The craziest half hour in offseason history, one year later

Do you remember where you were one year ago this afternoon?

If you’re a hockey fan, there’s a good chance you do. That’s because today marks the one-year anniversary of the craziest 23 minutes in NHL off-season history. In less than the time it takes to deliver a pizza, NHL front offices delivered three of the biggest stories of the entire year: Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson, P.K. Subban for Shea Weber, and Steven Stamkos re-signing in Tampa.

Sports fan like to talk about days and moments that change everything, and it’s almost always hyperbole. But June 29, 2016, might qualify. We woke up thinking that certain players were untradeable, that the art of the one-for-one deal was all but dead, and that a superstar in his prime really could reach free agency and switch teams.

By the end of the day, none of those things was true anymore, along with thoughts like, “Nothing that happens in an NHL off-season could truly shock me.”

So yes, a lot changed in just 23 minutes. But a lot can change in 12 months, too, and some of the things we were left believing a year ago have evolved since. Today, let’s mark the anniversary of that wild day by comparing how things looked in the immediate aftermath of the madness compared to how they look right now.

The view a year ago: Trading P.K. Subban is the kind of thing that could come back to bite Marc Bergevin.

The view today: Trading P.K. Subban has come back to bite Marc Bergevin.

We’re not declaring winners or losers in the Subban/Weber deal yet — we’ve still got another decade or so to decide that. But when you look at everyone involved in that wild afternoon, you could make a case that nobody’s reputation has taken more of a hit than Bergevin’s.

Being the GM of the Canadiens may be one of the toughest jobs in sports, and Bergevin has been doing it for five years now, so it was inevitable that some of the shine would come off. But it wasn’t all that long ago that Bergevin was pretty darn shiny. He’d been named a finalist for GM of the Year in just his second season, and notoriously hard-to-please Montreal fans seemed cautiously optimistic about the job he was doing. He’d locked down Max Pacioretty on a fantastic deal, and got Carey Price at what turned out to be decent value. The Thomas Vanek rental hadn’t really worked, but Jeff Petry seemed like a smart pickup, and Habs fans seemed OK with the recent Andrew Shaw trade.

And then came Subban/Weber, a blockbuster so big that nothing else really seemed to matter anymore.

Many fans and analysts absolutely hated the trade, calling it a huge mistake, maybe even the worst in team history. That view was far from unanimous, and even today many Habs fans are perfectly fine with the swap.

But after watching the Canadiens make a first-round exit while the Predators rolled all the way to Cup final, everything Bergevin does is viewed through the Subban/Weber lens. And it didn’t help that it sure looked like the Habs were choosing Michel Therrien over Subban, only to fire the coach midway through the season.

By the time the 2017 trade deadline arrived and Bergevin was remaking the bottom of his roster on the fly, the skepticism was palpable, and today many Habs fans seem to be holding their breath over his attempts to trade Alexander Galchenyuk and/or acquire a top-line centre. Bergevin is facing more off-season pressure than any GM in the league, and his fan base seems a lot less willing to give him the benefit of the doubt than they were before that fateful day a year ago.

The view a year ago: The Oilers don’t know what they’re doing.

The view today: The Oilers might know what they’re doing.

Here’s the other side of the criticism coin. While Bergevin was questioned about his trade, Peter Chiarelli was outright roasted for his. The Hall trade became an immediate punchline, with a consensus forming almost instantly. The Oilers had made a huge mistake. They needed to get a bigger return. The Devils had pulled off a robbery. One so-called expert even said Edmonton had finally “worked up the nerve to talk to the pretty girl across the street, then stepped right into an open manhole cover”. (That last one was me. Look, I’m a Leafs fan — bad trades are kind of an area of expertise.)

