Bizarro-meter 2025: Which Eastern Conference team had the weirdest offseason?

With camps finally opening, we can say goodbye to the 2025 offseason. And that can only mean one thing: It’s time to fire up the bizarro-meter, and figure out which teams had the strangest offseasons.

We’ve been doing this on various sites since all the way back in 2013, when the David Clarkson signing nearly shattered the bizarro-meter on its very first use. Ever since, we’ve used the gimmick to rate each team’s offseason, which we define as everything that happened since their season ended – transactions, hirings and firings, and anything else that made headlines.

Here’s a quick spoiler: This year’s offseason was not all that bizarre.

Yep, the weirdest thing about the 2025 offseason is that it wasn’t all that weird. Oh, it had its moments. But after years of a stagnant cap finally gave way to a summer where everyone had money to spend, we were expecting some serious fireworks. Instead, we mostly got business as usual. Let’s just say the Ottawa Senators and their infamous 10/10 rating from 2018 don’t have to worry about anyone stealing their thunder.

Still, we solider on. Today is the East, while tomorrow is the West. Let’s fire up the trusty bizzaro-meter and see what it has to say about a summer of leaky roofs, angry dads and accidental retirements.

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Which season produces the best lineup of stars who played their final NHL game?

Slow News Summer has drifted into Some News September, and pretty soon this space is going to be well and truly in regular season countdown mode. We’ll have the usual previews, oddly specific predictions, and the annual reader contest. Just this morning I took the bizarro-meter out of storage and fired it up, just to see if it would last us another season. We’re almost there.

But not quite yet, so today let’s check one more reader question off our offseason to-do list. This one was first asked about five years ago – yes, sometimes it takes that long for the muse to visit – and was simple enough: Which season produces the best six-man roster of players who played their last game that year?

We can do this. Three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie, based on players who saw their final NHL action in a given season. That’s the sort of question that combines history, research, and remembering some guys, all of which are some of my favorite things.

But I’ll admit I had one concern heading into the project: I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. It would end up being 2003-04, because that was the double-cohort year caused by the lost lockout season that produced one of the greatest Hall-of-Fame classes ever. So we had already had our winner, and any suspense would come from seeing who could come the closest.

Except, spoiler alert, the 2003-04 season makes the list, but doesn’t win. We’ll get to that.

For now, we’ll dig back to the dawn of the expansion era in 1967-68, and try to find the 20 best lineups of players who said goodbye to the NHL. Let’s start with…

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Who wins: A roster of NHL stars with unique first names, or two first names?

We’ve made it past Labor Day, which I suppose means it’s no longer Slow News Summer. But without much going on in the NHL world quite yet, I hope you’ll forgive me if I squeeze in a few more entries from my list of weird ideas.

Today’s question: Who wins, a team made up of players who have unique first names, or players who have two first names?

In other words, we’re looking for a team full of guys who are the only player in NHL history to have a specific first name, and another full of guys whose last name is also a common first name. It should be simple enough, as long as you’re not the poor sap who has to do all the research. Which as luck would have, you are not.

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Please tell me I’m not the only fan who does these weird things when watching hockey

I’ve been watching hockey for roughly four decades now, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m doing it wrong.

Well, not wrong, necessarily. But weird. Whenever I’m watching a hockey game, especially one I’m emotionally invested in, I find myself doing some odd stuff. And I’ve always wondered how much of it might be going on with other fans too.

For the record, I’m not talking about all the stuff I do that’s I know is pretty much unique to me. I’m well aware that most of you aren’t buying a good luck bag of chips for the playoffs or having your kids construct small shrines for international tournaments. And that’s fine, because I'm sure that when it comes to that level of fan angst, you have your own strange habits and traditions, so I don’t feel bad.

I’m talking the much more run-of-the-mill stuff that’s weird. Or maybe it isn’t, and we all do it, and we just don’t talk about it. I’m genuinely not sure, which is why I put together today’s post. Maybe we’ll find out that we all have a lot more in common than we think. Or we might find out that I’m an unfortunate outlier, and you’ll all side-eye me while awkwardly shuffling away.

Either outcome seems fine, so let’s give this a try. Here are five weird things I do when I watch hockey; let me know if any of them sound familiar to you.

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“Fix The NHL” draft: Franchise tags, fun uniforms, 3-point games, and… relegation?

Today, four of us are going to fix the NHL. Or at least, we’re going to try. And then you’re going to tell us who did the best job.

Oh, you don’t think the NHL needs any fixing? The league, as currently run, is just about perfect? Cool, always fun to meet a satisfied customer. This post isn’t for you, feel free to click back and find something else Gary er, random reader.

For the rest of us, who believe there’s always room for improvement… welcome to the Fix the NHL Draft.

 

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