What next after a wacky first day of NHL free agency?

Jul 14, 2022

What next after a wacky first day of NHL free agency?

Cats lying down with dogs. Toads falling from the sky. Johnny Gaudreau making Columbus a destination place. It was one helluva opening day to the 2022 free agency market.

But what does it mean? Well, that’s a whole other story as we take a look at what’s next in the world of hockey as we officially pivot to the 2022-23 season.

Columbus Lightning Bolt

During the Stanley Cup Final I did a story on Jack Johnson and his many trials and tribulations as he approached his first Stanley Cup. Columbus Blue Jackets president John Davidson, who recently returned there as team president after a stint in upper management with the New York Rangers, said he felt Johnson was one of the first players to embrace being a Blue Jacket after being acquired from Los Angeles for Jeff Carter. But the reality is it’s been a struggle to create something lasting for NHL players in Columbus. Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky both fled as UFAs even after knocking off Presidents’ Trophy winning Tampa in 2019. Pierre-Luc Dubois complained his way out of town. Seth Jones wasn’t interested in settling in long-term in Columbus, sparking a trade to Chicago (as an aside, how much would Jones now give to reverse that decision? But we digress).

But late Wednesday afternoon, GM Jarmo Kekalainen and the Blue Jackets organization delivered a thunderbolt to the hockey world signing top UFA Gaudreau to a seven-year deal worth $68.25 million. It’s a signing but also a message on many levels. It’s a message to restricted free agent Patrik Laine that the Blue Jackets are in it to win it. They’d have to make some things happen roster and cap-wise to accommodate Laine, but what better enticement to keeping the Finnish sniper than having a guy that collected 115 points last year in Calgary?

It’s also a message to everyone else in that organization, too, that management and ownership believes in what is going on in Columbus. It’s a message to other players who might have almost instinctively put Columbus on a list of no-trade teams to take a second thought. And most importantly, perhaps it’s a message to fans in Columbus that their loyalty and belief hasn’t gone unnoticed. Gaudreau doesn’t guarantee a playoff spot (see below), but he guarantees that people will immediately view Columbus through a different hockey lens.

Dark Horses or Fool’s Gold?

One of the interesting storylines of Wednesday’s opening of free agency (along with the Gaudreau bombshell) was the big splash by Detroit and Ottawa long into their rebuilding processes. And for fans in those long-suffering markets, it must have been a breath of fresh air to see guys like Claude Giroux and Cam Talbot joining recently acquired Alex DeBrincat in Ottawa and Andrew Copp, Dominik Kubalik, David Perron and Ben Chiarot joining the recently acquired Ville Husso in Detroit. Where there was once only patience, now there is legitimate hope. But with hope come raised expectations in both those cities (and in Columbus obviously).

It’s good stuff but expectations bring their own set of challenges. First you’ve got to have players who thrive in those conditions. Hey, it’s probably easier when no one really expects you to win consistently. These are the challenges for first-time NHL head coach Derek Lalonde, who takes over in Detroit, and for D.J. Smith, who just finished his third season as Ottawa’s head coach. Both teams have a treasure trove of great young talent starting with rookie of the year Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond in Detroit and Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle and Thomas Chabot in Ottawa. But the Sens haven’t been in the playoffs since 2017 and Detroit’s missed since 2016.

And here’s the hard math. Last season it took 100 points to get to the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference. Buffalo, another team hoping to surge up the charts, Detroit and Ottawa were at 75, 74, 73 points, respectively. Are the changes made to those rosters in the last few days, coupled with the evolution of the young talent on all three teams, enough to make up 10 to 12 more wins and jump into a playoff spot? As fun and optimistic as these days are in all three hard-luck markets, it’s almost certainly not going to happen. Not next year anyway.

