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Decoding the NHL's dog days. Plus: Mitch Marner's weirdest league record

Decoding the NHL's dog days. Plus: Mitch Marner's weirdest league record

New York Times07-07-2025
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Good morning to everyone except people who try to tell you that 'scoreless' isn't a score. Don't worry, it's fine, he's at the cottage and will never see this. Let's see if we can find any news to talk about …
Let's just say we're officially into the NHL's slow period, as the only league that packs its entire offseason into a roughly 10-day blitz is emerging into what we would call 'next year.' Can we find anything to talk about? We don't really have a choice, so let's dig in.
Here's what hasn't happened (yet?)
A classic literary trope is 'the dog that didn't bark,' the Sherlock Holmes-inspired idea that you can sometimes learn more from what didn't happen than what did. We're not solving any murder mysteries here, but there's still some value in looking around the NHL landscape and taking note of the stories that haven't happened.
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• The Oilers haven't upgraded in goal: Other teams have, notably the Red Wings trading for John Gibson. But so far, the Oilers are standing pat, despite another playoff run that ended partly due to losing a goaltending battle. With the goalie carousel largely finished spinning, that would seem to lead to one of two conclusions: Either the Oilers are really going to risk what could be the final year of the Connor McDavid era on the status quo, or they've got something even bigger in mind.
• Some bad teams haven't really tried to get better: The Ducks and Sharks both did enough UFA shopping that they at least feel like they're trying. But the Blackhawks are apparently done before they ever really started, part of a patience-preaching plan which makes it seem like they're content to let Connor Bedard go a third season without playing meaningful games. And the Sabres' only big move so far made them worse, at least in the short term. There's still the Bowen Byram situation to figure out, so the Sabres aren't 'done.' But they're also not good, or really all that close, and I'm not sure what Kevyn Adams thinks his path to changing that looks like.
• None of the big names have signed extensions: As we all know, July 1 is the first day that players with one year left on their contract can sign an extension. But teams and players can talk before then, and a deal is often done in time to announce on day one. That didn't happen this year with any of the biggest names, a group headlined by McDavid, Jack Eichel and Kirill Kaprizov. That's no reason to panic — there's lots of time to get something done, and history tells us that few if any true superstars ever taste UFA in their prime. But so far, it's been awfully quiet.
• There's a ton of cap space floating around out there: There's even one team, Anaheim, that's still well under the floor. According to Puckpedia's team data, the Ducks are joined by the Sharks and Hawks as teams with at least $20 million in cap space, while four more teams have at least $15 million and an additional seven have $10 million. That's nearly half the league with lots of space, and increasingly little to spend it on. This is where we used to talk about 'weaponizing' cap space, and maybe some of these teams could take on bad contracts. (Carey Price, anyone?) But I'm not sure that cap room is that much of a weapon when half the league has it, so it will be interesting to see if this all shakes out into something beyond a whole bunch of teams just sitting on space.
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• There are still a few decent UFAs who haven't signed yet: I mean, Jack Roslovic is good, right? Jeff Skinner? Victor Olofsson? Yeah, the list is looking rough. But history tells us that there will be some value to be found in what's left. I'm more interested in seeing what the prices look like, and how this piece merges with the extra cap room we just mentioned. This is typically the time of year where the remaining UFAs would be looking at short-term deals at big discounts, just to ensure they'd have a job. But with all the space floating around, maybe the supply-and-demand dynamic shifts.
We haven't seen a trade since July 2, and with apologies to Shane Bowers, we haven't seen a significant deal since July 1, a busy day that included moves like Zack Bolduc to Montreal and K'Andre Miller's sign-and-trade to Carolina. Since then, it's been quiet.
Too quiet.
So what's the deal with the lack of deals? It's hard to say. We expect the offseason to quiet down around this time, but we typically see at least a few moves over the first week of July. And you could have made the case that we'd see even more this year, because there was too much cap space and not enough UFAs making it to market, so we'd inevitably wind up with lots of teams who still had roster holes to fill and money to do it with who'd have to turn to trades instead of free agency.
So far, it's not happening. I have three theories:
