The Biggest Winners and Losers From the 2022 NHL Preseason
It's official.
Thanks to the "Global Series" in Europe to begin the weekend, the NHL's 2022-23 regular season is off to a staggered start in which two teams—the Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks—have played a pair of games while the rest of the league awaits its debut.
Openers for the remaining 30 teams will occur this week, including nationally televised doubleheaders on Tuesday on ESPN and Wednesday on TNT.
The puck drops end a multiweek training camp in which some teams played as many as eight games while getting a look at new players and rounding a roster into shape that may have a chance to unseat the reigning Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche.
That prompted the B/R hockey writing staff to think about the preseason and compile a list of the biggest winners and losers from when things got going in mid-September.
Scroll through to see what we came up with, and drop a thought or two of your own in the comments section.
Losers: Teams with Injured Goalies
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Take a look around the league.
Nearly every team harboring dreams of Cup contention, or simply advancing from last year's finish, is doing so based on its perception of its strength in the net.
So when the preseason results in upheaval to those plans, it's a problem.
That's what's happening these days in Ottawa, where the Senators, who were frenetically busy with roster-reshaping in the offseason, will begin the schedule without goaltender Cam Talbot thanks to a broken rib suffered during a recent practice session.
Talbot, 35, was brought in from Minnesota via trade when the Wild locked up Marc-André Fleury for two more years, making Talbot expendable. The veteran of 381 NHL starts seemed a steadying fit for an Ottawa team built largely on prolific young talent, but coach D.J. Smith confirmed he'd miss five to seven weeks to begin the season.
That leaves early goaltending in the hands of 29-year-old Anton Forsberg, who's played in parts of seven NHL seasons but has just 94 starts.
"[Everybody] in our locker room believes in 'Forsie' and knows how talented he is and knows how hard he works," Smith said. "The guys love him; they're going to play for him. I'm sure when we start, he'll be ready."
Joining Talbot on the sidelines is Anaheim goalie John Gibson, who left the Ducks' final preseason game against Los Angeles on Saturday after one period with what was later deemed an upper-body injury.
Gibson took a shot off the mask early in the period but played the full 20 minutes before exiting. Coach Dallas Eakins said he was "impressed" that he got through the period.
Gibson started 56 games last season for the Ducks, who were in Pacific Division contention for the first half of the season before fading badly and missing the playoffs. Anthony Stolarz finished the game with the Kings and would presumably be the No. 1 man if Gibson misses the opener. Stolarz was 12-8-3 with a 2.67 goals-against average in 28 games last season.
Winners: Players with Extensions
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It's a good time to be an NHL player.
Or more specifically, it's a good time to be an NHL player both in need of a new contract and coming off a successful season.
Such is the case for several around the league who cashed in over the last few weeks, most recently 23-year-old winger Jason Robertson, who got a four-year deal worth $7.8 million annually from Dallas after scoring a team-high 41 goals last season.
Robertson was a restricted free agent and chatter had begun about whether he'd come to an agreement with the Stars or be left dangling for another team to approach with an offer sheet. That didn't occur, and general manager Jim Nill said Robertson leaving wasn't a threat.
"We're all trying to win, and that is something you keep in mind," he said. "I have always known that Jason wanted to be here, and we just had to find a way to make that happen."
Center Mathew Barzal joined Robertson in the cash-in line, too, when he agreed to an eight-year extension with the New York Islanders that'll keep him with the team through 2031 and pay him an annual $9.2 million salary when it begins next season. The 25-year-old, who has more points (311) than any Islander since the start of the 2016-17 season, will make $7 million this season in the final year of an existing three-year contract.
“I love it here. I genuinely do,” Barzal said. “I think anyone that plays here knows. I think it’s one of the top places to play in the league."
Also getting in on the action are new Calgary teammates MacKenzie Weegar and Jonathan Huberdeau, who arrived to the Flames in exchange for Matthew Tkachuk and each signed long-term extensions that'll keep them in Alberta through 2031.
Weegar, a 6'0", 200-pound defenseman, got $6.3 million a year for a pact that'll begin next season, while Huberdeau, who had a career-high 115 points with Florida last campaign, will earn $10.5 million per year when his current deal expires after this season.
