7 NHL Teams Destined to Be Worse Next Season
We're more than a week into the official NHL offseason after the start of free agency on July 1, and most of the action is over and done with.
Almost all the big names have signed new deals, and if there were any trades to be had, they've been done by now. That means it's time to start looking ahead to the 2024-2025 NHL season and plotting out how we think some teams will fare.
A lot of club have made sizable improvements and others...haven't. There are still others who may have a move or two they'd like to get done before training camp begins in mid-September, but we're judging everyone based on what they've done up to this point.
Unfortunately for a few teams, everything they've done (or not done) will lead them to having a season that won't live up to what they just accomplished this past year.
We've picked out seven teams that have had offseason results that are a bit dubious.
Winnipeg Jets
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The Winnipeg Jets were thought to be one of the teams who would be really busy this summer, perhaps not in free agency but certainly on the trade market.
Unfortunately for Jets fans, they've been neither.
They've made one trade in which they brought in defenseman Dylan Coghlan from Carolina and their top free-agent signings to this point are re-signing Colin Miller, Eric Comrie (from Buffalo), Jaret Anderson-Dolan (Nashville), Kaapo Kähkönen (New Jersey) and Haydn Fleury (Tampa Bay).
While they will help make them a deeper team, they're not the kinds of players who will put them over the top in a tough Central Division and Western Conference.
It's not as if the Jets are lacking in guys to trade to help strengthen their lineup. Nikolaj Ehlers, Neal Pionk, Alex Iafallo and Mason Appleton are all unrestricted free agents-to-be next summer. They also have 2022 first-round pick Rutger McGroarty, who they've reportedly been trying to trade since he's intimated that he won't sign in Winnipeg.
Winnipeg is a team in need of moves to be made and it's also a team that wants to improve on what it did this past season. Right now, it sure seems like the Jets are going to be cruising at a lower altitude without any further adjustments.
Carolina Hurricanes
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There were a few teams who took it hard on the chin in free agency, and the Carolina Hurricanes were one of them.
They lost forwards Teuvo Teravainen (Chicago) and Stefan Noesen (New Jersey) and defensemen Brady Skjei (Nashville) and Brett Pesce (New Jersey). They are four major players for Carolina the past few seasons and have been major reasons why they were one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference.
They were able to extend defenseman Jaccob Slavin and brought back Jordan Martinook while adding forwards Jack Roslovic and William Carrier along with defensemen Shayne Gostisbehere and Sean Walker. It's essentially like a trade given the guys they lost were replaced straight up with veterans to fill those holes.
Losing Skjei and Pesce is really tough. Carolina has to hope that the defensive quality and puck-moving abilities Gostisbehere and Walker can bring will alleviate those losses.
Replacing Teravainen and Noesen with Roslovic and Carrier offers a bit of a different look. Roslovic is speedy and plays center, while Carrier is a hard-hitting, hard forechecking player who just needs to stay healthy to be effective.
Those are a lot of "ifs" attached to the new guys and, perhaps even worse is the fact that two of the players they lost went to division rival New Jersey, which has had a strong offseason so far.
The Hurricanes' system usually covers a lot of ills, but if they fall back into the pack a bit given what they've lost, it won't be a shock.
Calgary Flames
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You have to feel for Calgary Flames fans.
A few years ago, they looked like a team on the rise and ready to rumble in the Western Conference, but now they've been forced to move so many star players that they've been somewhat forced into a rebuild.
Even though Calgary got a great player in defenseman Zayne Parekh in the 2024 draft, the rest of the offseason has been tough. They traded power forward Andrew Mangiapane to Washington as well as goalie Jacob Markström to New Jersey for defenseman Kevin Bahl.
Although they lost a couple of depth players in free agency, they haven't landed any stunners for themselves.
They extended Yegor Sharangovich with a five-year, $28.75 million deal to keep scoring goals for them. They also added Anthony Mantha from Vegas, and he should do well.
Bringing back Ryan Lomberg from Florida will give them a lot more toughness, and they also took a flier on defenseman Jake Bean to see if he can find a groove there.
The Flames finished with 81 points this past season and without any ground-breaking trades or big signings, it's tough to see how they're going to be any better come September.
At least young goalie Dustin Wolf will get his chance to show if he's the real savior for them, and his fun style of goaltending will at least keep everyone entertained.
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Los Angeles Kings
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The Los Angeles Kings can compete with the best in the West, but this offseason has put into doubt how well they'll be able to do it.
They traded Pierre-Luc Dubois to Washington for goalie Darcy Kuemper, which the Kings hope will help their goaltending but also be an addition-by-subtraction move by getting Dubois out of the lineup where expectations were sky-high and his role was muddled.
