The curtain has closed on the 2022-23 season with Vegas taking home its first Stanley Cup, beating Florida in five games. (The Panthers, as it turns out, had several key injuries to contend with, some of which will carry over into next season.) Away from the rink, there was plenty of notable news, recapped in our key stories.
Coaching Hires: The final two vacancies behind the bench have been filled. After going internal for their GM hire, Calgary did the same for the head coaching position, promoting assistant Ryan Huska to the top job, replacing Darryl Sutter. Huska is no stranger to the organization having been an assistant with them for five years after serving as their AHL head coach for the four previous years. This will be his first head coaching position in the NHL. The same can’t be said for the new coach of the Rangers with them hiring veteran Peter Laviolette as their new bench boss, taking over from Gerard Gallant. The 58-year-old spent the last three seasons with Washington before parting ways back in April. This will be his 22nd season behind the bench and he will crack the top ten for games coached in NHL history sometime in November.
Max-Term Deal For Bratt: After inking a pair of short-term deals after his entry-level contract expired, the Devils and winger Jesper Bratt put pen to paper on an eight-year, $63MM contract. The 24-year-old followed up his breakout 73-point campaign in 2021-22 with another 73-point effort this past season including a career-best 32 goals, solidifying himself as a key cog on New Jersey’s top line in the process. With one key RFA locked up, GM Tom Fitzgerald can turn his focus to his other one, winger Timo Meier. The team chose to file for club-elected salary arbitration, giving them a chance to submit an offer that’s $1.5MM below what would have been his $10MM qualifier. That will give both sides about six weeks to try to work out a long-term agreement before the hearings end in early August.
First Buyout Done: The buyout window opened up on Friday and Vancouver wasted little time making the first move, buying out the final four seasons of Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s contract. The move frees up more than $7MM in cap room for the Canucks this season but does put more than $20MM in dead cap on their books over the next eight years. That’s hardly the outcome then-GM Jim Benning was hoping for when he acquired the 31-year-old at the draft two years ago, moving the ninth-overall pick as part of the package. Meanwhile, as Arizona retained salary in the trade, they too have a dead cap charge over the next eight years totaling $2.8MM. Notably, one of their three retained salary slots will be encumbered for that entire stretch, running through the 2030-31 campaign. Ekman-Larsson becomes an unrestricted free agent but will not be able to sign with his new team until July 1st.
Senators Sold: After a very long and drawn-out process, the Senators will have a new owner as it was announced that Michael Andlauer was the successful bidder for the team with an offer of $950MM. The purchase is subject to the approval of the Board of Governors but that shouldn’t be an issue, especially with Andlauer being familiar to them as an alternate governor with Montreal. Andlauer will need to sell his minority stake in the Canadiens before the sale can be finalized. He won’t officially take over the franchise until these things occur so it’s unlikely he’ll be able to have any sort of impact regarding off-ice (or on-ice) personnel for a little while yet.
Speaking of on-ice personnel, the Senators also filed for club-elected arbitration on pending RFA Alex DeBrincat, allowing them to offer as low as 85% of his $9MM qualifying offer. However, unlike Meier, there’s a belief that DeBrincat would like to be moved and this filing won’t prevent that process from playing out.
Leaving Calgary? Flames defenseman Noah Hanifin is entering the final year of a six-year, $29.7MM contract that has been quite a bargain for Calgary. However, it appears that he’ll be following in the footsteps of former teammate Matthew Tkachuk as he has reportedly told the team that he does not want to sign a new deal with them. As a result, it’s expected that he’ll be traded. The 26-year-old has found his offensive touch the last two years, picking up 86 points in 182 games while logging nearly 22 minutes a night. He’ll be 27 when his new contract begins which means, wherever he goes, he’ll be in line for a max-term extension that’s worth at least a couple million more than his current $4.95MM AAV.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.