6 NHL Teams With the Biggest Roster Needs in the 2026 Offseason

Even though there are still a few weeks of the 2025-26 NHL regular season left to play, as well as the entirety of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, it is not too soon to start looking ahead to the offseason.

Let's take a look at six teams that we can already tell will have the most work to do this summer and have roster needs to fill.

Anaheim Ducks

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There is a lot to like about this Anaheim Ducks team, especially given the way it plays. They are in a good position to win the Pacific Division, and their games are also a ton of fun. That is equal parts great young offensive talent shining, and also a bad defensive team struggling to stop people.

Making the playoffs will be a huge step forward.

But are they capable of winning, right now, as currently constructed?

Probably not. Not given the way they defend. The need for improved defense is a multi-layered issue. The biggest issue is that they need to be better at it. The second issue is that they just do not really have anyone under contract on defense next season. The only two defensemen signed for next season are Jackson LaCombe and Drew Helleson. They have a few restricted free agents, three unrestricted free agents, and many openings.

They also have to figure out what Mason McTavish's future is after some healthy scratches and a down year offensively.

It is a good young team on the rise, making significant progress this season. It is also a team that needs some work to take the next step.

Chicago Blackhawks

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It is not hard to see the reasons for optimism here.

Connor Bedard is great. There is a really strong collection of high draft picks and young talent starting to make its way into the lineup. Anton Frondell is now here and joining that group. But simply sitting back and waiting for all of your high draft picks to (hopefully) become good is not a good enough strategy. Not all of these young players are going to pan out the way you hope. Not everybody's development is going to be a best-case scenario. At some point, you have to complement them with meaningful free agents and meaningful trades.

The reality is that next season is going to be Bedard's fourth season in the NHL. In his first two years in the league, the team won fewer games than it did in the rebuilding year in which they tanked to position themselves to get him. In year three, they might finally win more games than they did in that tanking season, but not by a significantly larger margin.

They are still one of the worst teams in the league in the standings, with some of the absolute worst underlying numbers. They consistently produce poor results with a poor process. Even with some truly outstanding young talent and a young superstar, this team is still multiple, significant pieces away from contending. The focus needs to be on simply adding more-in-their-prime impact talent, regardless of position.

They have salary cap space. They have trade assets. They need to put them all to use to help put a better team around their young superstar.

Edmonton Oilers

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Most NHL teams do not get lucky enough to have even one player as good as Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl. It is rare. It is even rarer to have two of them, at the exact same time, at nearly the exact same age, both of them in the prime of their careers. When you are lucky enough to get that, you owe it to yourself, them, your organization, and your fans to do everything possible to put the best team around them to try and win a championship.

The Oilers have been close to a championship the past two seasons, reaching back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals.

They did not win either of them.

This year's team, with the two superstars, is significantly worse than the past two teams that knocked on the door of a championship. It is still a playoff team (at least it should be), and the current state of the Pacific Division playoff bracket might give them a chance to advance. But it simply does not look like a championship team, especially if Draisaitl is not able to return and be 100 percent when the playoffs begin. It is also hard to see where any internal improvement will come from next season.

When neither McDavid nor Draisaitl is on the ice this season during 5-on-5 play, the team (entering play on Tuesday) is outscored 43-73, with only a 47.7 percent expected goal share. It is one of the worst supporting casts the Oilers have ever had around them during their careers, at least when it comes to actual on-ice production. Their goaltending is as bad as it has ever been, and now seems to be in a worse situation, given the long-term contract Tristan Jarry still has. They still only really have one defensive pairing they can rely on.

This is supposed to be a championship window that is wide open, but it seems to be inching shut, given the supporting cast around the two superstars.

General manager Stan Bowman keeps pushing the wrong buttons with his roster decisions, and it has put him in a position to have to change a lot this summer.

McDavid gave the Oilers a huge break when he took the same salary cap number on his two-year contract extension. Given the rapidly rising NHL salary cap in the coming seasons, that was actually him taking a pay cut and giving the organization some much-needed salary cap flexibility. They have to take advantage of that. If they do not, it would be fair to start wondering when he gets tired of it. Especially given his most recent contract extension was so short-term.

