The NHL offseason rarely lives up to the hype, but every year brings at least one agent of chaos to get things moving.
Here are the most likely candidates.
The long-shot player
15. Connor McDavid, C, Edmonton Oilers
There’s a non-zero chance that McDavid and the team are ready to make major changes. McDavid’s two-year extension, signed before the season, still feels like a warning to Edmonton’s front office — figure out the goaltending or prepare for the worst. Edmonton traded for Tristan Jarry midseason, a decision that looks nightmarish after an .857 save percentage through 19 appearances. McDavid has a full no-movement clause.
A decision by McDavid to ask out of Edmonton would stun the NHL.
The GM wild cards
14. Chris MacFarland, Colorado Avalanche GM
13. Bill Guerin, Minnesota Wild GM
12. Alex Steen, St. Louis Blues GM
Steen is the biggest wild card of them all because he’s just entering the role after serving as GM-in-waiting. Multiple teams were rumored to have interest in Blues forwards Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou before the trade deadline. It’s unclear if Steen is planning to do serious surgery to the roster after a massive step back this season.
Meanwhile, MacFarland is a near lock to spur movement because Colorado has limited cap space and must likely shed pieces from the roster.
It’s well known that Guerin is seeking a center, but the Minnesota Wild’s asset pool took a major hit when they traded for defenseman Quinn Hughes.
Teams in the wilderness
10. Winnipeg Jets
9. New Jersey Devils
8. Vegas Golden Knights
The Jets have a mostly veteran roster primed to win now, which makes this massive step back after last season’s Presidents’ Trophy so disappointing. At this point, it’s not clear what the organization is thinking after being eliminated from the playoff race.
The Jets’ precarious financial situation makes the idea of a rebuild unlikely, but it also means Winnipeg must find a way to deepen a roster that got more than 50 percent of its goals from four players.
The Devils have no GM currently and may not have a coach soon. It’s a massive setback for a team that has failed the expectations game three years running — squeaking into the playoffs once and winning only a single game in that span.
The Knights are always in the thick of everything. That’s made all the more interesting because of their history of aggression. But its disappointing regular season and lack of cap space (h/t: PuckPedia) hurts.
The heavy hitters
7. Jarmo Kekalainen, Buffalo Sabres GM
6. Kyle Dubas, Pittsburgh Penguins GM
5. Jim Nill, Dallas Stars GM
4. Chris Drury, New York Rangers GM
There may not be a group of four executives with a bigger impact on where this offseason is headed. Kekalainen has yet to come to terms with star winger Alex Tuch, who has the potential to be the far-and-away best unrestricted free agent on the market. To sign Tuch, Kekalainen probably must open cap space elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Dubas has plenty of cap space, a contract to finalize with future Hall of Famer Evgeni Malkin and the vision to use the cap space without harming the organization’s long-term prospects.
Nill is in precisely the opposite scenario. He has a major contract negotiation with star winger Jason Robertson, but he almost certainly won’t proceed unless he sells valuable pieces off the roster.
Drury walks into the offseason with about $27M in cap space, according to PuckPedia. He could open even more if he follows through on the Vincent Trocheck trade rumors ($5.625 million per season). Plus, he’s dealing with an impatient owner (James Dolan) and a win-now coach (Mike Sullivan) who left Pittsburgh to avoid the dreaded “rebuild.”
A tier of his own
3. Brady Tkachuk, winger, Ottawa Senators
Tkachuk’s health issues aside, this is a critical moment for the captain. Ottawa, which rallied to make the playoffs, hasn’t won a playoff series in the Tkachuk era, and that isn’t a lock to change. Meanwhile, Tkachuk is two years from unrestricted free agency and likely due a significant raise.
There’s a lot of noise around the American-born Tkachuk, a gold-medal Olympian with an outspoken father. His brother Matthew forced his way out of Calgary to play for the Florida Panthers. Ottawa would be better off getting in front of this rather than waiting until Tkachuk is in his final season.
But how does this impact the Leafs?
2. Toronto Maple Leafs
There is no team in the NHL that is a bigger wild card this offseason. They’ve already fired general manager Brad Treliving and seem extremely likely to can coach Craig Berube. The decisions made on who the Leafs hire in the front office and on the bench will likely have an enormous impact on the future of center Auston Matthews.
In a season full of bad vibes, the team captain took a knee-on-knee hit from defenseman Radko Gudas that ended his season prematurely. No one on the Leafs stood up for Matthews in the moment, leading to near-fever pitch discussion in Canada over the results of the hit.
Chris Johnston of The Athletic reported that “tough decisions are looming” in the wake of this disastrous season. The Leafs are without their first-round pick, unless they wind up picking in the top five. If they pick in the top five and choose to keep the pick, their next two first-round picks will be unprotected and go to division rival Boston (2027) and conference foe Philadelphia (2028).
They are the most valuable franchise in the NHL. Yet there’s almost no clarity on what’s next in Toronto.
And the winner is…
1. The lottery balls
When the NHL draws lottery numbers in May, the impact will reverberate across much of the league.
Teams like Toronto and New York are looking for quick turnarounds, meaning a lottery win would likely grant them an elite prospect to join the roster as soon as the start of the 2026-27 season. That type of good fortune could potentially help those organizations avoid awkward conversations with star players who are looking for a path toward a Stanley Cup.
A failure to win by those teams would likely make them even more motivated to get aggressive in free agency or the trade market. Meanwhile, Toronto and Florida are not guaranteed first-round picks, but lottery wins could ultimately determine whether either one or neither team picks in the early stages of round one thanks to a variety of trade protections tied to trades executed more than a year prior.
The lottery drawing usually carries plenty of intrigue, but in an era where almost nobody has committed to the concept of a traditional rebuild, it’s more intriguing than ever.