• It's Mitch Marner's fault. Too many teams had made Marner their UFA priority and just didn't have a reasonable Plan B for when he inevitably wound up in Vegas instead. Or their Plan B was Nikolaj Ehlers, and now he's in Carolina. Clearly, lots of teams we assumed were in on Marner should have seen this coming, since this particular game of musical chairs had way too many open seats. But maybe what we're seeing now is some of those teams going back to the drawing board, and only now starting work on deals that should have been mostly nailed down by now.
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• No cap crunch = no urgency. This is usually the time of year where some teams overreact to missing out on UFAs. But it's also the point where some teams realize that they've overspent, or that their moves have shoved other players further down the lineup than makes financial sense. When that happens, and there are only a few teams who have cap space to burn, it can lead to some urgency, if not outright panic. As we've already covered, there's a ton of cap room floating around out there. So with everybody feeling like they'll find a partner eventually, maybe that lack of urgency is slowing down the market.
• Something big is cooking. Wishful thinking? Yeah, probably. But while smaller deals can come together quickly, we're often told true blockbusters take time. That always seems a little weird, given that other leagues have GMs who are smart enough to pull stuff like this together. (Seriously, read that headline and then tell me NHL GMs aren't timid little babies.) But maybe they're right, and the radio silence on the trade wire just means somebody out there is quietly grinding away on something that's going to shake the league.
• Bonus fourth theory: There are actually a ton of trades happening, but now that Bob McKenzie is retired, we have no way of knowing about them.
Throughout the cap era, the maximum limit for any individual player's cap hit is 20 percent of the current upper limit at the time the deal is signed. Who is the only star to ever sign a multi-year deal that hit the full 20 percent ceiling?
🚨 Our staff got together to hand out grades to every team based on the first few days of offseason moves. Two teams got an A+, while two others took home a D.
👶 It's mock draft time! Specifically, it's time for Corey Pronman's way-too-early-but-still-fun mock for the 2026 entry draft. Spoiler: Your team can't believe the guy they got was still available in that slot.
🕒 If you missed it, be sure to check out Fluto Shinzawa's eye-opening piece on the principles of the 24-hour athlete.
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✈️ Jonathan Toews is home at last, and he sounds like a guy who's happy to be back.
🔮 The 2024-25 prediction contest results are in. And for the first time, playing it safe turned out to be the right strategy. (Mainly because Auston Matthews ruins everything.)
Mitch Marner has been in the news lately, and people have strong feelings about the new Vegas Golden Knight and his legacy. For today, at least, let's put all of that aside. I have a cool Marner stat that I want to share with you. (Thanks to commenter Andrew M. for flagging this to me a few years ago.)
In fact, before I tell you, let's see if you can find it yourself. Mitch Marner set an NHL record on April 5, 2022. Here's the box score of that game. Can you spot the record?
A hint: Focus on the second period.
Did you find it? The record comes from those first two goals, both scored by Marner at 0:30 and 1:07 of the period. That 37-second gap is impressive, but hardly record-breaking. But then you look a bit closer, and it comes into focus:
Mitch Marner holds the record for the shortest time between scoring a short-handed goal and a power-play goal.
Think about it. The order matters here — we're talking a SHG first, then a PPG. That's hard to do without some time elapsing in between. Specifically, you need to score short-handed, then have that penalty expire, then have the other team take a penalty, and then score a power play goal. To have all of that happen in 37 seconds of game time is pretty impressive.
Mix in that you have to be a player who gets time on both special teams, and this feels like a tough record to break. Tough, but probably not impossible, which is the best kind of record.
While it's technically possible to exceed the 20 percent limit on a one-year deal under very specific circumstances — Jeremy Welsh fans, rise up — only one player has ever signed a multi-year deal that nudged up to the ceiling.
That would be Tampa Bay's Brad Richards, all the way back in 2006. He signed a five-year deal that carried a cap hit of $7.8 million, exactly 20 percent of the then-$39 million limit.
At the time, less than one year into the cap era, we assumed it would be the first of many. But almost two decades later, not only has it never been matched, nobody's even come especially close.
(Photo of Connor McDavid: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
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What I'm hearing about the Canucks' free-agent bargain bin plans and more
What I'm hearing about the Canucks' free-agent bargain bin plans and more

