The Penguins Face A Challenging Summer With Kris Letang
The Penguins had a feel-good year, even if it ended in playoff disappointment against Philadelphia. Many of their young players took big steps in their development, and the team defied expectations and age to reach the postseason. But it wasn’t all roses and rainbows, as one of the Penguins’ older stars continued to see his play decline.
Kris Letang has been a member of the Big Three in Pittsburgh since breaking into the NHL in 2006-07 and is likely a future Hall of Famer. However, the 39-year-old isn’t the player he once was, and the Penguins need to have a serious conversation with him this summer to establish a role for next year that allows him to maximize his current abilities.
Pittsburgh deployed Letang as a top-four defenseman this year, playing him nearly 22 minutes a night in heavy minutes, including time on the penalty kill and the second-unit power play. The competitor in Letang no doubt loved that, but the results were inconsistent at best and downright dreadful at times.
This isn’t a new development either, as Letang has seen his play decline in consecutive seasons, posting the worst numbers in takeaways and turnovers of his career. Offensively, his numbers have also slipped: he posted just three goals and 27 assists in 74 games last year, for 34 points.
Analytically, Letang’s numbers have also declined, with his Corsi and Fenwick shares both falling below 50% in consecutive seasons for the first time in his career. In fact, his decline has become so glaring that Penguins head coach Dan Muse has sheltered Letang in a way he hasn’t before.
But as poor as Letang’s season was, he is still clearly an NHL defenseman and has the skill set to age gracefully well into his 40s as an NHL regular. In the last few games of the playoffs, Letang was phenomenal. However, in the first three games of the playoffs, he was a trainwreck. Therein lies the challenge Pittsburgh has with Letang.
The Penguins need to have a very hard conversation with Letang about several issues, mainly his style of play and his role in the hierarchy. Letang still plays the game as though he’s a 28-year-old in the prime of his career, forcing offense when it’s not there, pinching at inopportune times, and making high-risk plays.
28-year-old Letang had the skating, strength and speed to recover from his mistakes a decade ago, but that is no longer the case, and there has been no adjustment from Letang.
The Penguins have had three aging veterans to contend with in Letang, Evgeni Malkin, and Sidney Crosby. While Crosby has defied the aging curve, Letang and the Penguins need to confront a reality they’ve been avoiding.
The Penguins can add defensive depth, as they have in recent years, but Pittsburgh needs a top-four right-shot defenseman to allow Letang to drop down the lineup to the third pairing. This would help Letang better manage his workload and role and perhaps extend his career.
Letang obviously means a lot to the Penguins, but do the Penguins want to go hunting for a top-four right-shot defenseman at a time when they’ve made it clear they’re looking towards the future? It’s possible that GM Kyle Dubas could swing a trade for a young top-four defenseman who has perhaps underperformed on their current team, but historically, such players are among the most expensive assets to acquire.
Would the Penguins do it simply to shelter Letang? The answer is maybe, but there would certainly need to be a long-term benefit if Dubas holds to his wish to look to the future.
The other major question mark in Pittsburgh concerns Malkin, who is a UFA in under two months. If “Geno” goes unsigned, do the Penguins go to Letang and offer him the chance to play elsewhere?
There are no indications that either side is interested in that, but would a Malkin exit open the door for Letang and the Penguins? It’s not likely, but it is an interesting thought.
However, if the Penguins re-sign Malkin, keeping Letang makes the most sense. The team should have an honest conversation about his play and how best to use him. Letang is a warrior who has played through injuries, personal tragedy, and enormous pressure, and it’s not necessarily his fault that Pittsburgh leaned so heavily on him last season.
If Pittsburgh were to find another top-four defender, it would likely limit Letang’s responsibility in the transition game, which should reduce his turnovers and perhaps alleviate some of the defensive lapses as well, given that Letang’s recovery speed isn’t what it used to be. Also, as previously mentioned, the reduction in minutes and the level of competition would drop, adding additional benefit to both the player and the team.
It’s hard to say how a personal conversation like that would go with Letang, but it’s likely the Penguins’ best course of action to get him to buy into their plan (if reducing his usage is the plan). The Penguins owe Letang some degree of loyalty, but at the end of the day, it is a business, and Kyle Dubas is paid handsomely to ice the best team he possibly can.
And if the plan is to maximize Crosby’s remaining elite years, the Penguins can’t afford to allow an aging defender to hurt them defensively simply because “he used to be great.” Dubas wasn’t there for Letang’s elite years and isn’t going to make his decisions based on past accomplishments.
There is a fine line between respecting a veteran and hesitating to move on, a trap that teams often fall into. GMs who are unemotional about this tend to be the best at assembling a competitive roster year after year (the Vegas Golden Knights, for example). That’s not to say the Penguins need to dump Letang, but they need to honestly evaluate the entire situation.
If Letang is open to a smaller role, that’s the best-case scenario. If he still sees himself as a top defenseman and intends to play that way, the Penguins have to seriously consider whether employing him in their top four makes sense going forward.
Great teams and players know when to evolve, and in this circumstance, both Letang and the Penguins have to do their best if they want to return to a winning culture.
Can The Lightning Remain Competitive For Much Longer?
The Lightning were bounced last week in Game 7 of their opening series against the Canadiens, in what was one of the most evenly matched series the NHL has seen in a long time. Still, it was a tale of two teams headed in opposite directions.
The Canadiens are at the beginning of their competitive window and are surging towards what could become a special era of hockey in Montreal, while the Lightning are on the downslope from their best era in franchise history. With the window to win closing and four straight first-round exits, it’s time to start asking how much longer the Lightning can remain a top team in the NHL.
The Lightning have been among the gold standard in the NHL for the past ten years, winning two Stanley Cups, reaching three Stanley Cup Finals, and making a fourth appearance in 2015. On top of that, they have sustained regular-season success and made hard decisions to let top players move to other teams.
