Winners and Losers of the 2024 NHL Offseason So Far
We realize the NHL offseason got underway just about three weeks ago and we also understand that virtually everything has gone quiet while everyone around the league goes on vacation.
Nevertheless, we've got two months until training camps open and we've still got a lot of time for more moves to happen.
With this lull in the action in place, it allows us to take stock of what's happened, who's done well and who has not. That's right friends, we're calling out the winners and losers as it stands right now and we're feeling judgy.
Sometimes it's cool to be the best in the offseason because it means starting the new season on a high and full of hope. Then again, sometimes it's a terrible thing to have to live up to and the only thing that can make it stand up is ending the season with the Stanley Cup.
Ah yes, it's the terrible burden of expectations, something that the losers in our story won't have to deal with! Instead, the losers will get the chance to shake off those bad vibes and prove the doubters wrong and for ruining their summer with heaps of negativity.
Whether it's the winners or the losers, we're sure you're going to have opinions and we do enjoy hearing them even when you're being mean about it.
Winner: Nashville Predators Take the Offseason Title
1 of 6
If we're going to crown anyone for having the biggest moves, grabbing the biggest names and making sure we're going to want to watch a ton of their games next season, the Nashville Predators are the team that did it all.
They also won the award for hitting us with the most jarring photo of the offseason by showing off the biggest signing of the summer, Steven Stamkos, in his brand-new No. 91 Predators uniform:
It feels like you're looking through a wormhole into another dimension seeing Stamkos in something other than a Tampa Bay Lightning jersey, but he wasn't the only guy who headed to Music City.
They added 2023 Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jonathan Marchessault out of Las Vegas, defenseman Brady Skjei hopped westward out of Carolina and locked up starting goalie Juuse Saros to an eight-year, $61.92 million extension that kicks in at the start of the 2025-2026 season.
Adding in those guys to play alongside Filip Forsberg, Roman Josi, Ryan O'Reilly and Gustav Nyquist to help the Preds build upon their return to the playoffs last season makes the battle in the Central Division much more interesting and the fight overall in the Western Conference a lot more fun.
Loser: New York Rangers and Awkwardness
2 of 6
Indeed, teams that win the Presidents' Trophy don't necessarily have to make a ton of changes to better themselves. Sure, the Florida Panthers changed coaches and made a massive trade a couple of years ago after they won it but lost in the second round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs. And yeah, Patrice Bergeron retired after the Bruins were upset by the Panthers in the first round two seasons ago. But the Rangers tried a different approach.
New York hasn't made any major moves this summer and mostly took care of in-house moves. They waived Barclay Goodrow who was picked up by San Jose, re-signed Kaapo Kakko to a one-year contract, re-upped with Braden Schneider to a nice two-year, $4.4 million deal and added Sam Carrick from Edmonton in free agency.
But they also attempted to trade team captain defenseman Jacob Trouba to Detroit only to have it stall out according to the New York Post. Trouba's 15-team no-trade clause interfered with any plans the Rangers may or may not have had in dealing Trouba, but now they've got a team captain they've got to play nice with and potentially look at trading next offseason.
Everyone can spend the summer allowing cooler heads to prevail and try to win the Stanley Cup with a very good roster once again. But players are human and the fact the Rangers attempted to trade Trouba while he has fully embraced being in Manhattan is tough to handle. At the very least, everyone knows where they stand...at least they should.
Still, if the Rangers stumble out of the gate, Blueshirts fans will have a lot of reasons to point at as to why things might not be going so well, thus making coach Peter Laviolette and GM Chris Drury's jobs that much tougher.
Winner: Bold Management for Lightning, Devils, Capitals, Utah Hockey Club
3 of 6
We're always going to support teams that when faced with hard decisions or new opportunities to go off, go full "carpe diem" and do what needs to be done to move ahead.
Look at what the Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals, Utah Hockey Club and New Jersey Devils have done so far this offseason.
The Lightning were hard up against the salary cap and had an incredibly difficult decision to make regarding free agent captain Steven Stamkos. General manager Julien BriseBois got out ahead of things when he traded Mikhail Sergachev during the NHL Draft in Las Vegas to Utah for J.J. Moser, Conor Geekie and two draft picks.
While that trade freed up a ton of money against the cap to presumably bring back Stamkos, they instead used it to sign Jake Guentzel to a seven-year, $63 million contract. No doubt losing Stamkos is painful, but adding 29-year-old Guentzel and getting an under-the-radar puck mover in Moser while also keeping their forward group mostly intact is a win on paper.
Utah took advantage of Tampa Bay's need to shed money and added a No. 1 defenseman in Sergachev and a top-four blueliner in John Marino from New Jersey. They also extended Sean Durzi and added Ian Cole to change their defense corps overnight, a necessary change.