One year later, well, it’s funny what a 103-point season and a return to the playoffs after over a decade can do to perceptions.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Evaluating five of the NHL's quietest offseasons

An NHL offseason can be a funny thing. For some teams, it represents an opportunity to blow everything up real good, hitting the reset button entirely or at the very least radically changing direction. For others, it’s a chance to double down on what’s already working by loading up on the final pieces of a true contender. In either case, blockbuster trades can be made, big-name free agents can be lured, and coaches and GMs can be replaced. Things are happening.

And then there are the teams that decide to skip all of that, and largely sit out the offseason. They tinker a bit, re-signing a guy here and making a minor move there, but for the most part they decide to pass on doing anything especially newsworthy.

And let’s be honest: While that approach may not be all that exciting, sometimes it absolutely turns out to be the right one. Sometimes, it really is better to leave the bat on your shoulder. But only sometimes.

So today, let’s look at five of the teams that have had the quietest off-season so far, and try to figure out if the conservative approach will end up being the right move.

LOS ANGELES KINGS

What they did: They watched Milan Lucic head to Edmonton, replacing him (kind of) with Teddy Purcell. Luke Schenn, Vincent Lecavalier and Kris Versteeg also departed. Oh, and they stripped Dustin Brown of his captaincy.

What they didn’t do: While the Kings don’t have any glaring holes, it became apparent last year that blueline depth was a question mark, especially after Alec Martinez went down. With apologies to Tom Gilbert, it still is.

The verdict: On the surface, this seems like an example of a good team not needing to do too much – after all, the Kings have won two of the last five Cups. But they’ve also won just a single playoff game over the last two seasons, and while the roster is still very good, it’s an aging one that doesn’t have much in the way of young reinforcements on the way. Ideally, you might think that the Kings would be loading up to make the most of one or two more runs with their championship core, but their ugly cap situation just won’t let them. A quiet summer may have been inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also be disappointing.

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS

What they did: They re-signed Brayden Schenn and Radko Gudas and bought out R.J. Umberger, but their only significant addition was Dale Weise.

What they didn’t do: Anything crazy, like spending eight figures on a washed up free agent, or dropping a massive offer sheet on another team’s franchise player, or trading two of their best players so they could sign a certifiably crazy goaltender.

The verdict: OK, granted, the Flyers have tried all that stuff in the past and it never really worked out. Still, we’ve come to count on the franchise to provide some offseason fireworks, and they’ve let us down over the last few years. That time period, of course, coincides with Ron Hextall’s stint as GM, and it certainly seems like the man who was once considered the biggest loose cannon in hockey has evolved into a decidedly patient GM.

So is that good? Considering where the Flyers are right now, it probably is. Despite making the playoffs last year, the Flyers are still in build mode. That won’t last forever, and there’s going to come a time when Hextall will have to get aggressive. Some have made the case that that time is already here, but I think the Flyers still have one more season to work with.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

The 2016 Bizarro-meter: Ranking the NHL's strangest offseasons

Now that we’re into the month of August, the NHL off-season is largely done.

Sure, there are still six weeks until training camps open. But most of the big moves have already happened, and we’ve settled into the dog days of summer when not much is going on.

Most teams have already done the majority of what they’re going to do. And it’s fair to say that some teams had more straightforward summers than others.

And so it’s time to break out the annual Bizarro-meter, in which we rank each team’s off-season based on just how strange it’s been.

Let's be clear: "bizarre" does not necessarily mean "bad." An unexpected move or two can work out great, while a conservative approach will often fail miserably.

We're not judging how well each team performed here. We're looking at how far out of the range of expectations they went.

So let's look at each team's major off-season moves, where "the off-season" is everything that happened after the team played its final game — whenever that ended up being. We'll do this by division, and we'll start off with the home of the defending Stanley Cup champs.

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METRO DIVISION

Pittsburgh Penguins

The off-season so far: As is typically the case for Stanley Cup champions, they saw some useful depth pieces depart due the salary cap concerns.

But their strangest move was: Not really losing anyone of consequence. That sounds harsh – sorry Jeff Zatkoff, Ben Lovejoy and Beau Bennett – but with the exception (so far) of Matt Cullen, the Pens really haven't lost any key pieces of their championship roster. That includes Marc-Andre Fleury — at least for now.