What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas (Except Good Players, Apparently)

Oh those crazy Golden Knights. They move heaven and earth to acquire Max Pacioretty from Montreal, then move heaven and earth to acquire Mark Stone and Jack Eichel and sign Alex Pietrangelo. But there is a cost to pursuing with great vigor every new shiny bauble that pops up, and on Wednesday the VGK sent Pacioretty to Carolina and Dylan Coghlan to Carolina for ‘future considerations.’ What those look like is unclear but right now it’s another giveaway following the departures for little or no return of Marc-Andre Fleury, Evgenii Dadonov, Nate Schmidt and Paul Stastny. And it is another move reinforcing the widespread notion the Golden Knights don’t really appear to have a plan unless their plan is the chaos theory and that somehow this chaos will lead them to a Stanley Cup. I don’t see it working out that way, but their dysfunction might have helped Carolina to a Stanley Cup, so there is that.

The Perron Conundrum

One of those strange universe questions (like how does the caramel get in the Caramilk bar?) is: what has prevented David Perron from being a star anywhere but in St. Louis? And as a Part B, how could the Blues and Perron not find a way to keep what has been an outstanding relationship going? Maybe Perron breaks the trend in Detroit, where he signed a two-year deal at $4.75 million annually. And no question Perron, 34, is going to be a great mentor for that young forward group. He’s passionate, he came to the NHL the hard way and he’s got the softest mitts around. But it has only worked for him, really, in St. Louis ,a team he has joined three different times including most recently when he signed his last deal in the summer of 2018 and then helped the Blues to their first and only Stanley Cup the next June.

In fact, he has never signed a deal anywhere else in spite of stops in Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Anaheim and Vegas where, well, it just didn’t work (aside from a productive year in Vegas). Does the Motown stop break that trend? And with all due respect to Nick Leddy, I’d have spent the money the Blues spent to return the veteran defenseman to keep Perron wearing the Blue Note.

Goalie Question Solved, Right?

Never mind Toronto, Edmonton remains as demanding a media market as there is in the NHL. The fan base and local media are often at odds with each other and the construct and play of the team. And that sometimes creates a strange dynamic vis a vis how players are accepted or rejected in the court of public opinion. And there have been ample examples of players who have fallen in and out of favor regularly, including Jesse Puljujarvi, Duncan Keith and the erstwhile Mikko Koskinen.

Now throw Jack Campbell into the middle of all this. A great redemption story in Toronto, Campbell and the Leafs never seemed close on an extension for the 30-year-old netminder. And the fact is Campbell was very much a part of the last two first-round playoff flameouts for the Leafs, turning in an .897 save percentage in a gut-wrenching seven-game series lost to Tampa this spring and contributing to blowing a 3-1 series lead in ’21 against Montreal, it was entirely understandable thta both player and team wanted to move on.

But here’s the difference, subtle as it may be. The Oilers, coming off a run to the Western Conference Final for the first time since 2006, signed Campbell to a five-year, $25-million deal not to get them out of the first round but to win a Cup. So the expectations are even higher than in Toronto and the scrutiny isn’t going to be any less intense.

Oil Country Redemption

Speaking of a change of fortunes, a year ago it looked like Hall of Fame GM Ken Holland was managing his way out of town with a dubious deal to acquire Duncan Keith in which he did not get Chicago to retain salary and then not being able to upgrade his goaltending and looking like he maybe had misread his entire defensive corps. And frankly, when he plucked Evander Kane off the spare parts pile midway through the 2021-22 season it looked like a move borne more out of desperation than anything. But here we are a year later and Holland is the toast of the town for having returned Kane on a team-friendly four-year deal, re-upping the very useful Brett Kulak on the back end to a four-year pact and finding a goaltender who gives the team at least a chance at stabilizing a position that has been less than stable in recent years.

Guess that’s why he’s in the Hall of Fame. Holland still needs to figure out the Puljujarvi thing, but he is on a roll and, with the Calgary thing and ongoing chaos in Vegas, looks like he has the off-season No. 1 seed in the Pacific Division.

