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New York Times
14 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Why the Canucks rolled the dice on Evander Kane, and what comes next
This is a complicated one. The Vancouver Canucks were desperate for some scoring punch up front, for functional size at the top of their lineup and for a player with some experience and understanding of what it takes to win in the NHL. Evander Kane meets that criteria to a T, even at 33 and coming off a campaign in which he missed the entire regular season following abdominal surgeries in September and a knee scope in January. Advertisement This is a player the Canucks view as an exceedingly rare type. A legitimate scoring threat with the mean streak and weight to bump and grind and stand up for his teammates. That latter aspect of Kane's game is something Vancouver felt it sorely lacked last season. This was a roster that just wasn't nearly big enough or heavy enough in the organization's estimation, especially following the J.T. Miller trade. It was a skill set the club was willing to roll the dice on. Kane is the definition of a dice roll, although the organization itself doesn't quite view it that way. The Canucks feel that they've done their homework on the player and the person, and know him to be a popular teammate with the sort of on-ice presence the organization couldn't do without. They view the one year of term remaining on his contract as a significant factor that manages their risk. Much of the fan base, of course, might feel differently for legitimate reasons that we'll get into at length later on in this piece. In any event, this is a player that the Canucks valued, and spent the past week jockeying to land. There was real competition for his services. And it was Kane himself who put his finger on the scale and picked Vancouver. Kane's preference effectively allowed the Canucks to land him for somewhat less than some other teams were offering on the trade market, according to a team source. Don't underestimate how much Kane's desire to be in Vancouver mattered to the organization in executing this trade. The Canucks are finding themselves on a lot of no-trade lists, and on July 1, they will likely not be among the more desirable destinations for the top free agents, either. Canucks management wants to get back to building up momentum, and attempting to build a team of players that legitimately want to be in Vancouver — with all that it entails. And Kane wanted to play in Vancouver. Advertisement Injured throughout the regular season, Kane returned in the playoffs and was a solid contributor for the Edmonton Oilers, scoring six goals and 12 points in 21 games. It should be noted that Kane came somewhat unglued from a discipline perspective at the pointy end of the Oilers' playoff run, especially in the Stanley Cup Final, where he took seven minor penalties, five of them in the offensive zone. Trading a fourth-round pick — the one the Canucks acquired from Edmonton for Vasily Podkolzin last summer — for a bona fide, top-six NHL power forward on an expiring contract who can still impact games in multiple ways and who steered his way to Vancouver superficially seems like a straightforward, sensible, low-risk bet from a hockey perspective. Context, however, matters significantly. And the context of this deal will make it a much more difficult transaction for Canucks fans to swallow. Kane, after all, returns to his hometown with a fair bit of baggage accumulated over a lengthy career that's been shrouded in controversy. This is a player who, and this occurred in Vancouver, effectively skipped a game following an incident with teammate Dustin Byfuglien in 2015, leading to his exit from the Winnipeg Jets. While with the San Jose Sharks, he was suspended for using a fake vaccine card during one of the pandemic-abbreviated seasons. Kane has also been sued by a Vegas casino after walking out on a half-million-dollar gambling debt. He was accused of assault by a Buffalo woman in a case that was settled in 2022. He has spent years navigating a highly publicized bankruptcy. And he has seen a messy divorce spiral out in the public eye, with his ex-wife accusing him of wagering on NHL games and also seeking a restraining order against him after alleging physical abuse (NHL investigations into both accusations ruled that the claims against Kane couldn't be substantiated). Advertisement 'It's an honor to become part of an organization and team I grew up watching as a kid,' read Kane's post on X announcing the trade. 'Vancouver is a city that lives and breathes hockey, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to play in front of my hometown as I did many years ago as a Vancouver Giant.' Of course, because it's Kane and seemingly nothing can ever be simple, he's already being criticized for potentially using ChatGPT to draft the statement. Beyond Kane's many off-ice incidents throughout his long and largely productive NHL career, there's the hockey business context of this deal to consider. Kane might turn out to be a better hockey fit for the Canucks than most anticipate, but this trade is an absolute gift to the cap-strapped Oilers. The Canucks have effectively paid modestly to let a division rival get out of a $5.125 million cap commitment to a player that the Oilers were clearly keen to move on from. That might just be the market in the cap growth era, where even inconvenient commitments are baseline marketable via trade, but executing this deal is still a primary assist to the best team in Vancouver's own division. Put it all