All the while, they have found ways to replace the players who have moved on, either internally or through trades and free agency. Darren Raddysh is a great example of a free agent find who fits in seamlessly with the Lightning.
But with his pending free agency, plus Kucherov being 14 months away from free agency as well, and an aging core, it’s fair to wonder whether the salary cap, their aging stars, and a ton of playoff hockey have finally caught up to them.
Despite their stars aging, Tampa Bay’s core remains elite, and many of their best players are firmly in their primes, including Brayden Point and Brandon Hagel. Kucherov is on the wrong side of 30 but remains among the NHL’s best offensive players, and Andrei Vasilevskiy still gives the team elite goaltending. But are they still good enough to compete for a Cup?
At some point, the mileage on the players becomes a concern. Just look at what happened to the Penguins, Blackhawks and Kings after their Stanley Cup runs in the 2010s. All three teams had a few years of quick playoff appearances before their postseason run ended as they tried to hold on to their last bit of relevance. In all of those cases, the wear and tear caught up with the players. The veterans then aged out or moved on, and rough times followed.
It’s an inevitability in hockey; everyone ages out eventually. Tampa Bay is in the early stages of that cycle.
Not to mention, many members of the Lightning don’t get around the ice the way they once did, particularly on defense, which hurts the Lightning’s overall team speed and depth. Speaking of depth, it’s hard to imagine Tampa Bay replenishing it the way it has in the past, given that it has sent many futures out the door in win-now moves, which have also eroded its salary cap flexibility. Tampa Bay has done a good job of finding cheap replacements, but that becomes harder every year as depth pieces depart due to cap pressures.
The Lightning don’t have many high-end prospects in the pipeline and have one of the weakest prospect pools in the NHL, ranking 24th in The Athletic’s prospect rankings. While that ranking is an improvement from 29th place in 2025, it isn’t anything to write home about, and the Lightning don’t appear to have a ton of help coming in the way of prospects.
Forward Conor Geekie looks like a gamer after scoring at a point-per-game pace in the AHL this season. The 2022 11th overall pick was one of the pieces of the Mikhail Sergachev trade with Utah and could be ready for a full-time NHL role next season, which would be huge for the Lightning.
Tampa Bay would love a similar timeline for forward Sam O’Reilly, but he is likely a few years away from full-time NHL duty. The 2024 first-round pick (32nd overall) is in the midst of a terrific playoff run with the Kitchener Rangers of the OHL, but he probably needs a year or two of AHL seasoning before he’ll be ready for the NHL. O’Reilly was just named the winner of the Red Tilson Trophy, awarded annually to the Ontario Hockey League’s most outstanding player, and is chasing a third straight OHL title and a second straight Memorial Cup.
Those big games will bode well for O’Reilly’s development, but his offensive ceiling has been limited, and he hasn’t significantly increased his scoring over the last two years. Wheeler projects O’Reilly as a 3C in the NHL, which is great, but if the Lightning want to extend their window of contention, they’ll need more from him.
The final point to consider when it comes to Lightning’s competition is the division they play in. The Buffalo Sabres have finally arrived and appear to be the real deal. The same can be said for the Habs, who are poised to go on a long run as a potential powerhouse. Ottawa still boasts a solid core of young players, and the Red Wings have some nice pieces that are itching to get to the NHL, and you figure they will put it all together at some point.
Then there are the Panthers, who have a deep core of champions and will be hungry to return to the playoffs next season after an injury-riddled campaign this year. It’s impossible to guess what the division will look like next year, but even the Bruins and Maple Leafs don’t feel like they are going to go away easily. The Atlantic Division is an absolute buzzsaw, and next year could be the toughest yet.
Can Tampa Bay overcome all of these obstacles and roll back the clock? Only time will tell, but extending their window starts this summer, and they will have their work cut out for them. GM Julian BriseBois has proven doubters wrong in the past, as his club has consistently adapted to challenges and kept the window to win open.
It helps to have the best coach in the game behind the bench in Jon Cooper, but at some point, the magic runs out, and a team’s window of opportunity to win slams shut. For the Lightning, that day is coming; it’s just a matter of when.
The Oilers Are Stuck In A Cycle Self-Correction
It’s no secret that the Edmonton Oilers are in win-now mode, and that mode has shifted to pure desperation as they enter the final two years of superstar captain Connor McDavid’s current contract. It’s completely understandable that the Oilers have spent years sacrificing future assets to win now, given the window they are in with the best player in the world on their roster. However, that desperation to win now has led Oilers management to make aggressive moves, many of which have been disasters. Their desperation has often forced them into awful trades or signings, sometimes to undo ill-advised moves or simply because they thought they had to fix a roster hole. This line of thinking has painted the Oilers into the corner they currently find themselves in, out of the playoffs in the first round, with an unhappy superstar and a fanbase left shaking their heads.
Edmonton has repeatedly paid a premium to plug holes in the lineup or to undo prior mistakes in player acquisition. This has been especially true for the Oilers’ depth, defensive reliability, and secondary scoring, where they’ve either ignored the problem or acquired players who created a hole. From the outside, it feels as though Edmonton is constantly chasing fixes, reacting to structural roster issues rather than building a roster with any semblance of a long-term plan. As mentioned, the Oilers sacrificed future assets to win now, but they’ve also repeatedly spent additional assets to fix the holes their prior aggressive moves often created. This type of thinking is often called the sunk cost fallacy, in which someone doubles down on a bad decision because too much has already been invested.
There are few better examples of Edmonton’s reactionary thinking than the Jason Dickinson trade with the Chicago Blackhawks prior to this year’s NHL Trade Deadline. The Oilers released a video of the team’s management group discussing the potential trade for Dickinson. Although the clips were just 2 minutes, they painted a picture of a management group with a relatively shallow, short-sighted understanding of the trade they were trying to make. Effectively, Oilers general manager Stan Bowman was trying to plug a hole on his roster that he thought he’d filled at last year’s trade deadline with the trade for Trent Frederic, only to see Frederic implode this season after signing an eight-year extension last summer. Simply put, the trade felt like damage control stemming from previous poor decisions with Frederic and the free-agent signing of Andrew Mangiapane, who was included in the Dickinson trade as a salary dump after a poor showing in Edmonton.
