7 Young NHL Players Who Could Use a Change of Scenery with a Trade in the 2026 Offseason

There's no player that fans of an NHL team will go to bat for more than a young prospect. There's also no player those fans will get frustrated by more than that same young player.

Call it the duality of youth, but the catch with young players is that they don't all become effective NHL players at the same time. Some of them may never become regular NHLers, but the thing about hope is that it springs eternal and sometimes a situation doesn't always fit the player and those timelines don't connect.

We'll take a look at a few young players around the league who might be on the precipice of stardom or very well could become stars if they landed in a different, potentially more useful situation with another team.

Chances are high we're going to hurt some of your feelings saying your favorite prospect should go somewhere else to bloom, but deep down... you'll really hate us for being right about it.

Easton Cowan, Toronto Maple Leafs

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Of the many things that went wrong for the Maple Leafs this season, one of the more frustrating situations was how rookie forward Easton Cowan was used.

Cowan had 29 points in 66 games with Toronto this season and saw both his ice time and game usage drop throughout the year as the Leafs fortunes grew worse as time went on. If that doesn't compute in your mind, you're not alone and seeing a 20-year-old forward get that kind of run around is deeply frustrating. After all, what good is a lost season if you're not seeing more of your young players in different situations?

The Leafs aren't in the kind of position to be dealing away young players, but now that they've landed the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft and, likely, still have a mind towards getting back to the playoffs while they've still got Auston Matthews and William Nylander in their primes, moving Cowan to find a player(s) to meet that end might be something new GM John Chayka could look to do. After all, when you're looking at adding Gavin McKenna to the mix in the draft, anything could be on the table.

Olen Zellweger, Anaheim Ducks

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As we got to see throughout the season and in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Ducks have something big brewing with their lineup and one of their strengths is on the blue line. With young players like Jackson LaCombe, Pavel Mintyukov and Ian Moore getting big time in the postseason, they're in good shape for years to come.

One of the players who figured to be part of that group is Olen Zellweger, but during the playoffs, he played in just three of their Ducks' 12 games and was a healthy scratch for the others. He made the most of it with a goal and an assist in three games, but it was curious to see him out of the mix despite his solid play over the past couple years.

The Ducks system is teeming over with defensive talent with Noah Warren, Tristan Luneau, and Stian Solberg on the horizon and with Zellweger set to be an RFA this summer, it opens the door to make a move of some kind. As the Ducks found out this season, they're a real good team and they're in a division with Vegas, Edmonton and a San Jose team that's on the verge of becoming perennial contenders. Zellweger could be part of Anaheim's future on the blue line...or he could be someone that helps them land another player to help them take another big step forward.

Devon Levi, Buffalo Sabres

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Three seasons ago, Devon Levi nearly singlehandedly helped will the Buffalo Sabres into the playoffs fresh out of Northeastern University and became a phenomenon for his athletic play and Jedi meditation during TV timeouts.

Since then, he's spent most of his time honing his game in the AHL but saw his spot as the Sabres' No. 3 goalie usurped by waiver pick-up Colten Ellis while he joined Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Alex Lyon helped lead Buffalo back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Levi had a tough season in the AHL but still led the Rochester Americans back to the playoffs.

As the No. 4 goalie in the pecking order and will need waivers to be moved to the minors next season, the time is ripe for another team in need of goaltending to call the Sabres with their best offers and Levi at 24 years old and a lot of experience as a pro should be hotly pursued.

Having a glut of solid goaltending is a nice problem to have, but the Sabres' hand will be forced either in the summer or during training camp to make a deal or lose someone on waivers. Levi might be the best candidate for a team looking to add a quality player at a potentially low cost.

Matvei Michkov, Philadelphia Flyers

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All right Flyers fans, put your fists down and listen, OK?

Matvei Michkov is a captivating player with a metric ton of talent. In two seasons, he's put up 114 points in 161 games including 46 goals. He can be electrifying and dynamic with his ability with the puck and if there's a frustrating part of his game it's that we don't see him dominate games regularly.

At 21 years old, those kinds of things will come, but watching Flyers coaches try to navigate their way around working with him is maddening enough to see from the outside and we know you fans pull your hair out seeing it happen with such regularity, too.

The ideal Flyers future has Michkov ascending to superstardom alongside Porter Martone and Trevor Zegras while they run circles around the NHL with their mix of talent. But with the way we've seen Michkov get his minutes messed around with and his usage changed with regularity we can't help but wonder if there's an internal clock ticking loudly with management for when their patience with Michkov eventually runs out.

After all, Michkov's average time on ice dropped by nearly two minutes from his rookie season to this one (16:41 to 14:50) and he averaged 11:50 in the playoffs. That's not the kind of thing you want to see, even if there may have been a sophomore slump involved.

Shane Wright, Seattle Kraken

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Will this be the year Seattle trades Shane Wright?

The 22-year-old forward struggled this season, his second full one in the NHL. His goals, points and ice time all dropped from last season and he's yet to find a proper role with the Kraken. After being such a highly touted offensive player in juniors, the offense has yet to pop in the NHL and even on a team that struggled to score, he couldn't climb higher in the lineup to gain a more offensive role.

That said, things are messy with the Kraken. They've changed coaches twice the past two years going from Dave Hakstol to Dan Bylsma to Lane Lambert and that kind of turnover doesn't help any players, but it's especially tough on younger ones. With Lambert's particularly more defensive-minded style of play, it made the learning curve a bit steeper for Wright.

If there's anyone we talk about today where a change-of-scenery trade would do them the best, it's 100 percent true for Shane Wright.

Sebastian Cossa, Detroit Red Wings

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For teams looking for young goaltending, this offseason might be the market they've been dreaming about. With the Red Wings getting settled in goal with John Gibson, the path to the NHL for one of their top prospects, Sebastian Cossa, got a lot more difficult.

Cossa just completed his third full season in the AHL and continued to be one of the most consistent goalies at that level. He's posted save percentages of .913, .911 and .915 in those seasons and may be poised to be Gibson's backup in the NHL next season. That is, so long as the Red Wings don't add another NHL veteran to take that spot or his AHL teammate Michal Postava wins it over him.

What makes Cossa's situation a bit more awkward is Detroit has another top prospect goaltender roaring up behind him in Michigan State's Trey Augustine. After being so desperate for goaltending consistency and depth for so long, Detroit suddenly has a busy depth chart and a top prospect in Cossa who's more than deserving of a chance to show what he can do. Now that Detroit is 10 years deep into a playoff drought, taking a chance like that on a rookie probably isn't high on GM Steve Yzerman's list of priorities.

Brad Lambert, Winnipeg Jets

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Something that hurt the Winnipeg Jets last season, apart from health on their blue line, was scoring depth. After losing Nikolaj Ehlers in free agency, Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor suddenly found themselves trying to do it all up front.

As good as Gabriel Vilardi was, beyond him there wasn't a lot of help as Cole Perfetti struggled and their more defensive-minded forward group couldn't chip in enough. It would've been a more ideal situation to get an offensive spark plug like Brad Lambert involved, but he only got a taste of the league late in the year with six points in 25 games while averaging 10:48 ice time per game.

Lambert hasn't had the most consistent play the past two seasons in the AHL, but in his first season there he had 55 points in 64 games. In 95 AHL games since then, he's put up 48 points, however. That's not the kind of development anyone wants to see out of a first-round pick (2022 30th overall) and if Lambert is going to reach the offensive potential he showed in Finland, doing that somewhere else might be what he, and the Jets, need most to fix things up.