New York Times

time25 minutes ago

  • New York Times

What I'm hearing about the Canucks' free-agent bargain bin plans and more

It may be the dog days of the NHL offseason, but the Vancouver Canucks are hardly satisfied with the state of their roster. Based on what I'm hearing from senior club sources, in fact, despite trading goaltender Artūrs Šilovs over the weekend and inking first-round pick Braeden Cootes and second-round pick Alexei Medvedev to entry-level contracts last week, the club is eyeing further reinforcements over the balance of the offseason. Advertisement There are multiple players still available on the unrestricted free-agent market that the club is considering and tracking with varying levels of interest. Players that Canucks brass believes are capable of helping them win, at the right price point. The problem? Vancouver is basically capped out. In order to make a competitive bid, and dip back into a market — UFAs that have fallen through the cracks in the first wave of the free-agent frenzy — from which the club has successfully identified key contributors like Pius Suter and Kevin Lankinen out of over the past two seasons, the Canucks will first have to send money out and off their cap sheet. Now this isn't to say that there's another shoe that's set to drop imminently, but from what The Athletic understands about the club's priorities here in mid-July, Canucks brass is actively exploring avenues to free up cap space. The club would love to enter next season with some additional flexibility, but is also motivated to turn around and sign a value late-summer free agent target if it were able to clear up the space to do so. We've had our eyes on veteran centre Teddy Blueger ($1.85 million cap hit on an expiring contract) and hard-nosed winger Dakota Joshua ($3.25 million cap hit with three years remaining) as potential candidates to be dealt for the purpose of freeing up cap space throughout this offseason. A late summer cap-shedding trade of that variety could give Vancouver the requisite space to add one of the remaining forwards on the open market, and at the very least, it seems that the club is exploring its options this summer. Let's get into a few more Canucks items that we're hearing or thinking about as the offseason begins to drag on. The Canucks understood that selling Šilovs for a fourth-round pick and 2021 first-round pick Chase Stillman would be received emotionally by the passionate fan base in this market. We're only 15 months removed from when Šilovs recorded a shutout to seal the only playoff series victory the Canucks have managed since 2011 (aside from the bubble). We're only a month removed from Šilovs delivering an MVP performance to deliver the franchise their first professional championship, the 2025 Calder Cup, in 56 years. Advertisement Šilovs wanted an opportunity to be a full-time NHL goaltender, and he'd earned that. He was also going to get it one way or another, whether because the Canucks moved proactively to trade him or because he was claimed on waivers in September or October during training camp. The logic of Šilovs' Canucks future was sealed when the club signed both Lankinen and Thatcher Demko to multiyear extensions. There simply wasn't room for Šilovs at the NHL level, and he was no longer going to be waiver-exempt next season. The Canucks had to manage the asset, and there was some meaningful interest in his services. Now, that statement should be qualified. While we'd heard that there were teams that would've been interested in packages built around Šilovs and the No. 15 pick ahead of the NHL Draft, in mid-July, with the game of goaltender musical chairs largely settled, it's not as if Vancouver had multiple bidders driving up the price of Šilovs on the trade market. The club, however, felt that the reigning AHL playoff MVP was worth a fourth-round pick (or thereabouts) and held firm to that price. Despite a soft market for goaltenders in this tier — Cayden Primeau netted the Montreal Canadiens a seventh-round pick, and Daniil Tarasov netted the Columbus Blue Jackets a fifth-round pick despite both players having better NHL track records than Šilovs — there was enough interest in Šilovs for Vancouver to net some modest value from Pittsburgh. The full price was a fourth-round pick and a forward in Stillman, who is coming off a down season, but in whom the Canucks have some real interest in. At the very least, Stillman has a high motor, and there's a feeling that Abbotsford is likely to need some forwards, given some anticipated graduations to the NHL level and how quickly the Calder Cup championship team evaporated this offseason. Advertisement Yes, the Penguins wanted to send out a contract in paying for Šilovs, but Vancouver doesn't view Stillman as solely a standard player contract to level out the Šilovs deal. There's some interest in seeing what Stillman can be in Abbotsford's system, and with an opportunity to work with Vancouver's development staff. In the end, this is what asset management looks like. It's not always pretty, and at first blush, the return can feel underwhelming. Vancouver decided to roll with a tandem of Demko and Lankinen, however, and invested heavily in order to do so. That meant that a Šilovs trade was an inevitability. It was a trade that Vancouver was able to execute while bringing back an above-market rate return. 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MLB insider proposes Cubs-Pirates 5-player blockbuster involving $77M hurler
MLB insider proposes Cubs-Pirates 5-player blockbuster involving $77M hurler

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MLB insider proposes Cubs-Pirates 5-player blockbuster involving $77M hurler

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Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper and NBA's next big thing highlight Vegas Summer League notes
Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper and NBA's next big thing highlight Vegas Summer League notes

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Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper and NBA's next big thing highlight Vegas Summer League notes

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