Bizarro-meter ranking: 2.2/10.

There will be more moves to come, as some estimates puts the Penguins over the cap right now. But for now, a largely quiet off-season has been good news.

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Washington Capitals

The off-season so far: It's been pretty quiet. They swapped around some depth parts and traded for Lars Eller, and that's about it.

But their strangest move was: Not overreacting to an early playoff exit with a bunch of firings, trades and general scapegoating.

Bizarro-meter ranking: 3.1/10.

To be clear, standing pat was absolutely the right approach. But given recent franchise history, it represents a change of direction.

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New York Rangers

The off-season so far: Their biggest move was trading Derick Brassard to Ottawa for Mika Zibanejad. They also said goodbye to a handful of veterans, including Eric Staal, Dan Boyle and Dominic Moore, clearing room to get Chris Kreider and Kevin Hayes re-signed

But their strangest move was: Signing UFAs Nathan Gerbe and Michael Grabner. Those are good additions, but it's still strange to see the Rangers go conservative in free agency, given their history.

Bizarro-meter ranking: 3.4/10.

Remember when we said that bizarre wouldn't necessarily mean bad? Some Rangers fans might be wishing that GM Jeff Gorton had made some more unexpected moves, like finding a taker for Rick Nash or (somehow) Dan Girardi. Instead, it's been pretty standard stuff.

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Philadelphia Flyers

The off-season so far: They bought out R.J. Umberger, re-signed Brayden Schenn and added Dale Weise.

But their strangest move was: Weise probably got a little too much money. Still, whatever happened to the "offersheet Shea Weber" or "trade Jeff Carter and Mike Richards to make room for Ilya Bryzgalov" version of the Flyers?

Bizarro-meter ranking: 4.3/10.

I'm still having trouble with the whole "Ron Hextall is calm and rationale" thing, but he clearly has a plan and is sticking to it.

—

New York Islanders

The off-season so far: No team featured more prominently in the free agent market, with the Islanders both landing and losing big names. They signed one of the biggest available in Andrew Ladd, and also added P.A. Parenteau and Jason Chimera. But they lost Kyle Okposo, who headed to Buffalo, as well as Frans Neilsen (Detroit) and Matt Martin (Toronto). Add it all up, and did they get any better? I'm not sure they did.

But their strangest move was: As strange as it was to see a team undergo so much free agency churn, it was a player they kept that sticks out as the strangest. While it was overshadowed by the moves to come, bottom-six forward Casey Cizikas getting a five-year, $16.75-million deal is still a tough move to justify.

Bizarro-meter ranking: 6.5/10.

Oh, they may also be moving again. Things are never boring for the Islanders.

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New Jersey Devils

The off-season so far: They added pair of Cup-winning Penguins by signing Lovejoy and trading for Bennett, and signed veteran Vernon Fiddler. Oh, and they also added Marc Savard's contract.

But their strangest move was: Trading Adam Larsson for Taylor Hall.

Bizarro-meter ranking: 6.7/10. That's almost entirely for the shocking Hall trade which — it goes without saying — we'll see again once we get to Edmonton.

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Carolina Hurricanes

The off-season so far: In June, they basically got Teuvo Teravainen from the Blackhawks for free by agreeing to eat Bryan Bickell's contract. It was an almost impossibly good deal, and they followed it up with some decent value signings. That continued a few years' worth of sneaky-smart moves in Carolina. And they even resisted the urge to get all sentimental and bring back Eric Staal. These guys are geniuses!

But their strangest move was: Re-signing Cam Ward, who is no longer an especially good goaltender, to a multi-year deal. These guys are morons!

Bizarro-meter ranking: 7.0/10.

I'm honestly not sure what's going on in Carolina. Did you ever have a kid in your class who was so smart that it got awkward for everyone, so she'd occasionally flunk a test on purpose just to seem normal? That's the best explanation I can come up with for the Ward signing.

