The Major League Baseball trade deadline is basically a week away and here we are, still wondering what might happen with some major pieces during the NHL off-season.
Last summer, Nazem Kadri — the top centre on the open market — didn’t ink a new deal until September training camps were basically a month away from opening. The 2023 off-season has an even greater holding-pattern feel to it, as teams are sketching out blueprints while still feeling the pinch of one final flat-cap summer.
We’re now nearly a month removed from the draft and free agency, so you wonder if after a period of re-grouping, general managers might be ready to re-surface and take another look at some bigger plays.
After all, the reigning Norris Trophy winner, a generational offensive talent and a handful of really good players from a couple Canada-based clubs are all floating in the ether, with the potential to land in a stop-what-you’re-doing headline at any moment.
With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of lingering names to keep an eye on as we rapidly approach the final full month of NHL off-season.
When Karlsson accepted his Norris Trophy a month ago, he surely hoped his playing future would be resolved by now. But this transaction has always been complicated by the fact the 33-year-old San Jose Shark makes $11.5 million against the cap for four more seasons and the Sharks, understandably, are hesitant to eat too much of that salary.
By now, we’re all familiar with the suitors and it’s certainly titillating to imagine Karlsson — coming off the first 100-point season by a blue-liner in 30 years — teaming up with the likes of Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh, Connor McDavid in Edmonton, or Auston Matthews in Toronto.
Still, this transaction requires threading quite the needle, as teams’ offers surely get sweeter depending on just how much of Karlsson’s salary San Jose is willing to let sit in northern California.
The stud players on Canadian teams with 2024 UFA eligibility
Just for fun, let’s lean into the extreme version of this and consider two No. 1 centres, a Vezina-winning goalie, and a top-four defenceman could all be moved out of Calgary and Winnipeg before the summer air cools.
Is it likely all of Mark Scheifele, Elias Lindholm, Connor Hellebuyck, and Noah Hanifin get dealt? Absolutely not. But the fact remains they’re all guys with one season to go before unrestricted free agency and are presently attached to teams in flux. Even if Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and new Flames boss Craig Conroy are in no particular rush to bring resolution to these situations, it would be zero surprise to wake up tomorrow and see any one of those four names involved in a huge swap.
While we’re at it, we might as well stay north of the border and note there’s no indication the Leafs and William Nylander are on the verge of an extension. Nylander, like teammate Auston Matthews, can become a UFA next summer. But while there’s a sense Matthews’ long-term future will be in Toronto, it’s hard to say that with nearly as much conviction when it comes to the 27-year-old Swede.
And with the Leafs under quite the summer cap crunch, who knows what comes next for Nylander and the club.
Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci
For the second straight summer, the Bruins enter August without knowing exactly what’s going on with their centre depth chart. Last year — on Aug. 8, to be exact — the squad announced both Patrice Bergeron and David Krecji were returning to the squad (or, in Krejci’s case, re-joining Boston after a year in Europe) on one-year contracts. Maybe the same will occur in 2023, but should one (or, gulp, both) decide to hang ’em up, it will create an enormous void up the middle for a team that could go from setting a new points record last season to needing every point it can get in a tough Atlantic Division this coming year.
Any time a player fires his representation a few days into free agency, things have not gone as expected. It sure seemed like Tarasenko was about to join the Carolina Hurricanes in early July, but the rubber stamp never got dropped and a little while later, Tarasenko was dropping former agent Paul Theofanous and moving to CAA.
The Russian will be 32 in December and though you would never lump him with the elite snipers in the game anymore, Tarasenko did put up 34 goals in 2021-22, his final full year in St. Louis. He’s still got the shot to score somebody some goals — perhaps even that ‘Canes squad we initially thought he was destined for.
It’s no surprise Kane remains a UFA at this juncture given the fact he underwent hip re-surfacing surgery after the season and won’t be ready for puck-drop next fall. At this point, it feels like a fait accompli he’ll follow the lead of other UFAs like Tyler Bertuzzi and Matt Duchene by inking a one-year deal that will see him re-enter the market next summer.
Still, we know (or at least think we know) that Kane is bound for a contender, and if you’re a team that really doesn’t care how he looks until the second half of the season, any chance you swoop in and try to ink the 2016 Hart Trophy winner before your competition does?