The Devils moved out Marino because they added Brett Pesce and Brendan Dillon to the blue line in free agency. They improved their goaltending when they traded for Jacob Markström from Calgary. They sent Akira Schmid and Alexander Holtz to Vegas for Paul Cotter and brought back Tomas Tatar in free agency. It's a sizable makeover for a team itchy to return to the playoffs and a run at a Cup.
The Capitals saw what a fight it was for them to make the playoffs last season and decided to do everything they could to make it easier. They added Pierre-Luc Dubois, Andrew Mangiapane, Jakob Chychrun and Logan Thompson in trades and then signed defenseman Matt Roy out of Los Angeles and forward Brandon Duhaime from Colorado. That is an intense amount of change, but it's great to see because it's an all-out brawl in the Eastern Conference.
.jpg?w=256 "Bleacher Report")
.jpeg?w=256)
Loser: Maple Leafs' Hopes for a Restructure
4 of 6
The Toronto Maple Leafs are running it back one more time, only this time they're hoping Craig Berube can be the coach to figure it out for them. While there's plenty of pressure on him, the majority of it belongs to GM Brad Treliving.
Two of the biggest things weighing on the Leafs going into the season will be the status of Mitch Marner and John Tavares who are each entering the final year of their contracts. Marner is the biggest fish of the bunch because he's one of the NHL's elite talents and his ability to produce points and play excellent defensively make him vital to Toronto's success.
But Toronto has extensions to Auston Matthews and William Nylander kicking in this season, and while that's OK because they're outstanding, they're now paying defensemen Chris Tanev, $4.5 million and Oliver Ekman-Larsson $3.5 million and forward Max Domi $3.75 million a year against the cap for the next four seasons.
Those additions are good on paper, to a degree, but they may age poorly in rapid fashion. Plus, if Treliving and Marner can't get an extension worked out sometime before next July, that could make things get really dicey since players of Marner's caliber rarely hit the market in the middle of their prime.
Marner's a Toronto guy and he wants to be the guy who brings a Stanley Cup back to the city, but another first-round flameout would start this entire conversation over again and Marner could just decide he would rather try to win it elsewhere, particularly if he has to eat the bulk of the blame again.
Winner: Oilers Leaning into Who They Are
5 of 6
After losing in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, the Edmonton Oilers could've done a lot of soul-searching and introspection to figure out what they could do differently to help them get over the hump and win it all. Instead, interim GM Jeff Jackson is guiding them to lean into who they are: an offensive powerhouse.
Having Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl leading the way makes the Oilers automatically an electrifying scoring machine and with Zach Hyman, Evan Bouchard and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins backing them up, they're a fearsome group to contain.
This summer, the Oilers leaned further into that when they added free agents Jeff Skinner who was bought out by the Buffalo Sabres and Viktor Arvidsson from Los Angeles to replace Warren Foegele who signed with the Kings. Edmonton also added high-scoring junior prospect Matthew Savoie from Buffalo in a trade that sent defensive forward Ryan McLeod to the Sabres that, on paper, looks like a huge win for Edmonton. It's a good thing they re-signed center Adam Henrique because at least one forward will have to play some form of defensive hockey, we suppose.
The Oilers have always gotten in trouble by being half-in and half-out on deciding the kind of hockey they want to play. Now with the players they'll have in place this season, coach Kris Knoblauch has a firewagon with a five-alarm blaze ready to roll.
Winners for Losing: San Jose Sharks
6 of 6
The San Jose Sharks are not going to be a good team this upcoming season, but that's OK because they're going to be young, fun, skilled and fast.
With Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith both signed and ready to go, the Sharks' past two first-round picks will be eager to get their careers underway. Those two along with fellow prospects William Eklund and Thomas Bordeleau up front will have Tyler Toffoli to play off of and, maybe, Logan Couture as well provided he can return to good health.
Beyond that, they've also got forwards Filip Bystedt and Quentin Musty in the pipeline as well and they signed Collin Graf out of Quinnipiac in April to a free-agent entry-level deal. The Sharks went from having a prospect system that was dire to one that's pretty fun to consider in just a couple of years.
San Jose will also have Jake Walman doing the "Griddy" on the blue line and Mario Ferraro is one of the more under-appreciated defensemen in the league. When they eventually add their other 2024 first-round pick Sam Dickinson (11th overall), they'll have some weapons back there.
The Sharks are going to lose a bunch and that's fine for now because the highlights they'll produce will be worth replaying over and over again.
.jpg?w=480 "Bleacher Report")
.jpeg?w=480)
.jpg?w=600 "Roseman on Makai Lemon Call 📞")
.jpg?w=600 "Latest NFL QB eyeing TV career")