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Columbus Blue Jackets

The off-season so far: While they've yet to unload any of the big contracts clogging their cap situation, they created some room by buying out Jared Boll and Fedor Tyutin. They used some of that room to sign franchise cornerstone Seth Jones to a team-friendly six-year deal.

But their strangest move was: Using the third overall pick in the draft to take a player who wasn't in the consensus Big Three. Pierre-Luc Dubois is a good prospect who could well turn out to be better than Jesse Puljujarvi. But the pick was still a shocker. Even if Dubois was Jarmo Kekalainen's guy, you'd think the Jackets would find a way to trade down a few spots first.

Bizarro-meter ranking: 7.4/10.

Give Kekalainen credit for having the courage to make a pick he had to know would open him up to criticism. But he'd better hope it works out.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Five expected offseason moves we're still waiting for

The dog days of the NHL offseason got a nice jolt on Monday when the Senators and Rangers hooked up on a decent-sized trade. The deal sends Derick Brassard and a seventh to Ottawa in exchange for Mika Zibanejad and a second, improving the Senators’ top six while adding some youth to the Rangers and giving them some additional cap room to work with.

The trade also answered one of the offseason’s lingering questions, which was: When are the Rangers going to get around to doing something? We were all told to expect a busy offseason in New York, as GM Jeff Gorton would look to shake up his aging and expensive core. But until this week, not much had happened aside from a few minor free agency signings. Trading Brassard isn’t exactly a blockbuster, but at least now the Rangers are on the board.

But that still leaves a few more stories lingering in the “still waiting” file. Here are five moves everyone went into the offseason expecting to see that still haven’t happened yet.

The move: The Kevin Shattenkirk trade.

Heading into the offseason, it seemed as if Shattenkirk was the most likely blueliner to be on the move. With UFA status a year away, it just didn’t seem as if he was part of the Blues long-term plans. And with holes in the lineup created by other departures and several teams on the market in the hunt for defensive help, trading Shattenkirk seemed like the most obvious move for Blues’ GM Doug Armstrong.

Why hasn’t it happened yet?: The short answer is that Armstrong hasn’t found the right deal yet. But that just leads to the next question: Why not? It’s not like the market for defensemen suddenly dried up this summer; between P.K. Subban, Shea Weber and Adam Larsson, there’s been as much talent on the move as ever, and maybe more. But in Shattenkirk’s case, the move might get complicated. He’s one year away from free agency, so teams may be reluctant to acquire him without a firm sense of how much they’ll have to pay to keep him.

Odds that it still will: High. It just seems like this one has gone too far down the road to be pulled back now, with Shattenkirk’s agent going as far as calling a deal “inevitable” a few weeks ago. Maybe Armstrong has to lower his asking price, and maybe that brings teams like Edmonton back into the mix.

What if it doesn’t?: It’s going to seem awkward if training camp arrives and Shattenkirk is still a Blue. Still, having him in the lineup wouldn’t be the worst thing in the word for a legitimate Cup contender. Conventional wisdom says that you just can’t let a player like that reach free agency without trading him first, but as the Lightning showed with Steven Stamkos last year, sometimes it’s better to stay the course. Still, that’s risky territory for the Blues, and it’s hard to see how this gets that far.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Six names in the offseason spotlight

The NHL off-season has barely started. It’s also almost over. That’s the way things tend to go in the modern era – we get the draft, some big trades, and the opening of free agency all crammed into a week, and then everything starts to get quiet. And this summer hasn’t disappointed, with some days being crazier than others.

Some of those moves will work out. Others won’t. A few will be utter disasters. And like every off-season, some of the action has resulted in certain names being thrust directly into the hockey world’s spotlight.

Here are a half dozen names that will be getting some extra attention based on what’s happened over the off-season’s opening days.