together, and this is a fascinating deal. The Canucks view it as a low-risk, buy-low deal to acquire a physical top-six forward with a rare profile. Externally, however, the trade has been widely received as a Hail Mary throw in which Vancouver is buying low on a mid-30s power forward with significant character questions. Adding Kane into what already felt like a pretty volatile locker room situation does feel like a massive gamble, especially given the uncertainty hanging over this roster and the way this team tore itself apart over the course of a dysfunctional 2024-25 campaign. Kane is an experienced player and gamer who clearly knows what it takes to win playing heavy hockey at the toughest time of year, and that's something the Canucks needed. He doesn't, however, fit the bill of a high character leader that can be trusted to help the Canucks navigate the evident internal and cultural issues that have plagued this team behind the scenes. Advertisement Presumably, Kane, who is entering a contract year, will be on his best behaviour with one year left on his deal. That's what the Canucks are counting on, anyway. It seems totally fair, however, to question the off-ice fit for this team at this moment. Now that the Canucks have landed Kane, our attention turns to what comes next as the draft approaches. In the wake of the Kane deal, Vancouver still has some salary-cap flexibility, with somewhere in the range of $7 million or so in cap space remaining with which to upgrade its forward group. That space is earmarked for a top-six centre, and the Canucks will be aggressively looking to acquire a player that matches that description before the NHL Draft. They're motivated to sell the No. 15 pick in the draft to land that piece and are actively trying to do so, although they're prepared to make the selection if the right deal doesn't present itself. The Canucks could look to create more cap space if the right fit shakes loose on the trade market. Teddy Blueger and Dakota Joshua aren't players that Vancouver wants to move on from, but they're among the established veterans with mid-range salaries that Canucks fans should be keeping their eye on as potential salary make weights if the opportunity to do something bigger this week arises. In the background, there are other priorities that the club is still engaged on. The Canucks will try to extend Thatcher Demko and Conor Garland, who become extension-eligible on July 1. They've already had preliminary conversations with Calder Cup playoff hero Sammy Blais on an NHL contract for next season. Vancouver's hockey operations leadership, however, is dead set on landing a meaningful upgrade down the middle. As the draft approaches and the dust from the Kane deal settles, that's the primary preoccupation for the Canucks.
New York Times
7 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
NHL buyout watch 2025: 9 players to monitor ahead of the offseason window
In a hard cap league, a rising salary cap upper limit floats all boats. Now that the flat cap era is behind us, the business of hockey is about to change dramatically over the course of this offseason. Those changes will be felt in nearly every decision that NHL teams and players make in the weeks and months to come, but the shifting dynamic will be particularly keenly felt in the buyout market. Advertisement A rise in the upper limit for next season, with significant, fixed lifts to the salary cap coming again over the next two offseasons as well, is going to fundamentally alter the logic of NHL buyouts. Unlike in previous offseasons, the NHL system in an era of cap growth should theoretically be more forgiving for the NHL's 32 member clubs. Buyouts are always a measure of last resort, and that last resort should fall even further down the standard decision-making tree for NHL club's given that cap growth should both enhance the flexibility teams have to ride out past mistakes, while also making it easier to devise alternative solutions (such as trades), since every other team will have more flexibility as well. We should see fewer buyouts going forward than we did the past several seasons, as the relentless austerity of the post-COVID flat cap era shaped NHL decision-making. The ability to buy out a standard player contract at a one-third or two-thirds cost, however, is still an arrow in every team's cap management quiver, one that teams will still avail themselves of when it's sensible to do so. Here are nine potential 2025 buyouts that we'll be tracking from the moment the first buyout window opens tomorrow until it closes on June 30. All salary and buyout data are courtesy of PuckPedia and CapWages. The Dallas Stars are facing the tightest cap crunch in the NHL. PuckPedia projects Dallas with $4.96 million of cap space, with only 16 players signed for next season (eight forwards, six defensemen, two goaltenders). The Stars have several key pending unrestricted free agents, including second-line center Matt Duchene (who led the club with 82 points in the regular season), franchise icon Jamie Benn, and productive rental Mikael Granlund. There's also up-and-coming center Mavrik Bourque, who could be a tempting offer-sheet target for teams as an RFA. Advertisement GM Jim Nill needs to move out at least one or two sizable contracts to free up cap flexibility. That mission to shed money should start with Matt Dumba, who has one year remaining at a $3.75 million cap hit. Dumba, 30, was a solid top-four defenseman in his prime but has declined to the point where he's borderline unplayable at the NHL level. He was the only defenseman on the Stars