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The NHL’s free agency period is here, and the league’s player movement has begun. It likely will move fast and furious.
Mitch Marner was traded to Vegas, and Brad Marchand re-signed with Florida. What’s the next big move?
Follow along with all of our coverage from our staff of NHL experts and check out our latest NHL free agency big board from Chris Johnston here.
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Free agency has yet to open, but the Vegas Golden Knights already project to look like a completely different team in 2025-26.
The organization that has made a habit of pulling off blockbuster moves in its short history had an eventful day on the eve of free agency. First, Vegas completed a move to trade Nicolas Roy to Toronto in a sign-and-trade deal to acquire star winger Mitch Marner, league sources told Chris Johnston of The Athletic.
Hours later, Vegas’ star defenseman Alex Pietrangelo announced that he would be stepping away from hockey due to serious injuries, and that the likelihood of a return to hockey is low. While Pietrangelo didn’t officially announce a retirement, all signs point to the Golden Knights being without their leader in average ice time for each of the last five seasons.
General manager Kelly McCrimmon also completed a trade Sunday night that sent restricted free agent defenseman Nicolas Hague to Nashville for veterans Colton Sissons and Jeremy Lauzon. With so many players entering and exiting the team before free agency even begins, it’s worth looking at where the Golden Knights stand.
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With Mitch Marner, and without Alex Pietrangelo, how does Vegas’ lineup look?
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Defensive stability
The Rangers will have interest in Vladislav Gavrikov should he reach the open market. The team was porous defensively in 2024-25, and New York must hope to address that, both with new coaches (Mike Sullivan is taking over as head coach) and potentially added players. Someone such as Gavrikov would help with that if they are willing to meet his price in free agency.
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What’s every NHL team’s biggest need ahead of 2025 free agency?
Scoring reinforcements
GM Mathieu Darche said that he wants the Islanders to play with pace, so he has to build a roster that matches that vision. If the Islanders are going to play a more up-tempo style, they need to find wingers with more foot speed and offensive ability to drive play up the ice. It would help to add another defender who can add a spark from the back end after Noah Dobson was traded to Montreal.
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What’s every NHL team’s biggest need ahead of 2025 free agency?
Two top-nine forwards
The Devils need to acquire a third-line center and a top-six wing. They have just over $14 million in cap space, according to PuckPedia, but a good chunk of that will have to go to Luke Hughes, who is a restricted free agent. The team has already sent away middle-six forward Erik Haula, so Tom Fitzgerald will have to both replace him and likely add another player.
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What’s every NHL team’s biggest need ahead of 2025 free agency?
Vegas Golden Knights veteran defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is stepping away from hockey due to serious hip injuries, he and the team announced Monday evening. In a team-released statement, Pietrangelo said the “likelihood is low” that he will be able to play again, but he hasn’t officially retired.
Pietrangelo, 35, missed 11 games for the Golden Knights during the season and declined to play for Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February in an attempt to allow his hip issue to heal, but to no avail. Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon said in a statement that Pietrangelo’s injury would require “bilateral femur reconstruction, with no guarantee of success,” but as of now, Pietrangelo has opted not to have the surgery, a team spokesperson said.
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Injured Alex Pietrangelo steps away, says ‘likelihood is low’ of return to NHL
In the flat cap era, the secondary free agent market was a robust source of talent that clever NHL teams mined systematically to flesh out their depth.
Under general manager Bill Zito, of course, the Florida Panthers became the poster team for this strategy. Year after year, Zito's Panthers made a point of scooping up bought-out talent (Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Nate Schmidt, Alexander Wennberg) and aggressively targeting non-tendered restricted free agents (Anthony Duclair, Rasmus Asplund, Jesper Boqvist) in unrestricted free agency. These additions haven't always been needle-moving difference-makers for the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions, but they've filled useful roles and deepened the Panthers' lineup over the years.
With more cap space in the system this year, there were far fewer high-profile restricted free agents who didn't receive qualifying offers by Monday's deadline. There are still, however, some interesting names that will now be headed to the open market on July 1.
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Help down the middle
Center options are thin, so it may not be easy for the Preds to address this need. Sam Bennett would have been great, but he was never leaving Florida. GM Barry Trotz took with the No. 5 pick a prospect who has been compared to Bennett, but Brady Martin will obviously take time to get close to that, if he can at all. Blue-line help is crucial this summer for Nashville as well, and acquiring defenseman Nicolas Hague from Vegas and signing him to a four-year contract helps address that need.
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What’s every NHL team’s biggest need ahead of 2025 free agency?
Top-six forward
That should really read top-six center, but there’s a supply and demand imbalance there, so the Canadiens would gladly settle for adding a player on the wing to play on their second line with rookie Ivan Demidov and most likely Kirby Dach. That player is more likely to be available via trade as opposed to free agency, however.
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What’s every NHL team’s biggest need ahead of 2025 free agency?
It came down to the buzzer — again — but the Red Wings are keeping star winger Patrick Kane in Detroit for another year.
The future Hall-of-Famer signed a one-year contract extension with the team Monday, just hours before he was set to become an unrestricted free agent. The deal has a base salary of $3 million, and like last year, also carries up to $4 million in potential bonuses.
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Patrick Kane re-signs with Red Wings on 1-year contract full of bonuses
A faceoff-winning, penalty-killing center
For the 25th season in a row, the Wild need a center. They went into the offseason wanting to improve their depth, but actually ate into it by trading Freddy Gaudreau to Seattle for a fourth-rounder. There are plenty of centers out there who can fill the Wild’s needs to win draws and kill: Christian Dvorak, Sean Kuraly, Nico Sturm, Radek Faksa and Colin Blackwell, to name a few.
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The name Vladimir Tarasenko probably wasn’t on Wild’s fans’ bingo cards when it came to expected offseason acquisitions.
But Tuesday’s free agent market is lean, to say the least, especially with most players re-signing (including seemingly every Florida Panther). In searching for a scoring winger, Minnesota would likely have had to pony up a lot, and more term they were comfortable with, for the likes of Nikolaj Ehlers, Burnsville’s Brock Boeser & co.
So the Wild felt good about taking a one-year bet on the two-time Cup winner in Tarasenko, acquiring him Monday from the Red Wings for future considerations. Tarasenko’s production has taken a sizable dip the past few years, but president of hockey operations and GM Bill Guerin feels a “fresh start” and a bigger role could help the motivated winger regain his old form.
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Why the Wild are betting on Vladimir Tarasenko and what comes next in free agency
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A top-of-the-lineup marquee attraction
Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty are sure-fire Hall of Famers. Quinton Byfield could become their most indispensable player. Adrian Kempe is damn good, period. But L.A. has lacked a superstar in the class of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, and that has proven decisive in the playoffs. It’s tough to get those for sure, but you can’t imagine Ken Holland was brought in to rearrange the deck chairs. —
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What’s every NHL team’s biggest need ahead of 2025 free agency?
It’d be easy to look at Evan Bouchard’s new contract with a gaping mouth. It’d be simpler still, now that he’s set to become the NHL’s fourth-highest-paid defenseman, to fret about what that means for the Edmonton Oilers’ chances of competing for the Stanley Cup not only next season but for years to come.
The sticker shock might need some time to wear off. It’ll take some time for the feeling to dissipate about how things leading up to this point could have gone differently. But the only thing worth truly caring about is that the Oilers have retained an elite defenseman, one they’d have been searching for if they ever lost him.
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Why the Edmonton Oilers had to pay up for Evan Bouchard’s new contract
I can confirm reports that Nick Cousins will be back with the Ottawa Senators for one more season. Cousins was a pending unrestricted free agent.
With Claude Giroux and Nick Cousins now re-signed, PuckPedia says Ottawa has over $7.3 million in cap space, but Leevi Merilainen, who just signed a one-year deal today with a $1.05 million AAV, is currently off their roster. So that’s around $6 million in cap space if you’re doing the math.
I’m still very curious about pending UFA Adam Gaudette at this time. Anton Forsberg is the other prominent UFA left for Ottawa. If Gaudette officially leaves, that means they’ll need to fill a fourth-line centre spot. If the Sens want to add a higher-quality offensive option up front, it might mean pursuing a trade.
GM Steve Staios likes his group. And he said up-front that depth moves would be the play this summer. As other teams like Florida keep their contending shape, a division rival like Montreal makes aggressive moves to keep pace, Toronto loses a big-money winger but tries to add regardless, and even Detroit makes a move to solidify their goaltending, Ottawa seems content to run it back with most of the same roster that brought them to the playoffs last year.
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Forward Brad Marchand signs a six-year deal with a $5.25 million AAV with the Florida Panthers.
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Jacob Bernard-Docker will hit the free-agent market after not receiving a qualifying offer from the Sabres. The 25-year old right-handed defenseman had four points in 15 games in Buffalo after coming over as part of the Dylan Cozens trade. He played well in a small sample size. The Sabres have added right-handed defensemen Michael Kesselring and Conor Timmins in the last week, but Bernard-Docker was still a decent depth option. We’ll see how other teams view him this week.
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Keeping the band together
GM Bill Zito said shortly after his Panthers won the Cup, he would attempt to bring everyone back. With Sam Bennett now signed but Brad Marchand and Aaron Ekblad on the verge of hitting unrestricted free agency, and only $11 million in cap space and one goalie inked, that looks nearly impossible without another subtraction. But they’re going to try to keep at least two of the three, ensuring this is a formidable roster that’ll have a shot at a three-peat.
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With free agency now just hours away, Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman was busy on Monday, making a series of moves that could set up his July 1.
First, Yzerman cleared $4.75 million in cap space by trading winger Vladimir Tarasenko to the Minnesota Wild for future considerations — getting rid of Tarasenko’s cap hit without having to attach a pick or exercise a buyout. Then he took care of some business on Detroit’s pending restricted free agents, first signing 24-year-old LHD Albert Johansson to a two-year deal at a $1.125 million AAV, then extending soon-to-be 25-year-old Jonatan Berggren for another year at $1.825 million.
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After Red Wings’ flurry of moves on NHL free agency’s eve, where do things stand?
Defenseman Ivan Provorov signs a seven-year deal, worth $8.5 million in average annual value, with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
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