Milan Lucic

It’s a little too easy to point to big-money free agent signings as names in the spotlight; that goes with the job. Andrew Ladd, David Backes, Kyle Okposo and every other player who signed a big deal last week will be watched closely next year and beyond, at least until the buyouts start rolling in.

So we’ll limit ourselves to one, and we’ll make it Milan Lucic, if only as an example of how spotlights aren’t always a bad thing. Put simply, nobody was a bigger winner in last week’s bidding wars than Lucic. Not only did he sign one of the largest contracts in recent free agency history, but he landed in a near-perfect situation.

We’re already seeing the narrative built up: Lucic isn’t just going to be a dangerous addition to the Oilers’ top six, he’s going to transform the team’s very identity. He’ll teach them how to win. He’ll scare them straight.

When it’s time to meet his new teammates, he’ll be threatening to crack skulls before he’s even done shaking hands. Hey, he’s been there before.

People ripping the Lucic deal have to remember – Oilers desperately trying to change the culture of that team. Lucic will probably help

— Kevin Kurz (@KKurzCSN) July 1, 2016

It’s an irresistible storyline, and it’s one that means that Lucic will get the credit for any improvement the Oilers can show over the next few years. And that’s a great spot to be in, because the Oilers almost certainly will show improvement, and maybe a whole lot of it.

Connor McDavid‘s emergence as the best player in the league will all but guarantee that, and the continued improvement of the team’s other best young players will add support.

Nobody who’s been paying attention over the last decade would ever say that an Oilers playoff push is a sure thing. But it’s close. And whether he plays well or not, Lucic is going to get a big chunk of the credit. Even if he struggles on the ice, the whole intangibles storyline will be too much to refrain from. And if he puts up the type of numbers he’s capable of, he may own the city within a year or two.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Weekend report: Free agency winners and losers

The NHL's annual free agent frenzy opened on Friday at noon. Within hours, most of the big names were gone. By the end of the first day, only a handful of major names were left. And by the end of days two and three... well, actually, pretty much nothing happened on days two and three. Seriously, the weekend was weird. I think everyone already went on vacation. Am I the only one left? Because I don't know how to work the coffee machine.

Anyway, the slow weekend was bad news for a handful of decent players who are still available, most notably Kris Russell, Shane Doan, Matt Cullen and James Wisniewski (a latecomer to the part after being bought out the day before bidding opened). History tells us that those guys better hope they find a home soon, because as the summer wears on and cap dollars become scarce, the market dries up quickly. Maybe it already has.

Let's skip the preamble and get right to what you came for: Instantaneous declarations of winners and losers, most of which will be proven wrong by midway through training camp. Here are the five best and five worst from a busy start to the NHL's new year, along with one signing that fits both categories.

Top Five

The biggest winners of the market's early days.

5. Montreal signs Alexander Radulov—What does the art of comedy have in common with infuriating the Montreal Canadiens fan base? As GM Marc Bergevin could tell you after this week, the secret is in the timing.

At any other time, signing recent KHL star and former NHL castoff Alexander Radulov to a one-year, $5.75 million deal would seem like a reasonable move, albeit a risky one. Radulov has tons of talent; he also has a history of immaturity, most famously when he was benched for a playoff game after missing curfew with the Predators in 2012. He hasn't been seen in the NHL since, heading to the KHL where he put up four solid seasons. Now he's back, and the Habs hope he's smartened up.

And maybe he has. But again, there's that issue of timing. The signing came just two days after the Canadiens shocked everyone by trading P.K. Subban, taking back an inferior, older player with a worse contract in the process. The reason, the whispers went, was character. And then the team goes out and signs the poster boy for lack of it? It's all very confusing, and Bergevin didn't do much to explain himself on Friday. You could forgive Habs fans for throwing their hands in the air and concluding that this franchise doesn't have the first clue what it actually wants.