Mangiapane is a clear example of Edmonton’s mismanagement and inability to find the right pieces for the right roles. Signed to a two-year, $7.2MM deal, the Oilers hoped that playing alongside their skilled players would reignite the offensive side of Mangiapane’s game; however, that did not happen, and he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks less than one year into the deal.
As good an example as Mangiapane is, there is no better example than goaltender Tristan Jarry. Jarry was acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins in December, when the Oilers were in desperate need of better goaltending. The trade came less than three months after Bowman had stated that he “Liked where Stuart Skinner’s game was.” Bowman’s comments came on the heels of a summer with no movement in the Oilers’ crease, despite it being a clear area of weakness.
Skinner began the season with the Oilers, going 11-8-4 with an .891 SV% and a 2.83 GAA. At the time of the trade, Skinner was ranked 32nd in Goals Saved Above Expected, while Jarry was 22nd. Edmonton hoped that moving Skinner for Jarry would be a massive upgrade and even included defenseman Brett Kulak and a second-round pick.
The trade was a colossal disaster for the Oilers, as Jarry reverted to his recent form, going 9-6-2 in 19 games with Edmonton, posting an .857 SV% and a 3.86 GAA. Jarry wasn’t just bad in Edmonton; he was among the worst netminders in the league after the trade.
Had Edmonton management simply addressed the issue last summer, they likely would have avoided a trade for Jarry, which will have repercussions for years, as Jarry has two years left on his contract, a deal that is effectively buyout-proof.
The Oilers’ asset recycling continued with the Jarry trade and has become an alarming trend for a team that is shutting its own contention window with each passing season. The Oilers had a clear need to upgrade their roster construction last summer, particularly their goaltending and defense. Instead, they prioritized adding toughness, veterans, and depth scoring, and the results this past season speak for themselves.
The team clearly (and correctly) has a mandate to win now because of the presence of McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but that urgency has distorted management’s decision-making, prompting panic move after panic move in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle. Management often overvalues urgency and undervalues patience, particularly in player development and salary-cap management.
A persistent narrative in Oilers fandom is that the team is one piece away, but for a team that constantly patches holes mid-season, that logic seems flawed and generally indicates poor organizational planning. You could certainly point to trades and moves in a vacuum and say they worked, but when you zoom out and look at the broader picture, a pattern starts to emerge.
The pattern is that the Oilers have rarely built forward and have spent most of the McDavid/Draisaitl era trying to escape the consequences of their past bets. If the Oilers want to finally bring a Stanley Cup back to Northern Alberta, some hard conversations need to be had among management to break this cycle.
Should The Predators Move Juuse Saros?
The Nashville Predators had another disappointing campaign, missing the playoffs for a second straight year. It’s hard to say they fell short of expectations this year, given how low they were, but that doesn’t remove the sting of failing to reach the postseason for a team with several proud veterans in its lineup.
One of those veterans, goaltender Juuse Saros, had an especially frustrating season, facing the most shots in the NHL and finishing with the worst numbers of his 11-year career. The 31-year-old faced 1,701 shots this year and will likely face a similar workload next season unless significant changes take place in Nashville.
With his second straight sub-.900 SV%, Saros’s play is a cause for concern and could have management in Nashville debating whether he is still the guy for the Predators.
To put Saros’ decline into perspective, the first eight full seasons of his career saw him post a save percentage north of .900, including seven straight seasons above .910. Those are elite numbers among goaltenders, and that type of play garnered Saros some Vezina Trophy consideration in several of those years.
At the time of signing his current contract (July 1, 2024), Saros was among the league’s top netminders, which is why Nashville handed him an eight-year deal worth $61.92MM ($7.74MM AAV). It was a commitment to their star goalie, whom they had relied on for years, with 60+ games per season from 2021-2024.
That contract only kicked in this season, and the timing could not have been worse for Nashville, as Saros’ play fell off considerably in the first year of that lucrative extension.
This past season, Saros posted a .894 SV% to go with a 3.16 GAA and a 28-22-8 record in 59 appearances. Outside of the win-loss record, those numbers are very similar to last year’s, when he appeared in 58 games and had a 20-31-6 record with a .895 SV% and a 2.98 GAA.
Taking a deeper dive into some of his analytics, Saros had a -7.4 goals saved above expected (as per MoneyPuck) in 2024-25 and a -9.3 this past season. Taken together, those numbers paint the picture of a goaltender who has been significantly below average in each of the last two years.
With seven years left on that contract, Saros doesn’t look like the star netminder Nashville hoped he would be, and it is certainly a cause for concern. It’s hardly the first time a goalie on the wrong side of 30 has seen a drop-off in play, but it is especially troubling for Nashville for a variety of reasons, the biggest being the term and money left on the deal. Saros is still owed over $50MM over the remaining seven years, and if he struggles next season, that contract becomes an anchor.
So could they try to move him this summer, when his value is so low?
It might not be the worst time to do it, given how goalie-hungry the entire league is and how quickly the salary cap is accelerating. There are many teams with ample cap space and major goaltending issues who would be all too happy to roll the dice on Saros despite his recent struggles and expensive contract.
Just look at how desperate the Oilers were this past fall when they traded for Tristan Jarry and his pricey contract, even though Jarry was one of, if not the, most inconsistent goaltenders in the entire NHL. Edmonton even paid handsomely to acquire Jarry, despite his warts, because they had no other options.
Many other teams could face the same goalie landscape if they try to upgrade, which is good news for Nashville if they do indeed pursue a Saros trade.
