team in New Jersey, it’s hard to believe Hughes is going to leave money on the table to sign with the Wild.
That’s what makes the possibility of Hughes hitting a $20MM AAV all the more likely. The Wild gave up a ton to get the defenseman and aren’t going to let him walk for nothing. So, they have one of two choices: pay him what he wants or trade him after this season.
But who are Hughes’s comparables, and what kind of money is realistic on a long-term contract? The best comparable to Hughes is fellow defenseman Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche. Hughes and Makar have flipped the Norris Trophy in recent seasons as the league’s top defenseman. At this point, Makar is a step or two ahead of Hughes in terms of numbers and hardware. Makar has 470 points in 431 games, along with two Norris Trophies and a Calder Trophy, while Hughes has a single Norris Trophy and 435 points in 464 games. This also doesn’t factor in Makar’s Stanley Cup ring or his 4 Nations win this past year. Both men are slated to become free agents at the same time, which should make the parallel negotiations fascinating to watch. Outside of Makar and Hughes, there really is no comparable from a contract standpoint.
Thomas Harley of the Dallas Stars is a possibility after signing a long-term extension two months ago. Still, he isn’t nearly the contributor Hughes is and was only a restricted free agent next summer. Harley does have youth on his side, as he is just 24, but he doesn’t have a resume close to Hughes’ and isn’t in the same stratosphere offensively with just 117 points in 223 career NHL games. Harley is still a terrific player, but his $10.587MM cap hit isn’t remotely close to the number Hughes should command.
Odds are, Makar will ink his deal first, as he is pretty comfortable in Colorado and they have the cap space to make him a top offer, which should eclipse Kaprizov’s $17MM AAV if he goes for full value. As Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton discussed on DFO Live back in October, the escalating cap is going to allow guys like Makar to call their shots on their next deals. Still, there is no way to gauge whether money will be the driving force for Makar, or for Hughes, for that matter.
While Makar and Hughes will be linked by their free agency timelines and play, the similarities taper off after that. Hughes has family dynamics at play and no personal connection to his team yet. Those dynamics will be primary considerations for both players and could change the money they are ultimately willing to play for. Makar has been part of a winning environment for quite some time, while Hughes has two brothers playing on the same team and a potential path to join them in New Jersey. Makar has better career numbers than Hughes, but as we saw with Connor McDavid, loyalty, fit, family, and friendship can shave millions off a player’s cap hit. In the case of Hughes and Makar, time will tell if that happens.
Image courtesy of Matt Blewett-Imagn Images.
The Penguins Should Look Into Moving Some Veterans
The Pittsburgh Penguins are currently spiralling in freefall after the past two weeks and have gone from a comfortable playoff spot to the bottom of the Metropolitan Division. The Penguins have exhibited much of the same behaviours over the past couple of weeks that were on full display in the previous three seasons, when they missed the postseason, and they might not be ready to compete for the playoffs just yet. The difference this season in Pittsburgh is that the organization has hope in their young prospects and a ton of cap space available next summer.
The Penguins talked in the summer about going young, but in the past few weeks, they’ve injected a few veterans in favor of their young players, and the results haven’t been pretty. Pittsburgh also has several veterans on expiring contracts who don’t figure into the team’s long-term future, and given their recent stretch of play, they should begin unloading some of those veterans to bring in more young talent for their surging cupboard of futures.
Some might assume a headline like that means moving Bryan Rust, Rickard Rakell or Erik Karlsson, but quite the opposite is true. The Penguins have many capable veterans who can play in the NHL, but their age and contracts make their prospects in Pittsburgh very murky. The likes of Noel Acciari, Connor Clifton, Brett Kulak, Stuart Skinner and Anthony Mantha are five players Pittsburgh should be actively shopping to acquire assets and move a few young players up from the AHL.
That list could be much longer, as Pittsburgh has several other UFAs they could move, such as Matt Dumba, Danton Heinen, Connor Dewar, Kevin Hayes, and Ryan Shea. Dewar and Shea are likely candidates to receive extensions or, at the very least, be offered contracts to remain in Pittsburgh, as they both seem to be favorites of Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas. By contrast, Heinen and Hayes hold little to no trade value at their current levels of play. Depending on how things go for Pittsburgh and the trade market, Hayes and Heinen could find a small trade market close to the deadline.