When you search your own name on Twitter after trading PK Subban. Photo by Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

But all of that overshadows an important point: This is a great deal for Montreal. Radulov is a wild card, and even if he has his head on straight, we really have no idea what he'll be in the NHL after four years away. He might not work out. But he could also be a star, the sort of first-line talent that's virtually impossible to add during an NHL offseason. And Montreal got him on a very reasonable one-year deal.

Best case, he's a monster and the Canadiens have a massive bargain to help lead them back to the playoffs. Worst case, he's a bust and you can write him off as a failed experiment that you cut your losses with without any future exposure. That looks a lot like the sort of medium-risk, high-reward deal that any team should jump on. Bergevin deserves credit, even if his timing was awful.

4. The David Backes fake out—The Bruins signed David Backes to a five-year, $30 million deal that wasn't especially remarkable. It was a little too much money and way too much term for a 32-year-old coming off his worst season in years, but it addressed a need and looked like a good fit between player and team. For a July 1 signing, it was fine.

But for a moment, it seemed like it was much more than that. When the signing first broke, it was widely but incorrectly reported as a one-year deal. Both Canadian networks covering the day's news—why yes, just like trade deadline day, NHL free agency gets covered by two full networks up here, thanks for asking—ran with the bad info, with both panels praising the Bruins for their restraint and common sense in not overcommitting to an aging player. Finally, they all agreed, some sanity. Don Sweeney is figuring this stuff out. Hey, at least it wasn't five years, right?

And then, minutes later, we found out that it was five years, and everyone just kind of looked at each other sheepishly and then changed the subject. And I laughed for about eight solid minutes.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Breaking down the P.K. Subban trade, which was bad

Late yesterday afternoon, news broke that the Oilers had finally pulled off their long-rumored trade for a top defenseman. Details were sketchy, but the first name to emerge was shocking: all-star Taylor Hall. Next, we learned the identity of the other team involved: The New Jersey Devils. That causes confusion, because short of goalie Cory Schneider, the Devils didn't have anyone worth surrendering Hall for. Finally, we got the whole deal: Hall for Adam Larsson, straight up. The hockey world reeled. Larsson is a decent young player, but nowhere near a proven No. 1, and the Oilers had just given up one of the best left wingers in the world for him. This was, quite possibly, the worst one-for-one trade we'd ever seen.

And it held that title for all of about seven minutes.

That's how stunning the P.K. Subban for Shea Weber trade between the Canadiens and Predators was; it knocked all the Taylor Hall punchlines off your Twitter timeline pretty much immediately. By the time we found out, just a few minutes later, that Steven Stamkos had signed an extension in Tampa Bay, we all reacted like distracted parents. Sure, sure, Steven, that's wonderful news, but we're dealing with something important right now.

To even call the Subban deal a blockbuster would seem like under-selling it. This was something bigger, a trade that was both impossibly simple and ridiculously complex at the same time. It involves a pair of two-time first-team all-stars, both with massive contracts, both still in their prime or at least plausibly close enough. Players like that never get traded in the NHL anymore. They certainly don't get traded for each other, straight up, without any retained salary or picks or complicated conditions.

And to be clear: This is the Subban deal. With all due respect to Weber, who has been in the "best defenseman alive" conversation for much of his career and was still playing big minutes on a very good Predators blueline, he's not the best asset in the deal. Subban is three years younger and carries a far more reasonable contract. And most importantly, he's the better player.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Free agency preview

Tomorrow is a big day in the NHL. It marks the start of the new year on the hockey calendar, meaning a boat load of players will see their contracts expire and officially become free agents. That means Friday will likely be the busiest day of the year in terms of transactions, as teams scramble to sign players available to the highest bidder.

It’s going to be a long day. To help you prepare, let’s walk through some of the key questions and answers heading into the annual free agent frenzy.

So free agency is a big deal in the NHL?

Well … sort of. It used to be, back in the 90s and early 2000s. Back then, lots of teams were struggling financially, but a handful were swimming in money and could throw around huge contracts. Rules around free agency were tighter then, and most of the players who reached the market were over 30. But given all the small-budget teams struggling to hold onto talent, that still led to plenty of big names making it to free agency most years.