One major hiccup in trading Saros will be his full no-movement clause, which is in effect for another five years and will be a major hurdle if Nashville looks to move him. The clause will effectively limit Nashville’s market to Saros’s preferred destinations, which might be the biggest issue if they try to move him.
Another major issue is that if Nashville plans to bring up some of their promising prospects and complete, who out there could be a better option than Saros? The free-agent market for netminders is thin, to say the least.
Sure, the Predators could roll the dice on a Stuart Skinner, but he isn’t an upgrade and brings his own inconsistency into the fold.
Backup Justus Annunen is another option, as he is signed for another two seasons, but he’s never been an NHL starter and has never played more than 34 games in a season. He also has just 80 games of NHL experience, making him an unlikely option for a starting role at this time.
Truthfully, the best option is the one that aligns with Nashville’s future plans. If the team elects to rebuild in a dramatic way, trading a pricey starting goalie makes sense.
However, if the Predators have any plans to be competitive again, they have much bigger issues than Saros’s goaltending. In any event, it will be an interesting summer for the Predators, as they could look quite different come training camp in September.
Image courtesy of Katie Stratman-Imagn Images.
Did Anthony Mantha’s Playoff Performance Hurt His Free Agency Stock?
The Pittsburgh Penguins were bounced by the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 6 of their first-round matchup in dramatic fashion, losing a 1-0 game in overtime on a Cameron York goal. The seeing-eye shot found its way past Penguins goaltender Arturs Silovs and was a microcosm of the series for one player, Anthony Mantha. York was Mantha’s man on the play, and Mantha was two steps too late covering the point, allowing York to fire the game-winning goal. Mantha was invisible in the series, putting up one assist in six games to go along with a -5 and 20 PIM. The worst part of his play was that Mantha looked disinterested at times, missed assignments, took lazy penalties, and found himself largely chasing the game after a magical regular season. All in all, the playoffs may have cost Mantha millions of dollars.
It was just a month ago that the talk was about Mantha getting a four-year deal, with some folks throwing out numbers in the $5-6MM range. It seemed not only probable a month ago but quite likely after the 31-year-old posted 33 goals and 31 assists this season in 81 games. Mantha had been playing under a one-year, $2.5MM (plus $2MM in incentives) “prove it” contract, in the hopes of securing a lucrative contract this summer. However, those types of numbers ($5MM to $6MM) could very well be off the table after Mantha had a poor playoff showing this year. In fact, in 20 career NHL playoff games, Mantha has never scored a goal, tallying just seven assists. It’s a steep decline in production for a player who has four career 20+ goal seasons and averages 50 points per 82 regular-season games.
Mantha will still get some of his money this summer, as NHL general managers are about to see a windfall of cap space they haven’t seen in close to a decade, and the GM fraternity can never seem to help itself when it comes to overspending on a mid-tier free agent who just happened to get hot at the right time. It’s a tale as old as time in the NHL, with some pretty famous examples of players having a good year in their UFA walk year, or even just a good playoff, before getting paid an amount of money that will never line up with their production.
Fernando Pisani, back in 2006, is a great example of this. After a Cinderella run with the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Finals, in which he scored 14 goals and four assists in 24 games, he was rewarded handsomely with a four-year, $10MM contract that offseason. Unfortunately, Pisani never topped 28 points in a season again in his NHL career. There were health concerns with Pisani later in his career, but in any event, reaching those levels again was not likely.
Ville Leino is another great example of a player heating up and cashing in. He turned a 19-goal, 34-assist season in 2010-11 into a lucrative six-year, $27MM contract that was an absolute disaster for the Buffalo Sabres and was eventually bought out in 2014. Leino had never scored more than 11 points in an NHL season prior to his 53-point breakout with Philadelphia , and would tally just 10 goals and 36 assists in 137 games spaced over three seasons with the Sabres.
Mantha will fall into the camp of players who eventually got paid for having a terrific season, but, unlike the Pisani and Leino examples, Mantha does have a track record of scoring in the NHL. However, there are also injury concerns and concerns about his ability to score consistently. He had some lean years after he was traded from Detroit to the Washington Capitals, including 2022-23, when he posted just 11 goals and 16 assists in 67 games. He followed that up with a 44-point campaign in 2023-24 but still had to sign a prove-it contract with the Flames in the 2024 offseason for just $3.5MM.
It’s going to be very tough to gauge how general managers around the league will value what Mantha brings and what he doesn’t. Mantha is a big man, and GMs always love size. However, he plays small and doesn’t always look like he is working hard, which is often true for big men in the NHL. Mantha has other attributes that make him an attractive free-agent target; he can skate well for a big man, handles the puck well, is a good passer, and can shoot.
All of that is great, but this is the knock that has followed him since he was scouted in junior. He doesn’t always seem engaged, and in many games, particularly the big ones such as the recent playoff series with Pittsburgh, you wonder whether Mantha can find the intensity and determination to reach the next level and become a playoff performer. Mantha was often viewed in his draft year as a boom-or-bust prospect, and now 11 years into his NHL career, he is still fitting that label. Mantha was a bust in Washington after a big trade from the Red Wings sent him there, but in Pittsburgh, he was an under-the-radar signing that was a huge win for the Penguins (minus the playoffs). What his next team gets is anyone’s guess, but the $6MM annual offer on a long-term deal that seemed so likely before the playoffs now feels like a reach for Mantha. However, all it takes is one GM fighting for his job to overpay, and Mantha could be a bust once again.
Breaking Down The Senators’ Options For Drake Batherson
The Ottawa Senators powered through an up-and-down season to sneak into the playoffs, only to be decisively bounced by the Carolina Hurricanes. The result was a disappointment, but it was a true measuring-stick series that showed the Senators how far they are from being a true Stanley Cup contender. Now the team enters the offseason with a lot of uncertainty around their captain, their netminding, and pending UFAs. However, one player whose future could also be decided is forward Drake Batherson, who can become a UFA himself on July 1st, 2027.