New York Rangers

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Perhaps the worst thing about the 2025-26 New York Rangers is that they clearly thought this team could win.

Everything they did in the months leading up to the season was the action of a team that wanted to win and planned to win.

You do not trade a first-round pick for J.T. Miller and all of his contract if you are not focused on winning right now.

You do not spend big money on a veteran defenseman like Vladislav Gavrikov to pair up with Adam Fox if you are not expecting to win.

You do not hire a big-name, two-time Stanley Cup-winning head coach like Mike Sullivan if competing for a championship (or competing for ... something) is not high on your list.

This was a win-now situation.

They have not only failed to win, but it is also probably fair to call into question how much this team is even trying right now. And that is not something to say lightly about a professional sports team. But registering nine shots on goal against a team on the outside of the playoffs, and that was playing with only four defensemen for more than half of the game, on your home ice, is about as lackluster and bad a performance as a professional hockey team can put together. But that is what the Rangers did on Monday night against the Ottawa Senators.

They sent out another letter to fans indicating some sort of re-tool, but all they did at the trade deadline was move a couple of pending unrestricted free agents. That is not enough, and this is not a situation with a quick fix.

They need more young talent, more scoring depth, at least one more top-four defenseman (and maybe two), and perhaps a new general manager to piece all of those things together.

Vincent Trocheck will be a big trade piece in the offseason. They have to make a big decision on whether or not Alexis Lafreniere is a core player. Can they shed the contracts of Mika Zibanejad and Miller? Does Adam Fox still want to be there? How much longer can their overall strategy be, "let's hope Igor Shesterkin just stops everything?"

This team needs a lot. It might not be a one offseason fix, either.

Toronto Maple Leafs

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The Maple Leafs have big questions to answer at every major level of the organization, both on the ice and off of it. We are not really talking about minor tweaks; we are doing some work around the edges. We could be talking about a massive organizational overhaul. At least, that is what we should be talking about. That might not mean a full-scale rebuild, but the status quo here is simply not working.

The general manager (Brad Treliving) has to be on the hot seat. Pretty much every major roster move over the past two years has been a flop, while he has consistently lost value with each transaction and progressively made the team worse. Outside of a handful of core players, this is largely his roster, and it is nowhere near good enough. Do you trust him to fix it?

The head coach (Craig Berube) has done nothing to warrant a return, or even the opportunity to finish the season, given how out of touch he seems with the team's biggest issues.

The roster is full of holes at pretty much every position. They do not score enough, they are a miserable defensive team, and we are now on week two of talking about their lack of a response to Auston Matthews being knocked out for the season on a dirty hit.

The vibes here are just absolutely, positively rancid. The roster obviously needs a ton of work. But before they start fixing the roster, they need to figure out who should build it and coach it. This could, and should, be a busy offseason in Toronto.

Vancouver Canucks

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After haphazardly stumbling around in mediocrity for the better part of a decade, the Canucks seem to have finally picked a direction and committed to some sort of rebuild.

The process began this season with the trades of Quinn Hughes, Kiefer Sherwood, Tyler Myers, and Conor Garland.

That can not be the end of the process.

There are still veteran players here with big contracts who could move, while they also have to figure out what to do with forward Elias Pettersson.

This is his second straight disappointing offensive year, and it is time to ask whether he will ever get back to being the player he was a few years ago, when he was one of the top offensive players in the NHL. Removing J.T. Miller from the equation did not help fix it. A fresh start with a new season did not make a change. A new head coach has not helped. They are starting to run out of cards to play here.

However, trading him would be a nightmare. His value is at an all-time low, his contract is massive, and there is still that "what if" element from him potentially rediscovering his game. Do you want to risk that happening somewhere else?

The Canucks are going to get a top-three pick in the draft, and perhaps even the No. 1 pick. That could give them the cornerstone player they need to build around. But that is only the first step in the process. It is going to be a long process.