Fast forward to 2005, and everything changed. The new collective bargaining agreement brought a salary cap to the league, leveling the playing field between haves and have-nots. But it also significantly loosened free agency rules, lowering the age limit to as low as 25. We all assumed this meant the market would be flooded with young stars in their prime. Instead, teams made it a priority to lock up their best talent to long-term deals. Star players like Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, Jonathan Toews and pretty much anyone else you’ve ever heard of have never been unrestricted free agents.

The modern-day market is packed with an assortment of castoffs, has-beens, declining veterans and – every once in a while – reasonably talented players who aren’t really stars but are close enough to get a ton of money thrown at them.

Nobody good every makes it to free agency. Got it. Who’s the best of the options this year?

Well, until Wednesday it was Steven Stamkos. He’s one of the best players in the league, and at 26 is still in his prime.

But you just said…

I know. It’s weird.

>> Read the full post at The Guardian

The worst free agent signings of the last two decades

Free agency opens on Friday, as teams will be officially allowed to sign players on the open market, and fans around the league should be excited.

No, wait, excited isn’t the right word. What’s the one I’m looking for? Terrified. That’s the one. You should all be terrified.

That’s because, despite the occasional success story, NHL teams tend to be terrible at signing free agents. They can’t help themselves. And it rarely takes long for the initial excitement of a big signing to give way to the realization that a team has just handed out too much money for way too many years.

As we count down to Friday’s deadline, let’s take some time to look back at some cautionary examples of how quickly a big deal can go bad. Here are my picks for the five worst unrestricted free agency signings of the last two decades.

5. Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya, Colorado, 2003

The deal: The two friends (and former Ducks teammates) shopped themselves as a tandem deal, eventually signing cheap one-year contracts with the powerhouse Avalanche. How cheap? Selanne took a pay cut to $5.8 million after declining a $6.5 million option in San Jose. But that was nothing compared to Kariya, who took just $1.2 million after making $10 million the year before in Anaheim. Both players could have made much more elsewhere, but they were chasing their first Stanley Cup rings, and joining Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and an already loaded Avalanche team seemed like the best way to do it.

Why it made sense at the time: Are you kidding? Go back and re-read those details – it was foolproof. When the deals were announced, hockey fans everywhere pretty much threw up their hands and conceded the 2004 Cup to the Avalanche.

How it ended: In what may stand as the NHL’s greatest example of a can’t miss move somehow missing, both Selanne and Kariya were busts in Colorado and the Avalanche lost in the second round. That latter part wasn’t a huge shock – while the Avs still had most of their big names from their Cup years, they’d lost Patrick Roy to retirement in the offseason, and winning a title with David Aebischer never felt like a safe bet. But the real surprises were Kariya and Selanne, neither of whom cracked 40 points. When Steve Konowalchuk is outscoring both of your sure-thing signings, it’s safe to say that something has gone terribly wrong.

4. Ville Leino, Buffalo, 2011

The deal: Coming off a career-best 53 points, the 27-year-old winger landed a six-year, $27 million deal from the Sabres.

Why it made sense at the time: After years of drifting into small market status, the Sabres had a rich new owner and were ready to spend some of Terry Pegula’s money. (They also gave Christian Ehrhoff a 10-year, $40-million deal.) Leino had just posted a career year while helping the Flyers make it to the Cup final, and it was time for the Sabres to make some noise.

How it ended: Leino was a massive bust in Buffalo; his eight goals and 25 points in year one ended up being by far his most productive season as a Sabre. He missed almost all of year two of the deal, then went the entire 2013-14 season without scoring a single goal before being mercifully bought out.