Batherson was one of the few Senators forwards to contribute offensively to the first round of the playoffs, scoring three goals and an assist in four games. This production came on the heels of a career year, in which the 28-year-old tallied 33 goals and 38 assists in 79 games.
That kind of production will almost certainly land Batherson a rich new contract when he reaches free agency in just over 14 months, but if you are the Ottawa Senators, do you want to pay upwards of $9MM for a player who will be entering his 30s in the second year of a potential six- or seven-year deal? It’s hard to say, but it’s something Ottawa has to think about over the next few weeks, with just a single year left on Batherson’s contract at just $4.975MM ($6.55MM in actual salary).
After a career year and a strong showing in a brief playoff window, Batherson’s stock is unlikely to be any higher, meaning a potential trade could yield the Senators a pretty healthy return, especially given how poor the free-agent market is. Any team looking to acquire Batherson will almost certainly want to do so with an extension in place, but there is risk in that, as many teams have found out the hard way.
PHR released a piece three months ago about several instances of the trade-and-sign move backfiring on teams that acquire a player and quickly extend them, without seeing them play with their group for an extended period. Jonathan Huberdeau, Timo Meier and Pierre-Luc Dubois are great examples of that approach going sideways, but just because there are cautionary tales doesn’t mean Batherson will become one. The flip side is also true, given that Matthew Tkachuk was a trade-and-extend as well, but that also doesn’t suggest Batherson will be an instant fit on a new team. These are considerations that a potentially acquiring team will have.
The other major consideration, and likely the biggest, is what assets the team will need to move to acquire him, along with the cash required to extend him. If Batherson posts another 30+ goal, 70+ point season, $9MM annually will certainly be in play on a six- or seven-year deal. But if Ottawa gets out in front of things and trades him this season, what will it take to acquire him?
As mentioned earlier, the trade market will be robust this summer, making Batherson an expensive trade target with few comparables, although one recent trade candidate could offer a glimpse into the trade market for forwards. The Pittsburgh Penguins tried to trade Rickard Rakell last summer and potentially asked for a top-tier prospect, a first-round pick, and additional assets. The caveat is that Pittsburgh never received an offer for Rakell to their liking, but they had their sights set high for a Rakell trade.
Batherson, a younger and more consistent scorer than Rakell, would have higher trade value even though he has just a year left on his deal. Batherson is four years younger than Rakell was last summer and has four consecutive 60+ point seasons to his credit, while Rakell has just three 60+ point seasons in his entire career. Another issue with comparing last summer’s trade request to this year’s potential request for Batherson is that the Penguins were looking to the future with their requests, whereas the Senators would probably prefer roster players who can help them win now. This would not be an easy trade to facilitate.
There are many other factors at play as well. If Ottawa trades Batherson, it creates an offensive hole for a team that already needs more offense up front and shifts their hunt from potentially needing two top-nine forwards to needing three. Given the thin free-agent market and their poor farm system, Ottawa might find their options limited when it comes to upgrading their forward group, even if they hold onto Batherson.
Then there is the fact that Batherson is a homegrown talent, having been drafted by the Senators in the fourth round of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft (121st overall). He is clearly loved by the franchise, which was quick to shoot down trade rumours last spring when they emerged in the media. Ottawa has historically had issues hanging onto homegrown talent and has watched many players move on and win in other cities. That may be a consideration if and when both sides begin talks on a contract extension.
Couple the Batherson conundrum with the drama surrounding captain Brady Tkachuk and goaltender Linus Ullmark, and you have the makings of a wild offseason in Ottawa as the team tries to move on from a difficult season. Batherson’s next contract will likely not age gracefully, particularly as he approaches his mid-30s, but the Senators might not have a choice but to extend him as they try to find some success with their current core group of players.
Assessing Egor Chinakhov’s Next Contract
The Pittsburgh Penguins and forward Egor Chinakhov are in the honeymoon stage of their relationship, basking in the early success of a late-December trade that brought Chinakhov from the Columbus Blue Jackets to the Steel City. Playoffs aside, Chinakhov was a revelation during the regular season after arriving in Pittsburgh in a trade that sent a 2026 second-round pick (from St. Louis), a 2027 third-round pick (from Washington), as well as Danton Heinen to Columbus. The 25-year-old had struggled with the Blue Jackets and had asked for a trade, which ultimately led to the move to Pittsburgh. With Chinakhov’s fit in Pittsburgh, a summer contract negotiation is set to take place and will be one of the more interesting and perhaps more complicated negotiations.
Chinakhov was the 21st overall pick in 2020 and made his debut with the Blue Jackets in October 2021, going scoreless in his first five NHL games before recording two assists in his sixth game. He would go on to post seven goals and seven assists in 62 games as a 20-year-old, giving the Blue Jackets hope that the young Russian was just scratching the surface of his offensive potential.
2022-23 saw Chinakhov start strong with 13 points in 30 games before an ankle injury in mid-December sidelined him for 29 games. Chinakhov returned late in February 2023 and was loaned to the AHL, where he posted eight points in seven games.
2023-24 began with more of the same, as Chinakhov dealt with a back injury, missing six games before being sent to the AHL. He would miss significant time again throughout the season, finishing the year with 29 points in 53 games. This became the narrative around Chinakhov, a talented skater with offensive capabilities but unable to stay healthy, as he missed half of the 2024-25 season with a back injury.
Therein lies the issue with Chinakhov’s negotiations. While he has been terrific for Pittsburgh, he’s dealt with many injuries in his short career, and the Penguins have a long history of being an injury-prone team. Chinakhov also never scored in Columbus the way he has in Pittsburgh. In 204 games with the Blue Jackets, Chinakhov recorded 37 goals and 40 assists, roughly a 31-point pace per 82 games, while in Pittsburgh, he has scored at a 69-point pace.