They added tough forward Tanner Jeannot from Tampa Bay to give them some peace of mind down in the lineup, although he's a couple years removed from his 24-goal season in Nashville.
They lost forward Viktor Arvidsson (Edmonton) and defenseman Matt Roy (Washington) in free agency and replaced them with forward Warren Foegele (Edmonton) and defenseman Joel Edmundson (Toronto).
If Foegele can recreate what he did with the Oilers in L.A., then that's a bit of a wash with losing Arvidsson, but seeing Roy go in free agency is a killer. He was arguably their best defensive defensemen the past few seasons and losing him for nothing is tough.
Edmundson played reasonably well for the Maple Leafs in the playoffs, but he's a step down from Roy.
If the Kings can equal last season's output of 99 points, that will be a success because it doesn't seem like they've made a sizable improvement to their roster right now.
Pittsburgh Penguins
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If there was a team that was in an OK spot when it came to possibly losing vital players in free agency this summer, it was the Pittsburgh Penguins.
But they haven't done much to raise hopes of one more Stanley Cup run for veterans Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson.
Pittsburgh was active on the trade front by adding Kevin Hayes from St. Louis, but it also traded scoring winger Reilly Smith to the rival New York Rangers.
The Pens have worked on their depth by adding forwards Anthony Beauvillier (Nashville) and Blake Lizotte (Los Angeles) along with defensemen Matt Grzelcyk (Boston) and Sebastian Aho (NY Islanders), who are all solid depth players.
They're hoping Beauvillier can find some of the scoring touch he had with the Islanders again, while Grzelcyk gives them a solid puck-mover on the blue line while Lizotte and Aho can help lower in the lineup.
They're not bad moves, they're just not the kinds of moves that an aging team needs to help it return to the playoffs and make a run at the Cup, particularly in an offseason where division rivals like the Washington Capitals and New Jersey Devils have made loads of big changes.
After putting up 88 points, it'll be a fight for the Penguins to get to that number again in a brutal Eastern Conference and Metropolitan Division.
New York Rangers
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We've reached the portion of our list where teams reached such lofty positions it'll be tough to recreate that. Such is the case for last season's Presidents' Trophy-winning New York Rangers.
The Blueshirts had 114 points to lead the NHL and that's going to be hard to replicate given the improvements made just by a few teams in their own division, not to mention what we've seen from some of the teams in the Atlantic Division.
The beauty of having such a strong season is that they didn't have to make a ton of changes. They acquired winger Reilly Smith from the Penguins and added center Sam Carrick in free agency from Edmonton to replace Jack Roslovic (Carolina).
Even though captain Jacob Trouba had a difficult season (especially in the playoffs), he was rumored to be traded for the better part of June, but it appears he's not going anywhere.
The 30-year-old has shown in the past he can be a solid defender and perhaps all he needs is to clear his head of all the negativity and move ahead. The Rangers will need him to if he's staying put.
But if New York is going to recreate its 114-point season, it's going to need a repeat MVP-like performance from Artemi Panarin, continued offensive brilliance from Mika Zibanejad, Vezina-quality goaltending from Igor Shesterkin and for Alexis Lafrenière's breakout last season to be the first step toward superstardom.
Even then, that's asking a ton from everyone.
Florida Panthers
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Can the Florida Panthers repeat as Stanley Cup champions in 2024-2025? They could, but it's going to be a fair bit tougher for them after the losses they've sustained in the offseason.
Gone from the Cup-winning roster are forwards Ryan Lomberg (Calgary), Kevin Stenlund (Utah) and Vladimir Tarasenko (Detroit); defensemen Brandon Montour (Seattle), Oliver Ekman-Larsson (Toronto) and goalie Anthony Stolarz (Toronto). That's still not accounting for unsigned free agents Nick Cousins, Kyle Okposo and Steven Lorentz.
Florida didn't lose everyone, though. It re-signed Sam Reinhart to an eight-year, $69 million extension, brought defenseman Dmitry Kulikov back on a four-year, $4.6 million deal and extended Anton Lundell for six years and $30 million. And while those player losses were tough, it's done its best to replace them with Tomas Nosek, Nate Schmidt, AJ Greer, Mackenzie Entwistle, Jesper Boqvist and Chris Driedger.
The Panthers didn't need to make splashes, they just needed to do what they could to replace the guys they lost. Although it doesn't look like they've been able to make up that difference on paper, the way they play as coached by Paul Maurice could mean they've become a team that doesn't rebuild, they reload.
Still, asking for a Cup repeat after losing guys like Montour and Ekman-Larsson is asking a lot when the odds are against most teams for repeating already.
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