NHL SUMMER BREEZE MAKES SOME FEEL NOT SO FINE

by T.R. Holler

We all know the business of the NHL is changing fast, but this 2026 offseason shook the core of GMs to their very core. No, it wasn’t so much evolution as it was revolution – some call it the era of player ‘empowerment’ which, at times, and in proper context, can be a great thing, but other times it can cause disruption and toss a wrench into crucial team-building strategy.

In a league with such a strong, iron clad collective bargaining agreement that truly protects the player, it was a bit of a surprise when Brady Tchachuk demanded a trade out of Ottawa. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last, but this typically occurs when a player has but one, and at most, two years left on their contract with a given organization. Ottawa received fair market value in return with 2, 1^st rd. picks in the 2026 draft at #9 and #25 plus a 2^nd rd. pick in the 2027 draft. A solid veteran would have been nice, but draft capital is a nice commodity, isn’t it?

Just prior the 2026 NHL draft, Detroit centerman and team captain, Dylan Larkin, sent a message to (then) GM Steve Yzerman, requesting a trade out of Detroit with – get this, five years left on his contract! We’re all for players rights and safety, but come on now, honor your commitment fella, the feelgoodery of the Milano is over now! I mean for ‘Hockeytown’ that’s a clear stab right in the heart, right? Larkin is from Michigan, went to Ann Arbor, is the Red Wings 1C and team captain. Can you fathom such sacrilege in Minnesota? Whoa.

Larkin, understandably, is panicking a bit, and will celebrate his 30^th birthday by the time this article is published. He’s still a burner, a solid 2-way player, and routinely averages 70pts per season while hitting a minimum of 70 games played. Larkin, however, is not McDavid, nor MacKinnon, Crosby, Barkov or perhaps even Tim Stutzle. Those are the premiere1Cs in the entire NHL. Larkin is in the 2^nd tier though and would be a stellar addition to any team, especially a team constructed like the Minnesota Wild who still desperately lack a true 1C. Problem is, the Wild, post-Quinn Hughes trade, has fewer future assets and unproven youth that simply, to date, has not appealed to Detroit. Hence, no movement on Larkin to the Wild.

On the flip, Larkin hasn’t moved anywhere as top Cup contenders, which are on Larkin’s trade list, are either tight on the cap or thin on futures in their own right. Yet another layer, is after the Larkin trade demand and lack of worthwhile returns in a trade, GM Steve Yzerman resigned. Maybe of his own volition, maybe ‘encouraged’ by Red Wing management, but either way? Smells like Yzerman has had enough of this player empowerment ‘revolution’ as some may choose to call the current pendulum swing. Kris Daper waits in the wings for the Detroit GM role, if, and I mean if he wants it.

The NHL has a booming salary cap which has certainly helped fuel this revolution of player empowerment. The weak free agent class of 2026 was also a secondary factor for the offseason trade market or, trade demands. Leo Carlsson’s mind-numbing five-year, $90 million offer sheet from Philadelphia, which Anaheim matched, will have multiple, tiered impacts for the restricted free-agent marketplace moving forward especially if the NHL cap goes up its projected $8-$10 million annually. The chaos of trade demands and offer sheets will only increase so we will see how the NHL and respective team management deals with these situations – will they temper the chaos or feed into it? Will long-term deals disappear? Shorter, bridge contracts become the norm? Let the world turn.

The restricted free agent (RFA) market might be the new ‘free agent’ frenzy, call it the ‘RFA frenzy’ with offer sheets, matching or receiving picks in exchange for losing an RFA. Remember, if Anaheim did not match the Carlsson offer sheet, the Flyers would have owed FOUR 1^st rd. draft picks to the Ducks. The RFA, typically still in their early-to-barely-mid 20s is the true revolution as they are making bank earlier than ever before. The Carlsson $18 million AAV offer from Philly led to Pavel Dorofeyev inking a seven-year, $11 million AAV deal with the Rangers despite being a winger with a max career-high of 64 points in Vegas. Yeah, the times are a-changin’. With all due respect, another eye-opening case study in the lucrative RFA revolution is one Jack Drury – the same one who helped bury the Wild last spring, is an above-average bottom-sixer, but only riding a mere 27-point season, yet he just earned a five-year, $22.5 million contract with Nashville after he was shipped there C.O.D. from the Avs. Not too shabby there, Jack! Another player just out of reach for the Wild at over $4M per who we could use.

Carlsson’s five-year offer sheet and subsequent signing to remain in Anaheim walks him to UFA status at only 26. Trevor Zegras followed the mid-range template with his four-year, $9.125 million contract extension he signed with the Flyers, which will make him a UFA at only 29, and thus, in theory, Zegras can cash in on a 6–7-year deal to age 35. Good for the youth of the NHL, but they better have their heads on a swivel from grizzled veterans who have aged out of this sweet spot and go head-hunting for the newly minted greenhorns.

The last layer of the onion to peel away this NHL offseason is the movement toward less importance of late 1^st rd. draft picks. With the last decade+ onslaught of analytics combined with the recent rise of the salary cap, teams are more adept than ever at nailing the top 15-16 picks of the draft whereas the bottom half of the draft dips markedly in percentage of success. Some metrics quantify the top 15 picks hit at a near 80% rate whereas the latter half dip down below the 50-percentile. Again, players and player agents might call it evolution whereas front offices term these trends as revolution. Collectively, we just must turn and face the strange.

YEAH, YEAH…WE GET IT, WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE NHL TRANSACTIONS?