Back to the other four players: their trade value varies widely, and, to be perfectly honest, none of them is going to carry a high price tag. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have any value. Mantha, for example, has 22 points in 33 games and has been a great offensive piece for the Penguins. He, along with Justin Brazeau and Evgeni Malkin, formed a formidable second line in Pittsburgh and was lights out when all three were healthy. That trifecta was short-lived, however, as both Brazeau and Malkin were injured for a significant stretch, and Mantha bounced between linemates. Speaking of injuries, Mantha has dealt with them in the past, including last season, when he played only a handful of games and missed much of the year. If the Penguins want to maximize the asset that is Mantha, they would be wise to move him early in the new year, unless they go on a heater over the next couple of weeks.
Mantha is 6’5” and 240 lbs, but he plays smaller than his size and has never been overly physical for a big man. He skates well for a bigger player and produces offense at a solid clip, particularly when he has skilled linemates. There should be a market for his services if the Penguins decide to move him, especially for teams that want a capable top-six forward without giving up a ton of assets.
Acciari is another forward the Penguins should seriously consider moving, as he is in the final year of his contract and carries a $2MM cap hit. Acciari has been a good soldier for the Penguins, but has been handed ridiculous deployment over his three seasons, starting nearly 90% of his shifts in the defensive zone this season. As you can imagine, his offensive numbers aren’t good, with just 25 points in 154 games as a member of the Penguins. Credit to the 34-year-old, he continues to play hard-nosed hockey and should net the Penguins a late-round pick. In 20 games this season, Acciari has a goal and five assists and has 27 hits, but he can kill penalties and provide leadership as a fourth liner on a playoff-bound team. Acciari isn’t part of the Penguins’ plans, and at this point, the Penguins might be wise to get out in front of the trade market so they aren’t left holding players after the deadline, as they were last year when they couldn’t move Matt Grzelcyk.
Kulak has been a member of the Penguins for only over a week, having arrived in the Jarry trade to make the cap hits work. He likely isn’t destined to remain in Pittsburgh, and it makes little sense for either side to reach terms on an extension. Kulak is serviceable and was actually quite good in the playoffs last year for the Edmonton Oilers. Still, the Penguins already have a ton of defense at or around Kulak’s skill level, and there was reportedly interest in him before he was traded. With the Penguins eyeing a youth movement and Kulak approaching the end of his career, the Penguins should move him and get what they can. If the goal is still to go young and build for the future, hanging onto Kulak makes little sense, especially with the team plummeting down the standings.
Then there is Skinner, who also came over in the Jarry trade from Edmonton. It’s hard to pin down what Skinner is because of his inconsistency in the NHL. People might forget, but the 27-year-old was a runner-up for the Calder Trophy in 2022-23 and was fantastic that season, but has been all over the map over the last two and a half years, which is why he was dealt from a Stanley Cup contender to a rebuilding club. He has a fantastic regular-season win-loss record (109-63-18), but his playoff numbers leave a lot to be desired (26-22). Unfortunately for him, he has been prone to gaffes and meltdowns at the worst possible times.
Now, in Pittsburgh, there doesn’t appear to be a fit, at least not on the surface. Skinner is approaching free agency, and the Penguins already have their goalie of the future in Sergey Murashov. However, the backup position is a bit of a question mark, as Arturs Silovs has struggled in his last dozen starts and may not be an NHL netminder. Pittsburgh also has youngster Joel Blomqvist waiting in the AHL, so they appear to be set for the near future.
Skinner could also have some value on the trade market, as teams are always desperate for netminding near the playoffs. Skinner has a minimal cap hit of just $2.6MM this season, which should be manageable for just about every team in the league should they want to add him. With Skinner, a lot is riding on his playing well the rest of this year. AFP Analytics projected earlier in the year that Skinner could get four years at $6.14MM per season, which seems wildly inflated after his start to the season. But being a UFA should give Skinner plenty of motivation to prove his detractors wrong, which is likely what Pittsburgh is hoping for over the next few months before the NHL Trade Deadline.
Regardless of how they do it, the Penguins can’t keep trotting out old, expensive depth players if they want to turn the corner in the rebuild. They should by no means tear down the whole roster. Still, any veteran on an expiring deal who isn’t Malkin, Dewar or Shea should be moved out for future assets so the Penguins can finally find younger, hungrier, faster depth players.