Following up on the coverage of the Western Conference Lucas provided yesterday, here are some of the relevant jersey changes in the East:

Derek Lalonde will still be donning a suit and tie as he continues his tour of the Atlantic division, joining the Montreal Canadiens as an assistant coach. Habs fans are hoping he can lure Dylan Larkin to Montreal and bring insider secrets from his stints with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Detroit Red Wings, and Toronto Maple Leafs. Larkin had his best season (69 points in 68 games) under Lalonde in 2023-24, but Larkin has only expanded his list to four teams: Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers, Vegas Golden Knights, and Minnesota Wild. Lalonde will help the Canadiens' penalty kill, and gets an honourable mention as a new face in a new place, but the focus today is on the players.

William Eklund (San Jose Sharks to Ottawa Senators)

Jilted by Brady Tkachuk, the Senators rebounded by using one of the returning assets (Florida's ninth overall pick) to acquire William Eklund, the 7th overall pick from 2021. Eklund was in large part moved away from Macklin Celebrini in 2025-26. As a result, Eklund's points per game dropped from 0.75 to 0.68.  He was on the power play 56.3% of the time last season, but in Ottawa, the top unit regularly gets over 60% of power play time. Other numbers that are expected to rise for Eklund include his shooting percentage, which was 8.5% last year. That should increase towards his career average of 10.4%. His goal total should increase (-7.1 goals scored above expected) plus the bump from playing on Tim Stutzle's wing at even strength and on the power play.

Dennis Hildeby (Toronto Maple Leafs to Tampa Bay Lightning)

The Wildebeest is native to sub-saharan Africa, but North America has its own version, the 'Hildebeest' who was recently seen migrating south from Ontario to the state of Florida. Wildebeest graze on open savannah plains, but the natural habitat of the 'Hildebeest' is icy surfaces. Hildeby is three inches taller than Andrei Vasilevsky and put up good numbers in his 20 games of NHL action last year (5-7-4, 0.914%). Amongst goalies who played in more than 10 games, Hildeby led the NHL in GSAx/60 (0.625). Dennis Hildeby is waiver exempt and that is what likely led to him being traded from Toronto, a team that had a surplus of goaltenders. GM Julien Brisebois has announced that Hildeby, not Jonas Johansson, will be the backup behind Vasilevsky. In Tampa, wins will be easier to come by due to the higher expected offensive support. Vasilevsky has played 60, 52, 63, and 58 games in the past four years, so there is room for Hildeby to shine in the backup role. Hildeby played well in the AHL playoffs (0.921%), but was supplanted by Artur Akhtyamov, who led the Marlies to a Calder Cup. Traumatized Leaf fans are worried that this is similar to the disastrous Tuukka Rask trade to Boston, where Justin Pogge went 6-0 (0.952%) at the World Juniors, convincing then GM John Ferguson Jr. to deal Rask to Boston.

JJ Peterka (Utah Mammoth to Boston Bruins)

Last summer, when Michael Kesselring and Josh Doan were dealt to the Sabres in exchange for JJ Peterka, the Utah Mammoth were roundly praised for the savvy acquisition of the blossoming young forward. Ultimately, it was then-Sabres General Manager Kevyn Adams that had the last laugh. Doan alone put up better numbers (52 points in 82 games) than Peterka (47 points in 82 games). The Peterka experiment was abandoned after one year of disappointing results in Utah. Expect German coach Marco Sturm, to play Peterka with compatriot David Pastrnak on the top unit and on the top power play. Peterka's percent of power play time decreased from 63.9% (Sabres) to 42.0% (Mammoth). Peterka's average draft position will fall, so try drafting him because simply getting back on power play one will guarantee him outperforming his ADP.