who had a negative five-on-five goal differential during the regular season, despite playing relatively sheltered third-pair minutes. It speaks volumes that he was healthy scratched for the entire playoffs, even early on when Miro Heiskanen was unavailable. A buyout could be an attractive option if it proves challenging to shed Dumba's contract via trade. Buying Dumba out would save the Stars $2.33 million next season, with a dead cap penalty of $1.16 million for the 2026-27 season. Relative to our reasonable expectations for a flawed middle-six forward with a relatively unique profile, Pierre Engvall hasn't performed poorly for the Islanders necessarily — even if his seven-year, $21 million contract is wildly inefficient for a depth contributor. What's not debatable is that he's certainly, and very publicly, failed to ingratiate himself with Islanders head coach Patrick Roy. Engvall had some decent moments for the Islanders down the stretch. Now under new management, however, the Islanders could avail themselves of a relatively favorable buyout structure and grant Engvall a fresh start during this buyout window. Engvall has no signing bonuses attached to his current contract, so his buyout structure is unusually clean. If the Islanders opted to exercise a buyout on his deal, the club would be on the hook for a $1 million cap hit through the year 2035. The Red Wings have struggled mightily under Steve Yzerman to remodel their blue-line group. Mistakes have been made, and they have been costly. Justin Holl is hardly the only example one could point to as evidence of the Red Wings' missteps, but he's the easiest of those missteps to expediently manage by exercising a buyout on the final year of his contract, which carries a $3.4 million cap hit for the 2025-26 campaign. Advertisement Buying out Holl would give the Red Wings some roster flexibility in addition to an extra $2.2 million in cap space to work with this offseason. Because Holl's deal carries no signing bonuses, the buyout cap hit on his contract would be relatively clean for Detroit to handle. In Oct. 2022, the Sabres made a calculated but risky bet on Mattias Samuelsson's potential. Buffalo inked Samuelsson, a 22-year-old with only 54 games of NHL experience at the time, to a seven-year, $30 million extension a full season before his entry-level contract was set to expire. The Sabres were confident that the 6-foot-4 defensive stopper would be a key part of the club's top-four blue line. That decision has backfired. Samuelsson has been injury-prone, averaging just 52 games played over the last three seasons, and his play has significantly regressed. The Sabres controlled just 45 percent of scoring chances and surrendered 2.83 goals against per 60 during his five-on-five shifts this season. He has been frequently criticized for his lack of physicality as well. Samuelsson is still under 26, so he's in a unique position where the Sabres would only be on the hook for one-third of his remaining contract value, rather than the standard two-thirds in the event of a buyout. That results in some favorable math — a buyout would save the Sabres $3.57 million per year for the five remaining seasons on Samuelsson's contract, which currently carries a $4.285 million AAV. At the end of that, Buffalo would be on the hook for a modest $714,286 cap penalty for five additional years, which is a pretty insignificant figure when you consider how high the salary cap will be by then. Buying Samuelsson out seems like an attractive option if the Sabres don't find any suitors for him on the trade market. It's unfortunate how rapidly TJ Brodie's game has deteriorated. One of the most underrated shutdown defensemen in the league during his prime, Brodie's play fell off a cliff during his final year with the Maple Leafs. In Chicago, the 35-year-old was a flat-out liability most nights, posting the second-worst Net Rating of all Blackhawks players this season. He was a healthy scratch for every Blackhawks game after March 1. Advertisement There's no room for Brodie on Chicago's blue line next season, especially with Sam Rinzel and Artyom Levshunov's impressive late-season cameos. The cap savings of a Brodie buyout are marginal, but doing so would open up a roster spot and allow the franchise to amicably part ways with a highly accomplished, respected veteran rather than unceremoniously burying him in the minors. Mathieu Joseph's inaugural season with the Blues was a major disappointment. He was acquired last offseason from the cap-strapped Senators, billed as a solid two-way top-nine winger who could move up and down the lineup, chip in with valuable secondary offense (35 points in 72 games in 2023-24), and provide above-average defensive value. Instead, Joseph was largely a non-factor all year. He slumped to just four goals and 10 assists in 60 games and was healthy scratched for four of the Blues' seven games in the first round of the playoffs. The final year of Joseph's contract, which carries a $2.95 million cap hit, is clearly a hindrance to the Blues' books. The merits of pulling the trigger on a Joseph buyout partially depend on how aggressive GM Doug Armstrong would like to be this summer. St. Louis currently has around $5 million in cap space, with nobody notable besides promising young goaltender Joel Hofer (RFA) requiring a new deal this summer. We can safely assume Torey Krug, who isn't expected to play again after missing the entire 2024-25 season due to injury, will land on long-term injured reserve, which would bring the Blues' spending power closer to $11.5 million this summer. Armstrong