The dichotomy makes for a very complex and confusing contract negotiation. If you are Pittsburgh, which version of the player are you getting if you extend him for five or six years? But the flip side of the coin is that you offer a bridge contract for a year or two, and he continues his breakout and takes you to the cleaners in a year or two when his bridge deal expires. Teams have been burned by that before; however, it might be better than the alternative, which is locking a player in long term who went on a heater and outscored his own abilities.
Penguins’ general manager Kyle Dubas has been bold in acquiring talent over the past two years. Given that he scouted Chinakhov and made an aggressive trade to acquire him, even as other teams, such as the Toronto Maple Leafs, were also in pursuit of him, Dubas may be the best person to negotiate Chinakhov’s contract. It’s an important negotiation for him, as it represents an opportunity to show the naysayers that he can, in fact, lock up young players without having to cave to their every demand. That, of course, was the knock on Dubas in Toronto, where fans felt he gave the Maple Leafs’ young stars too much say and too much money in their contracts, and allocated too much of the salary cap to them.
It’s hard to argue with that narrative, given that Dubas never seemed able to get Toronto’s young stars to concede anything on their deals, and he has done little to turn that around in Pittsburgh, although he hasn’t really had the chance in the past two years. Dubas’ early negotiations in Pittsburgh were rough, as he signed Ryan Graves and Tristan Jarry to disastrous contracts that handcuffed the Penguins until Jarry was dealt late in 2025. The Graves contract remains on the books and could either be dealt for another bad contract or be buried in the AHL for the remaining three years.
Back to Chinakhov: he is arguably the first of the “future” Penguins to ink a long-term deal. If the Penguins get it right, it could set the tone for future deals with potential cornerstones such as Benjamin Kindel, Harrison Brunicke, and Sergei Murashov. But if the Penguins get it wrong and overpay Chinakhov, they will have a tougher time signing their other core pieces to discount extensions, which plagued Dubas in Toronto and eventually led him to pay his core four forwards about half of his salary cap allocation. Dubas is certainly aware of this, and it will be fascinating to see how he approaches the negotiations. Does he lean on the experience he had in Toronto and figure out a better approach to signing young players long term, or does he commit the same errors?
There is one other factor to consider that should be interesting: keeping the players happy, particularly with Chinakhov, who requested the aforementioned trade out of Columbus. If the contract talks go sour, will it sour Chinakhov, and how much does he enjoy playing in Pittsburgh? Will it affect the other young players who know they have deals to be made? These are all factors Dubas must consider when negotiating this summer on what should be a complex contract.
The Kraken Need To Choose A Path This Summer
The Kraken missed the playoffs once again this spring, finishing with the sixth-worst point total in the NHL. They had the luxury of playing in the much weaker Western Conference, but still missed the postseason by 11 points, finishing with a 34-37-11 record and a -37 goal differential.
Seattle has made the playoffs just once in its short five-year history, and none of those appearances have come in the past three seasons. Now, with a team largely set to return next season, aside from a couple of veteran unrestricted free agents, it’s become a moment for general manager Jason Botterill to reflect and decide what direction he wants to take a club that looked lost this past season.
A perfect example of the Kraken’s lack of direction is Mason Marchment’s run with the team. Marchment was dealt to Seattle last June in exchange for a 2026 third-round pick and the Stars’ 2025 fourth-round pick.
It was a decent little move for the Kraken and showed they were looking to make additions. Fast-forward six months (plus a day), and the Kraken sent Marchment to the Blue Jackets for a 2027 second-round pick and the New York Rangers’ 2026 fourth-round pick.
It was a decent turn of events for the Kraken, as they upgraded one pick from a third to a second and got a look at Marchment for a few months. It would have been a tidy piece of work had it ended there.
A few months later, at the trade deadline, Seattle acquired Bobby McMann from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for a second-round pick in 2027 and a 2026 fourth-round pick. The deal, in a vacuum, was good.
McMann has been a steady scorer over the past couple of years and added a lot to the Kraken lineup. However, he is a pending UFA and is set to cash in big time this summer. Seattle likely believed he could help with a playoff push, but with the Kraken’s underwhelming lineup on paper, it was a bit of a fool’s errand and could leave the team holding the bag if he jumped ship in July.
What could be a worse outcome for Seattle is if McMann re-signs long-term. The Kraken already have a number of undesirable long-term deals with veteran players, and McMann is sure to be overpaid when he hits free agency. Seattle has to resist the urge to extend McMann, but it’s hard to say whether they will, given the team’s lack of direction in recent years.
That being said, there is a glimmer of hope for Seattle and a fairly obvious direction the team should take. The Kraken have the seventh-ranked prospect system in the NHL (according to Scott Wheeler of The Athletic) and should be able to rebuild their roster sooner rather than later if they can avoid the urge to sign overpriced veterans, or, in the case of McMann, trade for them when they aren’t playoff-bound.
Ultimately, the Marchment/McMann fiasco cost the Kraken only mid-tier draft picks, which is forgivable given that the Kraken thought they had a playoff push, though it ultimately flopped. But the work in free agency needs to be scrutinized and scaled back if Seattle wants to have any hope of building and keeping a core.
In the past two summers, the team has signed UFAs to deals that were panned at the time and look even worse in hindsight. Ryan Lindgren was signed last summer to a four-year deal worth $4.5MM per season and has not been a good fit with the team.
The Kraken were outplayed whenever Lindgren was on the ice this year, and he was a turnover machine, coughing up the puck more than ever before in his NHL career. He also toned down his hitting dramatically, which didn’t really correct some of the other issues with his game.
If the Lindgren deal was bad, the Chandler Stephenson contract from 2024 is atrocious. On the surface, it looks fine, as he put up 49 points (16 goals and 33 assists) last season in 80 games.
