The nice part about giving your newsletter an ambiguous title is you can really take it whatever way you want. We’re going a bit off the rails today, because it’s almost been a month without Jets hockey, so really, the world has no meaning anyway.
The NHL offseason can feel painfully long, but the reality is, it’s really not. Before we know it, the puck will be dropping on the 25-26 season. However, a lot has to happen before then, from the draft to free agency to dev camp to arbitration.
My Winnipeg Sports Talk Sunday Live co-host, Connor Hrabchak, often makes the joke that when it comes to the Winnipeg Jets, he’s the president of Nothing Ever Happens FC, because when in doubt, you can assume they’ll do, well, nothing. My response to this is always that if the Jets are the Nothing Ever Happens Club of the NHL, the NHL is the Nothing Ever Happens Club of major sports leagues.
Nothing ever happens in the NHL. There’s always a reason not to do stuff. Humans hate change, and humans run sports teams, after all. Let’s put that aside for a minute, though, and look at the 5 things I’d love to see more of this off-season if we didn’t live in the landscape of Nothing Ever Happens FC.
Trading top-10 picks, NFL style
Obviously, strategic movement on the draft board is interesting for a lot of reasons, but this year in particular seems like a great candidate for some mobility in the top 10.
This picture isn’t exactly relevant, but any day I get a chance to use it is a good day.
The most intriguing candidates to me are:
SJS (2OA) has an embarrassment of riches up front with all of their young forwards, so everyone was expecting their 2026 1st rounder to be spent on a defenseman. An astounding amount of D are projected to go in the top dozen or so, which would have been perfect for SJS, but their jump to 2OA has complicated this. Yes, I know, their lobster is too buttery, but with how scouts have been talking about McKenna and Stenberg this year, it would, frankly, be malpractice to reach for one of the young defensemen. In a galaxy-brain way, SJS might be better positioned with a pick in the 3-7 range. And with a lot of teams frothing at the mouth at the idea of what Ivar Stenberg could immediately inject into their lineup, SJS could very well move their lottery pick and get their franchise defenseman without leaving money on the table.
CHI (4OA) has certainly made its fair share of top 10 picks in the last few years. Since 2022, they’ve made a staggering 11! first-round draft picks in just four drafts. That includes Anton Frondell (3OA in 2025), Artyom Levshunov (2OA in 2024), and of course, Connor Bedard (1OA in 2023). However, unlike their rebuilding twin flame, the aforementioned San Jose Sharks, the Chicago Blackhawks are yet to take that next step in becoming competitive in the early Bedard days. At a certain point, you need help now, and Chicago has plenty of young help in the pipeline. If the phones are ringing on 4OA, which it sounds like Kyle Davidson would welcome, it would be ill-advised for them not to listen in on some roster players who could support their kiddos right now.
As we’ve seen with players like Porter Martone, you can be a high-upside prospect that lacks the “generational” tag and still make an impact in your draft year.
Remember that time when he wasn’t the consensus 1OA for like, five seconds? We were lowkey stupid.
The cap is going up, so in the next couple of years, ELC cap efficiency may not be as much of a competitive advantage as it once was, but 32 teams should be considering what an 18-year-old stud can do to help them today, which means there’s potential for movement in this fascinating draft class.
Prospect swaps
This is one that I rant about all the time. Why don’t we see more prospect-for-prospect trades? Think about it. The draft-and-develop model is something most franchises pride themselves on, even if they shouldn’t (à la New York Rangers), but I think a lot of fans have a false sense of what draft-and-develop truly should and does mean.
Just because you draft a high-end guy, doesn’t mean he has to become a high-end guy for you. My favourite example of this is the Mikko Rantanen trade(s) of 2025. If Dallas hadn’t drafted Logan Stankoven and developed him into a real player, they wouldn’t have been able to pull this deal off. It’s not a failure that their 2021 draft pick, who put up over 200 points in his final two seasons of junior, didn’t turn into a “guy” for them - because he netted them a guy they wouldn’t have been able to acquire otherwise.