Don’t Sleep on Gustavsson in Minnesota

The Wild are already feeling the squeeze of last summer’s epic buyout of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. Everyone knew these days were coming – it’s costing them $12.74 million in cap space this season and that number jumps to $14.7 million in the next two seasons – and it’s already a factor in Kevin Fiala being traded to Los Angeles, where the 25-year-old sniper signed a nice seven-year, $55.125 million deal. So, maybe it shouldn’t have been shocking to see GM Bill Guerin do an about-face and trade veteran goalie Cam Talbot after Talbot’s agent, George Bezos, publicly griped about the Wild re-upping Marc-Andre Fleury for two years.

Guerin insisted he didn’t have to respond but did anyway in trading Talbot to Ottawa for Filip Gustavsson, 24. Here’s the thing, though: not only did the Wild get some cap flexibility in the short term they also got considerably younger in swapping the 35-year-old Talbot for Gustavsson. But what if they actually got a better option in goal? My pal Mike McKenna takes issue with this perspective but there was lots of positive talk around Gustavsson’s play in difficult circumstances in Ottawa last year and he’s going to a team with an established defense and a team that is further ahead on the evolutionary arc. He’s also going to learn alongside a future Hall of Famer in Fleury who should provide invaluable mentorship. In short, we won’t be surprised if Gustavsson has a bigger impact on his new team than Talbot in the short term and long term.

Nostalgia vs. Reality in Pittsburgh

Sometimes it’s easy to confuse nostalgia and reality. Those sometimes-competing elements have been at play in Pittsburgh for the past few years starting with the departure of Fleury after the 2017 Cup run. But the reality of the winding road that ended with the Penguins returning Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin, two foundational pieces that were critical to three Cups and a Stanley Cup Final appearance between 2008 and 2017, is that the options had either or both left via free agency were uninspiring and/or more expensive and/or both.

Malkin is problematic given his health but when he’s healthy he’s going to produce at more than a point a game, and when all three anchors, Malkin, Letang and Sidney Crosby, are in the lineup the Pens win at a .647 clip according to the team. The reality is the Penguins were bounced in the first round the last two seasons as a direct result of goaltending letdowns. If Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith stay healthy this team does have another run in it. Not sure we could have said the same if Letang and Malkin were elsewhere, no matter who came in to fill the void.

Girard the Odd Man out in Colorado?

The Avs did some nice work to retain some important pieces of their Cup run, inking forwards Valeri Nichushkin to an eight-year deal, Artturi Lehkonen to a five-year deal, Darren Helm and Andrew Cogliano to one-year deals and Josh Manson to a four-year pact on the back end while replacing Darcy Kuemper with Alexandar Georgiev in goal. But I was talking to an NHL executive from another Western Conference team who wonders what happens moving forward with Sam Girard? Girard, 24, suffered a broken sternum against St. Louis in the second round and didn’t return for the balance of the playoffs. He’s a talented left-hand shot defender who can play both sides, but how does he fit in on a team with the explosive Cale Makar on the right side and the up-and-coming Bowen Byram, 21, who also plays the left side, especially with a hefty cap hit of $5 million through 2026-27?

As the season moves along, pending injuries and other developments ,does Girard become a trade chip for the Avs, especially if they feel they are not as balanced on the back end and along the left side of the blueline? Girard does not have any trade protection and this executive felt that if there’s a move to be made that Girard might the logical odd man out and would be an attractive piece to peddle if it comes to that.

Earth to Seattle, Come in Kraken, Come in

There’s plenty of time before the start of the season, but I have to wonder if the fans in Seattle are wondering what the plan is for the Kraken. With oodles of cap space (as of Wednesday night the Kraken had in excess of $10 million according to CapFriendly.com) GM Ron Francis took a cautionary approach to the first day of free agency, signing veteran defenseman Justin Schultz to a two-year deal and Andre Burakovsky to a five-year deal with an average cap hit of $5.5 million, which seemed a bit rich for a guy who just hit career highs in goals (22) and points (61). Sure, there’s Shane Wright from the ’22 draft and Matty Beniers, but the defense is meh, the goaltending is less than meh and it just seemed there might have been an opportunity a la Columbus to jump up and say, oh yeah, we’re here, don’t forget it.

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