A recap of the top NHL news this offseason includes the following;

• Sergie Bobrovsky bails the sun and fun of Miami for cold, under-achieving, chaotic Toronto as they rebuild with McKenna and Co. ‘Bob’ signed for 3/$21M
• Alexander ‘The Great’ Ovechkin re-signed for one more run with the Cap for $4.25M
• Mason Marchment leaves Columbus for the juggernaut San Jose Sharks for 5/$35M
• Jacob Trouba, also joins the fish and signed for 4/$33M
• John Carlson was traded to the Ducks (by the Caps), finished out a strong playoff run in Anaheim, then they traded him to the Carolina Hurricanes who then did not sign Carlson prior start of free agency, so Carlson signed with the Bolts of Tampa. No state tax, baby!
• Fresh off a Stanley Cup run with the Hurricanes, veteran ‘tender, Freddie Anderson signed with Roughnecks of Edmonton to provide some modicum of stability in the pipes.
• The San Jose Sharks had a killer draft nabbing three top picks in #2 overall pick, winger Ivar Stenberg, #9 D – Keaton Verhoeff and at #21, D – Ryan Lin adding to a youthful and suddenly deep roster led by phenom superstar C – Macklin Celebrini.
• Amidst the offseason Detroit drama and zero movement from his hometown Buffalo Sabres, the #1 all-time American-born NHL points leader, RW – Patrick Kane returns for a lap at nearly 38 yrs with his beloved Blackhawks on a 1 year, $8M deal. Kane has quietly put up nearly 60 pts the last two years so now its power-play time in the Windy City.
• Fresh off the interwebs, breaking news out of San Jose, as the Sharks signed phenom C – Macklin Celebrini, who recently turned the ripe ‘ol age of 20, to a five-year extension for $94M becoming the NHL’s highest paid player with an AAV of $18.8. Take a seat, Kirill.

            NOW, CATCH ME UP WITH THE WILD!

Locally, the Minnesota Wild ended up with only three 2026 draft picks, but for once nabbed some decent size, especially in goaltender, Filip Ruzicka, who measures 6’8”/235 lbs. These three picks are long-term projects but at least there’s some youth reinforcement on the horizon. Ruzicka is the only of the three to sign his three-year entry-level deal as the other two picks, both forwards, are still incubating in junior hockey but both clock in at 6’4” and 210+ lbs!

In terms of the veterans, the Wild lost RW – Mats Zuccarello to the LA Kings, LW – Marcus Johansson to the home base of Sweden, and RW – Vlad Tarasenko (who remains unsigned as of July 28). That’s exactly 150 points out the door, folks! Now, Billy G and the Wild made a decent trade and re-signed a few vets, but even IF those moves pan out and all stay healthy, we are looking at about 100-110 points incoming for 2026-27 leaving the Wild approximately 40-50 points shy of last year’s output total. Currently, that could equate to a 10-game swing in the wrong direction and suddenly that 3-seed becomes an 8-seed real quick.

For extra fun? The Wild play 20 of their first 30 games on the road. Uff da! Welcome #2 goalie, Calvin Pickard to the Wild, buckle up brother – we are going to need you! The following is a rundown of the rest of the Wilds’ 2026 offseason transactions;

• Traded D – Jake Middleton and three future draft picks to Calgary for LW/C – Blake Coleman and D – Ollie Maatta. (Maatta for Middleton and Coleman replaces Johannson)
• Re-signed 4^th line winger, Nick (Feelgoodery) Foligno for some checking and PK2
• Re-signed 3^rd pair D – Daemon (On the) Hunt, all-around good guy and depth piece
• Signed FA G – Calvin (Admiral) Pickard, a solid veteran with experience to cover for rehabbing G – Filip (Hop on the Bus) Gustavsson
• Signed FA, RW – Diminutive, KHL phenom Maximus (Decimus Meridius) Shabanov from the Isles. Shares same as agent as Kaprizov, so hopefully KK can give the kid a ride or pay his Uber to TRIA rink with all that coinage, right Cash Cow?
• Depth Iowa AHLers in Caedan Bankier, Carson Lambos, and David Spacek all re-signed to one-year/two-way deals.

Wild training camp begins approx. Sept 10-12^th with their first preseason game slated for Friday Sept 19^th. The season starts earlier than ever on October 1, as the NHL shifts to an 84-game schedule up 2 games from the normal 82. I’ll bet JEEK and Brod’s are already worried about this. In this training camp expect C – Charlie Stramel, C – Rieger Lorenz, C/RW – Hunter Haight, C/LW – Riley Heidt, and C/LW – Rasmus Kumpulainen to seriously compete for roster spots. Potential slots are more open now than ever before, especially when the annual injury bug hits around the holidays.

It’s going to be an uphill transition year for the Wild. They lost 150 pts of production and, albeit some admirable moves were made to supplant, they still fall short. Lot of new faces, and youth are on the uptick with the Wild, so expect growing pains. Look for Dylan Larkin to be traded by the NHL trade deadline of March 1, 2027, to a contender, but not the Wild. Also, look for an announcement of long-anticipated signing of Quinnesota to a 3 year, $45M deal prior Sept 1, and yes, you guessed it – the perfect bridge deal that benefits the player. We shall see what the Wild regular season brings and what, if anything Billy G has up his sleeve before the trade deadline as Anaheim, Utah, Nashville, and San Jose all improved this offseason. Along with mainstays Colorado, Dallas, and Edmonton, well…yeah. It’s going to be very interesting.

And with that, you’re all caught up – so get in some more cabin time, grab an outdoor concert, and hit the State Fair and really watch your self-esteem skyrocket! You might need it as this Wild season goes on, but at least you’ll have some cushion. I hope and pray I’m wrong, but I doubt it.