“One of the reasons I signed here is because I believe in this team,” Weegar said. “They want to win, and we have a winning team, a winning coach, a winning culture in here."
Loser: Chychrun Still a Coyote
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It's the story that's kept keyboards clicking for months.
Burly defenseman Jakob Chychrun is an elite player on an awful team, and his travel plans have been discussed around nearly every significant date on the NHL calendar.
He was thought to be on the move at last season's trade deadline in March, then again on draft night in July and at various points since during the free-agency period and once training camps got underway last month.
But with the Arizona Coyotes' season opener just three nights away in Pittsburgh, Chychrun is still set to wear No. 6 for the desert dogs when things get going against the Penguins.
And though his financial straits are not dire—he's in the fourth year of a six-year deal paying him $4.6 million a season—it can't be ideal for a guy who's pined to play for a contender.
The chatter is still out there, though the volume has intermittently risen, according to Sportsnet's 32 Thoughts podcast, where contributors Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek discussed the player and his possibly imminent future.
Marek said the Ottawa Senators are on the hunt for another defenseman and suggested Chychrun rumors are "still very much out there," while Friedman claimed the rumors haven't subsided because it's Chychrun himself who wants something to happen.
"There’s been a lot of noise out there," he said, "and I think the reason is I think the player in particular would like this to get done."
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Winner: Oilers Getting Deeper
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The Edmonton Oilers reached the Western Conference Final last season but were immediately swept by the Colorado Avalanche, thanks in no small part to a giant chasm between the eventual champion's depth and Edmonton's.
While Colorado could roll out line after line of forwards capable of prolific offensive numbers, the Oilers were top-heavy with former MVPs Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl but found themselves punchless by comparison while those two were not on the ice.
That may be changing a bit this season.
The talk of the town during training camp in northern Alberta has been the emergence of winger Dylan Holloway, who made his NHL debut in the series with the Avalanche and broke out this preseason with four goals and six points in four games.
He had a hat trick and an assist while drawing top-six minutes on Draisaitl's line in a 7-2 defeat of Vancouver and is expected to begin the season at least in the top nine if not the top six, whether playing on Draisaitl's line or dropping to a third line with former No. 1 overall pick Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
His arrival has fueled rumors that the Oilers will look to move former first-rounder Jesse Puljujärvi to both ease the logjam and create cap space, though Puljujärvi did score in Edmonton's final preseason game against Seattle while playing first-line minutes with McDavid and Evander Kane.
Puljujärvi will make $3 million this season before becoming a restricted free agent, while Holloway counts $925,000 against the salary cap this season and next.
"We've got some of the best players in the world in this dressing room, so it's just cool to be around them every day and see how they approach the game,” Holloway said. “Ultimately, the older guys have been great to me, have been very welcoming, and it's just a really good environment."
Winner: Colorado Still Elite
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Oh, yeah, the Avalanche? They're still good.
Most of the players who played a significant role in the 2021-22 Cup run are back in Denver this fall, though abrasive forward Nazem Kadri and starting goalie Darcy Kuemper moved on.
Nevertheless, Colorado is still the class of the league in the eyes of most observers, thanks to holdovers like MVP finalist Nathan MacKinnon and defenseman Cale Makar, who's won the Calder Trophy, Norris Trophy and Conn Smythe Trophy within his first three seasons.
And the people who make the odds at DraftKings have taken notice, too, setting the Avalanche's over/under number for regular-season points at a league-high 111.5 and making them a +380 pick (bet $100 to win $380) to repeat their Stanley Cup parade next summer.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are the second pick at +700.
Speaking of MacKinnon, he passed an off-ice watermark during the offseason when Colorado signed him to an eight-year $100.8 million extension that takes effect after this season, will keep him with the team through 2031 and will make him the league's highest-paid player at $12.6 million per year—passing McDavid's annual haul of $12.5 million.
Since the 2017-18 season began, MacKinnon has scored more points (442) than any player other than McDavid (549) and Draisaitl (479).
“It shows a lot of loyalty,” team president Joe Sakic told the Denver Post. “Nathan wanted to get this done, we wanted to get it done and he’s a franchise player, and we’re really excited that he’ll remain here in Colorado for the rest of his career.”
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