Boone Jenner (Columbus Blue Jackets to Washington Capitals)

Jenner signed a 4-year, $23 million contract ($5.75M AAV) with the Washington Capitals and likely slots in as the third line center behind Dylan Strome and Pierre-Luc Dubois. Jenner will benefit from the astounding winger depth, as the Capitals boast one of the strongest top nine forward groups in the league. Power play time will be scarce for Jenner, but at even strength two of Alex Tuch, Jordan Kyrou, Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, Aliaksei Protas, and Ryan Leonard will flank Jenner on the third line. Compare that to his two most common linemates last year: Sean Monahan and Kent Johnson. Jenner brings additional value in banger leagues as he had 2.19 hits per game and 0.99 blocks per game last year. One minor issue here is that Jenner, Strome, Dubois, and Ilya Protas all are left-handed for face-offs. A team like Montreal has the opposite problem where they have an overabundance of right shot centers, making these two teams great trading partners to solve each other's face-off handedness issues.

Brady Tkachuk (Ottawa Senators to Florida Panthers)

A trade that was long expected still caught everyone off guard. The Senators shipped Brady Tkachuk to Florida to complete the Canadian brain drain (muscle drain?) of the Tkachuk brothers to the USA. A bump is expected in Brady's power play time. He got 61.7% of power play time in Ottawa, whereas brother Matthew received 77.5% of power play time in Florida. Over the last two seasons in Ottawa, Tkachuk's penalty minutes and hits have decreased: 1.71 to 1.18 PIM/game and 3.17 to 2.70 HITS/game. This change was partly due to injuries, and these numbers are expected to rise in Florida because of the emotional factor of playing with his sibling. It will be even easier to get Brady riled up seeing his brother get hit. We have evidence of the uptick in penalties when both played together on Team USA (24 PIM in 6 games played for Brady and Matthew combined). The other area where Brady Tkachuk might see more points is from secondary assists. Only 11 of his 37 assists were of the secondary nature.

Daniil Tarasov (Florida Panthers to Detroit Red Wings)

Daniil Tarasov was a 3rd round pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2017, and played 33 games as the understudy to Sergei Bobrovsky last year in Florida. He finished the season 13-15-3, with a 0.895%, and a quality start percentage of 51.5%. Tarasov was plucked from free agency and signed to a 1 year, $2-million contract. In Detroit, he finds himself behind John Gibson on the depth chart, and Gibson was an Oreo cookie in Detroit: starting slow (4-7-1, 0.865% in October and November) and ending slow (6-10-2, 0.892% in March and April). In between, he was dynamite (19-4-1, 0.925% in December, January, and February combined, per ESPN). Gibson has had a history of injuries and always misses at least a few games from being banged up. He has remained relatively healthy starting 56, 52, 44, 28, and 57 games over the past five years. However, he is now 32 years old, and in a contract year. The Red Wings will gladly give plenty of looks to Tarasov to evaluate if he can bridge the gap to Trey Augustine in the post-Gibson world. Keep an eye out on Gibson's health or poor play; it could lead to an opening for Tarasov. His father, Vadim Tarasov, played in nets for many years in Russia with Metallurg Novokuznetsk and Salavat Yulaev Ufa.

Darren Raddysh (Tampa Bay Lightning to Toronto Maple Leafs)

Imagine a player that has twice as many hits, penalties, or goals as the second place player in that same category. It would be a remarkable achievement, and Raddysh has done just that. In the category of shots greater than 145 km/h, Raddysh was able to launch 97 of them, leading the league by a wide margin. Evan Bouchard was second in that category with 51 (according to NHL EDGE stats). At age 30, Raddysh signed a lucrative $8.5 million AAV contract to bring that booming shot as a co-weapon to the elite Auston Matthews shot on the top power play in Toronto. Raddysh led the league in power play goals by a defenseman (10) and his goals/60 in all situations (0.797) only trailed Jakob Chychrun (0.835). His shooting percentage was a tad high for a defenseman (10.4%), so expect that to come down.

Player usage data from Frozen Tools. Salary information from CapWages. Other player data from Quant Hockey.

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