But he has five years left on the deal at $6.25MM per season and gets absolutely crushed at even strength, posting a 40.8 CF%, meaning he is a drag on his teammates from a possession perspective. Sure, he takes a lot of the tough defensive assignments, but there is an argument that he could be among the worst 5-on-5 forwards in the entire NHL, and, in turn, one of the worst contracts in the league as well.
There is also the signing of defenseman Brandon Montour in July 2024. That deal hasn’t been a disaster, and Montour has been fairly productive offensively while continuing to struggle defensively.
Heading into year three of a seven-year, $50MM contract, the back half of his deal could be a huge problem for the Kraken as they enter the competitive window with the young group of players they have drafted and developed. At 32, Montour hasn’t shown an obvious decline, but if his skating begins to deteriorate, there will be major issues with his game both offensively and defensively.
With such a weak UFA market and so many teams with a pile of cap space, this could be the best opportunity for Seattle to commit to a short rebuild and start trimming some of the older, more expensive players, such as Lindgren, Stephenson, and Montour, from their roster, in the hopes of not boxing themselves in when they are ready to contend with the elite young players in their system.
Time will tell whether they have the stomach for the short-term pain, but if they do, they could create the kind of flexibility in two to three years that teams dream of when they try to tear down and recalibrate their rosters.
What Will The Canadiens Do With Zachary Bolduc?
The Canadiens are tied at one game apiece in their first-round series against the Lightning. They have a number of healthy scratches at forward thanks to their depth, but one young player is looking to leave an impression and avoid sitting out for any length of time.
Zachary Bolduc is a talented forward and pending restricted free agent who is sure to get a raise this summer as his entry-level contract wraps up. How much he gets will depend on several factors, primarily the term he and the Canadiens agree to, as well as where Montreal sees him in the foreseeable future.
When you read that statement, the first thought is: where does Bolduc slot into Montreal’s lineup? There is also the possibility that Montreal uses Bolduc and other assets to try to land a premier second-line center.
Alternatively, Bolduc remains with Montreal into next year and signs a new deal. But does that come in the form of a short-term bridge deal, or have the Canadiens seen enough to ink him long term?
It’s no secret that Montreal wants to address the second-line center position to ease some of the pressure on first-line pivot Nick Suzuki. This season, the Habs relied heavily on Oliver Kapanen, who filled in admirably but has at times been exposed, prompting Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis to shelter him.
Kapanen has also benefited from a PDO well over 100, which has masked some of his shortcomings and made it more tolerable to keep him in the top six. Another season with that kind of luck seems unlikely, so Montreal needs to act this summer, especially with Michael Hage returning to the NCAA for another year. Montreal doesn’t exactly have an internal solution to fill the 2C slot at the moment.
Could Bolduc be part of a package to acquire a center? It depends on which player the Canadiens target. If they covet Robert Thomas of the Blues, St. Louis would surely love to reacquire him after he tallied 19 goals and 36 points for them as a rookie in 2024-25 before being dealt to Montreal last summer. If the Habs are looking elsewhere for a Nico Hischier-type player, Bolduc could be part of a package that includes other prospects and one or two draft picks.
What if the Canadiens see Bolduc as a potential top-six fixture? It would be easy to see why, given his offensive abilities and physical presence.
Bolduc has an excellent shot and is a natural goal-scorer who gets into the forecheck and can be difficult to play against. However, as good as he can be, there are questions about consistency and on-ice results.
The 23-year-old had 12 goals and 18 assists in 78 games this year, but much of his scoring came in bunches. There were several five-game (or longer) stretches throughout the year when Bolduc produced no offense, and his physicality was inconsistent as well.
A perfect example is a stretch from Dec. 24 to March 25, during which Bolduc produced exactly zero goals and just nine assists in 31 games. On March 26, he ended his goalless drought at 31 games with a goal and an assist against the Blue Jackets, but then proceeded to be held pointless for another seven games before a two-point game against the Islanders on April 12. It’s that sort of inconsistency and wild variation in production that will give the Canadiens pause about a long-term deal for Bolduc, making a bridge contract far likelier.
What might that look like? Based on AFP Analytics’ projections, something in the range of $3.588MM per year on a two-year deal would make sense.
That wouldn’t be a problem for Montreal, given where they are compared to the salary cap. A short-term deal would give the Canadiens more time to assess what they have in Bolduc and determine whether he’s part of the future or a piece they can leverage to fill other gaps on their roster.
But how does the bridge contract AAV compare to a long-term contract, and would it make more sense to lock Bolduc in for the next seven or eight years before he breaks out and becomes much more expensive? If there’s a team that knows what it’s like to get burned by signing a player, it’s the Canadiens, who once had to pay top dollar to extend P.K. Subban after a contentious bridge contract.
However, in this case, Bolduc is not Subban and doesn’t appear destined to become an award-winning forward. The AAV projection for Bolduc on a long-term contract is also eye-popping to say the least, coming in a shade under $6MM on a six-year deal.
The number on a long-term deal is likely a non-starter for the Canadiens until they see more from the Trois-Rivières, Quebec, native. It’s possible he goes on a tear in the postseason and convinces Montreal to go long term, but at this stage, the inconsistency, offensive droughts, and his inability to drive play are significant question marks that will likely prompt the Habs to opt for a bridge deal to get a longer look before committing to an extended term. That is, if he sticks with the Canadiens beyond this season.
The Maple Leafs Are The League’s Most Troubled Team
The headlines about the Maple Leafs over the past 12 months have been largely negative, and for good reason. The team hasn’t been good since being knocked out of last year’s playoffs in the second round, and they’ve been a circus off the ice as well.
But a team that just a few years ago had quiet, steady confidence has become a tsunami of chaos wrapped in a corporate blanket. The Maple Leafs are in trouble, not the kind that can be “fixed” in a season or two – as we’ve seen in Pittsburgh or Washington – but the kind that can lead to a decade of futility.
