Ottawa Senators: They lost Redden and Emery and replaced them with Jason Smith, Jarko Ruutu, and Alex Auld. That's at least a wash, but they were one of the worst teams in the league at the end of the season and backed into the playoffs in a division that is going to get tougher.
Colorado Avalanche: They lost the goaltender who carried them through the first round of the playoffs, and Raycroft is not going to compensate. Darcy Tucker is a nice pick-up, but the team lost Andrew Brunette who is better. And they still don't know if Sakic is returning.
Maple Leafs: This is mostly because Toronto showed it has not learned how to make shrewd moves. Niklas Hagman, Jeff Finger, Curtis Joseph, Mikhail Grabovski, Jamal Mayers, and Ryan Hollweg will not even combine to make up for the loss of Mats Sundin (who looks pretty sure to be lost one way or another), much less also Darcy Tucker and Raycroft, who they are not likely to miss too badly. Plus they spent too much money to not get any better.
Josh Lewis
One of the biggest winners from this year's NHL off-season has to be the Columbus Blue Jackets. This organization is desperate to end its playoff drought next year and with that in mind, the Jackets entered the summer looking to remake themselves as a sound defensive squad with power down the middle.
The additions of Fedor Tyutin, Christian Backman and Mike Commodore give Columbusa much deeper and more reliable blueline, which will make Pascal Leclaire's job a lot easier.
The Jackets got rid of perennial headache Nikolai Zherdev and replaced him with the highly-sought Kristian Huselius; while the loss of young two-way centre Dan Fritsche is more than offset by R.J. Umberger.
Throw in feisty Raffi Torres and skilled Russian Nikita Filatov, the sixth overall pick in the draft, and Columbus is well on their way to respectability.
Staying in the Western Conference, the Detroit Red Wings also had an excellent summer, keeping their Cup-winning roster intact and bolstering it in just the right places.
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