(By the way, Leino wasn’t close to the worst contract handed out during the summer of 2011. That honor would go to a deal you’re probably expecting to see on this list: Ilya Bryzgalov’s $51-million deal with the Flyers that led to a massive buyout just two years later. But that one wasn’t technically a free agency deal, since the Flyers had acquired his negotiating rights and signed the deal before he reached the open market on July 1. )

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Last year's biggest offseason stories, and what they can teach us

Welcome to the NHL off-season, Penguins and Sharks fans. The rest of us have been here for weeks, and in some cases months. It’s been pretty slow, to be honest. But now that everyone’s arrived, we can finally kick this thing into high gear.

So what will the summer hold? Nobody knows, but as with most things in life, we can find some clues in what’s come before. After all, the NHL tends to be a copycat league where new fads can take hold quickly and teams can sometimes change direction on a dime. One year’s surprise might end up foreshadowing the next year’s must-have trend.

Let’s prepare for the future by looking back at the past. Here’s a look back at a half-dozen of the biggest stories from the 2015 off-season, and what they could teach us about what to expect this year.

The story: The Phil Kessel deal. In arguably the biggest trade of the off-season, the Penguins sent a first round pick, a prospect and some smaller parts to the Maple Leafs for Kessel, with Toronto retaining a chunk of his salary. It was a deal that had been rumoured for weeks, and it saw the two teams make clear their intentions for the coming season: the teardown was on in Toronto, while the Penguins were all-in on a Stanley Cup run.

The lesson: Sometimes, bold trades really do work out.

We all know how this ended for the Penguins, with the vision of Kessel skating the Stanley Cup around the rink in San Jose still fresh in our memories. The trade looked dicey as Pittsburgh tumbled off to a rough start, and even as the team turned around, Kessel's numbers never approached the sky-high expectations the deal created. But he found his groove in the playoffs, leading the team in scoring and even earning some Conn Smythe Trophy love.

While the deal was a major win for the Penguins, it worked out for Toronto too. None of the pieces it acquired in the trade had much impact during the season, but the Leafs cleared cap room and added depth to their prospect pipeline. And maybe more importantly, Kessel's absence helped contribute to a last place finish that will yield Auston Matthews next week. One year in, the Kessel trade looks like one of those deals where both teams won.

Who it could impact: Any GM who's still trotting out the "You just can't trade in today's NHL" line. Fans have been hearing that for years, from various GMs around the league. And it's undoubtedly true that making trades is more difficult under a cap system; just look at the first few months of this season, where we didn't see a single deal involving an NHL player until mid-December.

But as Jim Rutherford went out and proved, difficult doesn't mean impossible. Between the Kessel deal and other trades for Nick Bonino, Carl Hagelin, Travor Daley and Justin Schultz, the veteran GM helped turn the Penguins from a top-heavy pretender into a well-balanced contender. Fans in other cities who are used to being serenaded with excuses from risk-adverse GMs may want to take note.

The story: Offer sheet worries lead to big trades. Dougie Hamilton and Brandon Saad both went from young franchise cornerstones to trade bait within days of the draft, with Hamilton heading from Boston to Calgary and Saad going from Chicago to Columbus. In both cases, the deals were inspired at least partly by fear that the players, who were both RFAs, could be offer sheet targets.

The lesson: NHL GMs hate having their hands forced, and would rather trade a player on their own terms than risk the threat of losing a player to an offer sheet.

The irony, of course, is that that tends to be all an offer sheet ever is: a threat. It's been over three years since one was actually signed (Ryan O'Reilly, which almost led to disaster for Calgary), and almost nine since one actually worked (Dustin Penner, which almost led to a barn fight).

And yet, GMs apparently still worry about falling victim to one. In theory, that's the sort of thing a team could use to their advantage.

Who it could impact: The list of this summer's RFAs features some decent names, including Nikita Kucherov, Seth Jones, Nathan MacKinnon and Jacob Trouba. It's hard to imagine any of those guys switching teams this summer. Then again, we could have said the same for Hamilton and Saad around this time last year, and we saw how that worked out. At the very least, don't be surprised if some sneaky front offices find a way to float a few rumors over the coming weeks.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet