Fantasy Take – Latest NHL Moves

Pittsburgh trading for Reilly Smith officially signaled that they would not be re-signing Jason Zucker. He had been a good player for Pittsburgh but missed 63 games over the last three seasons, or nearly 30% of the available contests. Those three seasons also saw him post a lower points/minute rate at 5-on-5 than teammates Danton [...]

One of the more surprising turns of the early portions of the 2023 offseason was seeing the Nashville Predators buy out the contract of Matt Duchene. He wasn’t elite in 2022-23, but he’s a season removed from pushing scoring 43 goals and posting 86 points. Regardless, he was set to go somewhere else and he’s [...]

The Carolina Hurricanes have signed left winger Michael Bunting on a three-year contract at a $4.5 million AAV. In each of his two seasons in Toronto, Bunting had posted back-to-back 20+ goal seasons with at least a plus-20 rating, 80 penalty minutes, and just over two shots per game. He made the most of the [...]

It was clear that Boston would not have the cap space to re-sign deadline acquisition Dmitry Orlov to a new contract in the offseason. After that, it was just a matter of where he’d land and he’s going to Carolina on a two-year deal with an AAV of $7.75M a season, per Elliotte Friedman. Let’s [...]

The Washington Capitals have signed forward Max Pacioretty to a one-year contract worth $2 million. He could also receive up to $2 million in performance-based incentives. The 34-year-old Pacioretty was held to just five games in 2022-23, thanks to an Achilles injury that happened during offseason training. His return to the lineup in January was [...]

The Ottawa Senators have signed goalie Joonas Korpisalo to a five-year contract worth $4 million per season. Split between Columbus and Los Angeles, Korpisalo had one of his better seasons in 2022-23, posting a 61.5 quality start percentage to go with 12.78 goals saved above average. He posted his worst season before that (4.15 GAA, [...]

The Los Angeles Kings have signed goalie Cam Talbot to a one-year contract. Talbot finished 2022-23 with a 2.93 GAA and .898 SV% in 36 games. He was expected to be the starter in Ottawa after being traded there from Minnesota last offseason. However, injuries got in the way, which have to be a concern [...]

Nashville has had a wild week, trading Ryan Johansen while retaining salary and then buying out Matt Duchene. They were clearing cap space for something and it appears to be a former division rival that is coming to Tennessee to help turn the team around: https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/1675175019951824896 It is worth $4.5M a season for each of [...]

The New York Rangers have signed forward Blake Wheeler to a one-year contract worth $800,000. Wheeler had just cleared waivers and had his contract bought out by the Jets, so he needed very little time to find a new home. The fact that Wheeler signed for under $1 million shows that he is targeting the [...]

Like many teams this offseason, the cap crunch from the COVID seasons was still in effect for the Edmonton Oilers. It meant that they would have to ship out some players to open the space necessary to possibly sign their replacements, but most certainly to extend Evan Bouchard’s contract. The casualties ended up being a [...]