On the heels of winning their second consecutive Stanley Cup championship, the Florida Panthers continued to impress the hockey world by re-signing their three biggest pending unrestricted free agents entering the offseason: Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand, and Aaron Ekblad. Even more impressively, the Panthers were able to re-sign the latter two for deals well short of their projected value on the open market.
Still, it’s well known that Ekblad especially turned down some serious money to return to the only organization he’s ever known. In a new mailbag with James Mirtle of The Athletic, Mirtle claims that the Detroit Red Wings were ready and willing to give Ekblad a notable payday to move north for likely the remaining years of his professional career. While that may be true, we’ll never know what the Red Wings were willing to offer Ekblad since he never reached unrestricted free agency; therefore, he couldn’t negotiate with other teams.
Mirtle argued that Ekblad’s situation might be different due to his strong affection for the Panthers organization. However, most top-tier free agents are reluctant to sign with Detroit, as the team has not made the postseason since the 2015-16 season and has not won a playoff series since the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign. Still, the Red Wings will enter the 2025-26 season with the seventh-most cap space of any team, and will have even more for what is shaping up to be a loaded free agent class next summer.
Other snapshots:
- The new U.S. Collegiate Select Team for the 2025 Spengler Cup has named its head coach for the upcoming tournament. According to Adam Kimelman, the deputy managing editor of NHL.com, the head coach of the new team will be Guy Gadowsky, the current head coach of the NCAA’s Penn State University. Gadowsky has coached the Nittany Lions for the last 15 years, being the program’s first head coach while playing under the NCAA banner, and was responsible for bringing in the biggest recruit in NCAA history a few weeks ago, Gavin McKenna.
- Earlier today, it was announced that Caleb Desnoyers, the recent fourth overall pick of the Utah Mammoth, had undergone wrist surgery and would miss the next three months of action. In somewhat of a silver lining, despite dealing with injuries to both of his wrists throughout last season, Belle Fraser of the Salt Lake City Tribune reports that Desnoyers only underwent surgery on one of his wrists. This likely shortened the recovery timeline and is a good vote of confidence that the medical team he’s working with believes rehabbing it will be enough.