This meme did numbers on Twitter at the end of the regular season and would ya look at that, expected goals were, in fact, a better predictor of Stankoven’s future goals than his actual goals. Still a goated meme, though.
What if the NHL applied this logic more to a Stankoven-for-Stankoven deal? Think Cutter Gauthier for Jamie Drysdale. These moves only seem to happen when a youngin’ tries to force his way out, but what if they were seen as a way to proactively address organizational need instead of just to mitigate a problem?
The offseason allows teams to sit down and reflect on where their greatest area for improvement is. If you have a prospect pool chock full of lads you acquired in the draft, simply because they were the best players on the board at the time, why not ship them out to bring in someone who addresses a more relevant need?
Also, one time, Logan Stankoven and I were on the same episode of the Mike Bartner Show. So that’s kinda fam if you think about it.
Trading bros
Compared to other leagues, the NHL actually does a better job in the multi-player trades department than in others. However, I’m greedy, and if you give me an inch, I’ll take a mile.
Why don’t we see more plug-and-play duos getting traded? You see a random star get packaged with a scrub all the time, just to find equilibrium between the two sides, but why don’t we start with an initial ask of a duo instead of just a guy?
Now, greed is a deadly sin, and I was punished appropriately for wanting this at the 2026 TDL.
Anytime you get a chance to trade for a career sub-5% shooter on a heater, you absolutely have to do it, right Jarmo?
In a way, that’s what the Buffalo Sabres did (and in fact, that’s the only reason I can’t cheer for them to win the Cup, because they should not be rewarded for a season in which they make this transaction, not matter what else they have going for them), but A), it’s otherwise rare, and B), this didn’t exactly scratch the itch of a potential trade for a high-end duo. And FWIW, we only got 30 5on5 minutes of this in Buffalo.
We want something exciting, GMs. Just give it to us.
Offer sheets
This is not a novel take. It’s said every year: the people long for the Aho-Kotkaniemi drama or the summer of Holloway and Broberg.
Because of this, I’ll keep this section short (no, I won’t). There are three main ways to acquire players in the national, right? Draft, trade, sign. The draft will always have its pros and cons, but the other two are more interesting to me lately.
In the trade conversation, NMCs and NTCs are more prevalent than ever, which has already impacted the trade market and will only continue to do so. The salary cap is also going up (and we’re already out of the 8-year extension window, with 7 now being the max amount of years a player can extend on their contract), which means that cap space is also going to be at less of a premium than it was in the post-Covid era.
We’re going up, up, up, it’s our momentttttt or whatever that TikTok song was.
I guess all I’m trying to say is that the competitive landscape in which players are acquired is going to change over the next few years. Why can’t that include more offer sheets?
Acceptance of true rebuilds
Last, but not least, reason number 5, which could truly encapsulate all four of the aforementioned categories: we need more teams to just blow it the eff up.
Yes, I’m saying this to be salesy for all of the NHL GMs reading this, but it truly feels like there has never been a better time to blow it all up. If you have ageing stars who are cost-controlled, teams will be clamouring for their cap-efficient contributions. Young players have never been contributing to their teams at a higher clip than they are right now - just look at whatever the hell is going on in Montreal and Anaheim. And most importantly, rebuilds never take as long as you think they’re going to if you do them right.
We always think rebuilds take longer than they do, because teams usually lose by accident before they start losing on purpose. If you start losing on purpose sooner and build your way out of it the right way, we’re looking at just a handful of years before your team becomes competitive once again.
My suggestion on that front? Trade them all! Get rid of everyone! Blow it up in the offseason!
Now, back to what this newsletter is all about - there are a ton of reasons not to do, well, all of this. Players are people, not just commodities. The GMs have a bro code. Guys don’t want to move their stuff. All of this involves a higher risk tolerance than most of the NHL’s decision-makers like to harbour. I acknowledge that if the benefits were plentiful and there were zero reasons not to do any of this, every single GM would already be doing it.
The biggest difference? I prioritize fun over feasibility. And that’s why I don’t run a hockey team. But it is why I write a fun little newsletter, and I thank you deeply for reading it every month. See you in June!