may look at that as a sufficient amount of cap room, but if he's plotting another bold, aggressive offseason, then perhaps he'd covet some extra flexibility to make splashes. A Joseph buyout would create $2.2 million of cap savings for next season at the expense of a $1.1 million cap penalty for 2026-27. Evan Bouchard's next contract is going to single-handedly eat up nearly all of the Oilers' cap space this summer. Both Evolving-Hockey and AFP Analytics' projections have Bouchard's next deal clocking in around the $10.6-10.9 million range for eight years. Edmonton would only have $1-1.5 million left over after signing a Bouchard extension in that neighborhood. In other words, the Oilers need to shed some money if they want to meaningfully address some of their weaknesses (goaltending and perhaps another bona fide top-six winger). Advertisement Viktor Arvidsson, with one year remaining at a $4 million cap hit, stands out as one possible cap casualty. The 32-year-old has been a productive top-six forward for a long time, but proved to be a poor fit in Edmonton. He scored just 15 goals and 27 points in 67 games during the regular season despite being stapled to Leon Draisaitl's wing for long stretches, and was in and out of the lineup during the playoffs. In normal circumstances, Arvidsson's contract would likely be tradeable, but the problem is that he owns a full no-movement clause. The Oilers' first preference should be to work with him to find a suitable destination via trade, but if that proves too challenging, a buyout could be the last resort option. An Arvidsson buyout would open up $2.66 million in cap space for next season, with a dead cap penalty of $1.33 million for 2026-27. Philipp Grubauer struggled enormously for the Kraken this past season, as he has in most seasons since signing with the Kraken as an unrestricted free agent coming off being a Vezina finalist with the Avalanche. This season, however, his inability to provide a serviceable save percentage in relief appearances behind Joey Daccord, especially early in the year, proved enormously costly for a Kraken team that would've probably challenged for a wild-card spot late in the season with average goaltending in their non-Daccord starts. Grubauer is entering the final year of his contract and has no signing bonuses in the deal. A buyout is a clean way for the Kraken to move on from what's proven to be a formative error for the nascent franchise. David Kämpf is clearly surplus to requirements for a Maple Leafs team that paid heavily to acquire Scott Laughton and upgrade their bottom-six center depth at the trade deadline, and only dressed Kämpf once during the playoffs. Kämpf's deal, however, has two years remaining on it. And the deal includes a signing bonus in both of those seasons, which isn't subject to the two-thirds buyout calculation. Advertisement As such, his deal isn't a clean buyout candidate. The Maple Leafs, after all, would only net about $720,000 in total cap savings if they were to buy out Kämpf's deal. That's less cap savings than they'd net by simply burying him with the Toronto Marlies. There are other, more probable and palatable solutions to this particular problem from a Maple Leafs perspective. One way or another, however, something has got to give. (Top photo of Pierre Engvall: Jaylynn Nash / Getty Images)
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Penguins News: Pittsburgh Re-Signs Big Forward
The Pittsburgh Penguins are keeping another one of their forwards around, as they have signed Joona Koppanen to a one-year contract. The team also shared that he will carry a $775,000 cap hit at the NHL level. Koppanen played in a career-high 11 NHL games this season with the Penguins, where he posted one goal, 40 hits, and a minus-3 rating. He spent the majority of the campaign in the AHL with the Wilkes-Barre/ Scranton Penguins, posting eight goals, 23 points, and a plus-5 rating in 56 contests. Advertisement With this move, Koppanen will remain a serviceable depth forward for the Penguins. At a minimum, the 6-foot-5 forward should continue to be a key piece for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, but he could also get consideration for a spot in Pittsburgh's bottom six if he has a strong training camp. In 20 career NHL games over three seasons split between the Boston Bruins and Penguins, Koppanen has recorded one goal, one assist, 51 hits, and a minus-3 rating. Penguins Rumors: Pittsburgh Urged To Target Top Defender Penguins Rumors: Pittsburgh Urged To Target Top Defender After missing the playoffs for the third year in a row, the Pittsburgh Penguins will certainly be a team to watch this summer. When looking at their current group, the left side of their defense is one of the main areas that they should look to improve. Photo Credit: © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
CBC
20-05-2025
- Sport
- CBC
Winnipeg Jets look to the future, reflect on emotional end to season
As the dust begins to settle on one of the best seasons in Winnipeg Jets history, the focus now turns to the offseason and beyond.
Washington Post
18-05-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
NHL's final 4 has a familiar feel with teams known for long playoff runs in the conference finals
The NHL playoff field included some unexpected entrants, and the first two rounds featured some surprises and a handful of upsets. Yet as things stand right now with the conference finals beginning Tuesday night, the teams still in contention for the Stanley Cup are a familiar mix of those who have been fighting for it the past few years.
