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Good morning to everyone except the Seattle Mariners, who are very mean. The NHL season is officially one week old. Were we wrong about everything? We might have been, yeah, but we’ve got it all figured out now, so read on to get caught up.
Monday saw the league’s only two 3-0-0 teams in action, and both lost, with the Bruins and Panthers both falling in regulation. You can still count on some things, though — the Islanders and Sabres both lost to fall to 0-3-0. They’re the only two winless teams left, after the Hawks got their first of the season against Utah, so if you bet on Chicago to go 0-for-82, you had a good run.
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Hey, speaking of losing money…
The short answer: A whole lot!
The slightly longer answer: He got over $70 million, fully guaranteed, so he won’t be eating store brand ramen anytime soon. He’ll also have just turned 30 when the deal expires, meaning he’ll have a chance to sign at least one more monster deal. It’s fine, everyone settle down.
The significantly longer answer … well, let’s get into it.
First, if you missed the details: Hutson signed an eight-year extension that kicks in next year and is worth a total of $70.8 million. That’s a cap hit of $8.85 million through 2034 for last year’s Calder winner as rookie of the year. Arpon has more on what this means for the Canadiens.
So is it a good contract, from the team’s perspective? Very obviously so. I can’t even imagine what it would look like to argue otherwise. The question is whether this immediately becomes one of the league’s great bargains – the new Nathan MacKinnon deal, say, or the one that shoves Jack Hughes off the top of the heap – or merely a solid bit of business for a player who’s still not quite proven.
That’s the tricky part, especially with Hutson having just one real season under his belt. The question is whether Hutson is what Canadiens fans have spent the last year insisting he is, which is to say the next Cale Makar, or maybe Ray Bourque, or maybe Bobby Orr, or maybe all of the above… or whether he’s something closer to the next Shayne Gostisbehere, which is to say a talented offensive defenseman who had a great rookie year but will go on to a career that’s merely good but not Hall-worthy.
And the answer is that we don’t know because this is sports and we never know. There’s a range of outcomes here, which makes coming up with a number that works for eight years so tricky. Part of what makes these max-length deals for young players so hard to get right is that there’s a ton of risk, and the team and player have to figure out how to spread that around.
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All that said… I mean, the risk here for the Canadiens seems pretty minimal, right? Hutson had 66 points, won the Calder and finished in the top 10 in Norris voting as a rookie, and he signed for a smaller cap hit than fellow young blueliners Luke Hughes and Jackson LaCombe. If he’s the next Gostisbehere, the contract probably ages just fine in a rising-cap world. It’s only a problem if he turns out to be a total bust, which is technically possible but would be just about unprecedented barring injury or off-ice issues. And if he does turn out to be as good as he seems like he could be after one year, then the Canadiens may have themselves the single biggest bargain in hockey for nearly a decade to come.
Then again, that’s just my opinion, and I’m some guy. What does Dom’s model think?
Lane Hutson signs an outrageously team-friendly deal considering his skill-set, age, comps, and a rapidly exploding salary cap. pic.twitter.com/GDsNirWfEb
— dom 📈 (@domluszczyszyn) October 13, 2025
🏒 Easton Cowan, who you may know as the Maple Leafs best and also only prospect, made his NHL debut yesterday. Josh Kloke has the story on his path to the NHL.
📈 If you missed it, my weekly power rankings returned on Monday. Read them before they’re out of date and you whoops too late.
🔥 The whole staff got together to make some bold predictions for all 32 teams.
🎙️ On Monday’s “The Athletic Hockey Show,” Max Bultman, Mark Lazerus, and Rob Rossi had eight overreactions to the first week of the NHL season, including Matthew Schaefer winning a Norris before his entry level deal ends. Listen here.
Here’s hoping you entered the prediction contest, which closed last week with roughly 1,100 entries. I love running the contest for two reasons. First, it inevitably turns into a fun reminder that none of us know anything. And second, it’s a sneaky way to take the temperature of hockey fans, and find out just what kind of opinions are percolating among the hockey world’s very smartest people (i.e. my readers).
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I’ll have a post on the site tomorrow where I go through the contest’s 11 questions, and which answers were most popular. But one of my favorite insights comes from the answer that you guys don’t give. Specifically, it concerns the first three questions, which ask you to name five playoff teams, five non-playoff teams, and five teams that will finish in the NHL’s mushy middle. I’m always fascinated to combine your answers to all three questions, and then see which team gets the fewest mentions.
In other words, which teams are you the least confident in predicting? Which one can you just not figure out?
And this year, would you believe … the Winnipeg Jets?
Yes, despite winning the Presidents’ Trophy last year, the Jets were the least-mentioned team in this year’s contest, showing up just 89 times across the three questions. That’s not necessarily a sign of disrespect – we’ll point out that nobody had the Jets actually missing the playoffs – but it does seem surprising. So I asked our Jets beat writer, Murat Ates, what he thought of his team earning this, um, honor.