Before diving too deep into the rabbit hole, a quick caveat. If the right lottery balls fall and Toronto turns this boondoggle of a season into the first overall pick, Gavin McKenna, then all the points that follow could become moot.
However, if the lottery balls fall the other way and Toronto ends up with a non-top-five pick that will be sent to the Bruins, it would lead to a more disillusioned fanbase and more toxicity around an organization that has watched a once-promising rebuild completely unravel in just a few years.
Some might argue that it all came apart in the last 12 months, and there is a good case for that, given that Toronto saw its biggest year-over-year point decline in 109 years. But the truth is that the seeds of this tree of woe were planted years ago, and they’ve been soaking up water for the last couple of seasons, only to emerge as the Maple Leafs’ first playoff absence in ten years.
The issue for the Maple Leafs isn’t a single item on a checklist. It’s a systemic issue that has filtered down from the top and has culminated in this week’s news from The Athletic that Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment president Keith Pelley has become deeply involved in roster construction, something he’d never done before.
The Athletic piece (subscription required), written in partnership by Jonas Siegel, Chris Johnston and James Mirtle, delves extensively into the Maple Leafs’ past season and pulls no punches in its depiction of their fall. History is littered with empires that fell, but for the Maple Leafs, the empire they were supposed to become when they emerged from a rebuild ten years ago never materialized.
How they turn things around at this time is incredibly unclear. There is perhaps only one quick fix: the aforementioned McKenna lottery ball going their way.
Outside of that, the road back to relevancy is paved with speed bumps, and at the moment, there isn’t an obvious candidate in the organization who can lead them to the promised land. There isn’t exactly a litany of candidates outside the organization, either, who could undo all the damage that’s been done to their roster.
Lots of names will get tossed around, but there aren’t many free-agent managers available who have built perennial Stanley Cup contenders, with the exception of Stanley Cup winner Peter Chiarelli, who is probably not high on Toronto’s list of candidates due to a litany of other roster construction blemishes on his record
Some have mentioned Mark Hunter of the London Knights as a potential candidate to take over, but Hunter had a somewhat sour experience with the Maple Leafs earlier in his career as an assistant GM, passed over for promotion in favor of Kyle Dubas, and may not want to leave the stability of the OHL Knights for the chaos of the Leafs. However, money can heal a ton of wounds, and if Toronto wanted to, they could probably find enough to mend fences with Hunter.
That is what Toronto will have to try to do if it wants to turn its current luck around in a hurry and flex its financial might. There is no cap on management, scouting, and player development, and it is an area where Toronto could invest heavily again to quickly retool or rebuild its roster. However, based on the story from The Athletic, it appears that Maple Leafs ownership has plans to move in the opposite direction, though they might not have a choice given the state of their roster and prospect pool.
When Toronto’s lineup is fully healthy, it’s not exactly a group that will strike fear into many opponents. There are significant gaps throughout, and not much toughness to speak of.
The biggest hole is on defense, where the team lacks a true number one defenseman who can run the power play, kill penalties, and play a solid two-way game at five-on-five. Many fans hoped Morgan Rielly would fill that role, but his game is all offense at this point, and that offense has been drying up in recent years.
The good news for Toronto is that they have plenty of cap space this summer ($22.2MM, with just three roster players to sign, per PuckPedia). However, the bad news is that there isn’t much available in free agency, and Toronto doesn’t have many draft picks or prospects to trade.
There are a few future pieces they could deal, but would it even make sense at this point to add to a core group of players who have won exactly nothing in ten years and have now gone through several management groups with almost no variation in results? The constant during that time has been Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Rielly, who have all been on this ship while the deckchairs have shuffled around them year after year.
Is it time to move one of them? Can Toronto even move any of them, given their contracts, no-trade clauses, and last season’s struggles?
The core players have said they want to run things back in Toronto and give it another shot, which seems foolish at this point, given the track record. A new GM who comes in and tries to build around Matthews and company could be in for a fool’s errand, throwing good money after bad as they fall victim to the sunk-cost fallacy.
Make no mistake, every GM falls victim to it, throwing good assets out the window to undo previous errors. It usually doesn’t end well and can ultimately lead to a reduction in the contention window, which is exactly what happened in Toronto and elsewhere.
Many teams have done this before, burning through draft picks and prospects in pursuit of a playoff berth, only to miss and have nothing to show for it. The Penguins notoriously let Ron Hextall burn through assets in an attempt to save his job in 2023.
He traded a second-round pick for Mikael Granlund, who had the worst run of his career in Pittsburgh before the Penguins missed the playoffs. Hextall was fired shortly after the season, and Dubas came in and immediately made the same mistakes as Hextall, trading good assets for aging ones, before realizing his errors and pivoting to a retool.
Dubas then systematically moved out the Penguins’ veterans who didn’t fit the plan and moved on, recouping tons of young assets in the process. He also took on bad contracts along with draft picks to help teams that were strapped against the cap.
Some might look at the Dubas strategy and think it could work for Toronto, and who knows, maybe it could. But the issue is that it took Dubas two years to see results from those moves, and we haven’t fully seen those results yet.
Many of the draft picks Dubas acquired are in upcoming drafts. That strategy takes time, a lot of time, and time is something Toronto doesn’t have, given that Matthews has just two years left on his deal now.
Another issue for Toronto in deploying the Dubas strategy is that there simply aren’t as many teams up against the cap as there were a year or two ago, when Dubas made his moves. This means teams may be more inclined to simply bury bad contracts rather than trade them for an asset to get rid of them.
It was still painful for Pittsburgh, as they missed the playoffs for three straight years before making it this year. Retools take time; even when most of the moves work out well, there is no quick fix, only trade-offs. Toronto’s management has to decide which trade-off they are comfortable making before making management hires and pointing this team in a different direction.
Whatever direction is ultimately chosen, the road will be bumpy, but any team that finds success has to endure adversity, some more than others. And for the Maple Leafs, if they do eventually find success, they will have endured more adversity than any other team.