Murat: This does surprise me — a bit anyway. I’ve seen enough media commentary about how not everyone trusts their Presidents’ Trophy win as real to understand that there’s some uncertainty about them. But then: Why do so few people have the courage to commit to Winnipeg missing the playoffs? Yeah, the more I think about it, the outright avoidance of Jets votes … Pick a side, people!
Having said all that, I can understand why Winnipeg might be hard to predict. Maybe you think the great season they just had was all about Connor Hellebuyck and his playoffs turned you off. You’d be wrong, but maybe you included the power play and think they’re due for regression, or maybe you do understand that the Jets were a great five on five team too but look at the turnover — Nikolaj Ehlers and others out, Jonathan Toews and others in — and the doubt creeps in. I think they’re a playoff team but can at least begin to understand why people might be afraid they’re not a lock — and that’s before the injuries.
Thanks Murat, and yeah, it’s weird. But not unprecedented – in fact, the Bruins were the most confusing team just two years ago, coming off their own Presidents’ Trophy season. The story here, from a Jets’ fan perspective, is that almost nobody thinks they’re a playoff lock. And while that’s tough to hear coming off a 116-point season, the Central is nasty. (But did readers have the same hesitancy about the Stars or Avs? Find out tomorrow …)
📺 Predators @ Maple Leafs
7 p.m. ET on ESPN+ / TSN4
Both teams have been minor surprises so far. The Leafs have struggled, dropping back-to-back games in regulation to the Red Wings. It’s not panic time yet, but it’s also Toronto, so we’re getting there. Meanwhile, the Predators have earned five of six points, including a solid win yesterday in Ottawa.
📺 Lightning @ Capitals
7 p.m. ET on ESPN / Sportsnet
Tampa badly needed that win in Boston yesterday, their first of the season. The Caps just swept a mini road swing against the two New York teams, and now return home for a week.
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📺 Wild @ Stars
9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN / Sportsnet One
The marquee matchup of the night features two top teams from the league’s marquee division. Dallas should have the edge, since they’re at home and rested while Minnesota played last night. But handing the powerhouse Stars their first loss of the year would be a nice early statement for the Wild.
Full NHL schedule here. Try streaming games like these for free on Fubo.
We believe that in hockey, as in life, there are no dumb questions. So if you have something you’ve always wondered about the sport, ask away by emailing us at redlight@theathletic.com.
What is a “delayed” offside? – Gerald M.
Great question, thanks for sending it.
First things first: A team is offside when any player has entered the attacking zone before the puck, with the exception of a player who’s controlling it. Often, this happens when a team is trying to time its entrance into the zone, and someone crosses just ahead of the puck-carrier. Those are instant whistles. But it can also happen if a team shoots (not carries) the puck into the zone when an attacking player is already in there. At the moment when the puck enters the zone and an attacking player is already there, the play is offside.
But! Just because a play is offside doesn’t mean it’s going to be whistled dead, as long as the team that’s gone offside doesn’t touch the puck. Instead, the linesmen will let the play go as long as all of those attacking players can get out of the zone without touching the puck. Once all of the offending players are out of the zone, the play is no longer offside. This is often referred to as “clearing” the zone. You typically see it when a team is dumping the puck deep into the zone, maybe for a line change or just to regroup defensively. A few guys are trapped deep, but it’s OK because none of them touch the puck, they just head out of the zone.
During an NHL game, you’ll know a play is offside if the puck enters the zone and you see the linesman’s arm go up, but there’s no whistle. That’s a delayed offside. (You may also sometimes hear it referred to as tag-up offside.) The linesman will keep his arm in the air until the attacking team has cleared the zone, at which point he’ll drop his arm back down and play will continue on.
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As with just about everything in the NHL, it’s not always that simple – you’ll sometimes see a delayed offside whistled down because the puck has been shot on net, or because an attacking player isn’t trying to clear the zone. But in general, you’re allowed to shoot the puck into the zone and be offside without being whistled for it, as long as your players can clear the zone.
One last thing: Not all hockey leagues permit delayed offsides, with some making it an automatic infraction as soon as the puck enters the zone. Even the NHL has gone back and forth on how the rule is called; at one point in the 1990s, the league switched to immediate offsides in an effort to discourage teams from playing a dull dump-and-chase style, although it didn’t really work and was eventually brought back. But these days, delayed offside is a thing, and you’ll see it happen a few times in most games.
Teemu Selanne’s first contract was not with the Jets, weirdly enough. Yes, they drafted Selanne, with the 10th pick of the 1988 draft. And he debuted with them, in that memorable record-shattering rookie season in 1992-93. But in between, he actually signed his first NHL deal with the Calgary Flames. It was an offer sheet, and the Jets matched it. It’s one of those weird forgotten offer sheets from the era when teams were far more aggressive on those. Like Keith Tkachuk, Joe Sakic and Sergei Fedorov, Selanne’s matched offer sheet is one of those deals we rarely mention anymore. But it did happen.
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Sean McIndoe has been a senior NHL writer with The Athletic since 2018. He launched Down Goes Brown in 2008 and has been writing about hockey ever since, with stops including Grantland, Sportsnet and Vice Sports. His book, “The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL,” is available in book stores now. Follow Sean on Twitter @DownGoesBrown
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