1. Do you prefer chaos or comfort?
Dependability or drama?
Well, if you’re the formerly stacked, increasingly decimated UFA class of 2026 — or one of the general managers negotiating with the star-studded group — you are trending toward the safe and familiar.
Even if it may be against your financial advisor’s wishes.
Each fall, we begin building a board of the NHL’s top 12 pending UFAs to track the most critical contract seasons and all the juicy rumours therein.
Fans eat it up like loonie dogs on a Tuesday.
This season’s listicle looks listless. Before the sucker could set sail, we crossed off the top four names — Connor McDavid, Kirill Kaprizov, Kyle Connor and Jack Eichel — plus a whack of other good ones.
The top two goalies with a chance to cash in (Anthony Stolarz and Filip Gustavsson) re-upped before puck drop. So did two intriguing defencemen in Edmonton (Mattias Ekholm and Jake Walman).
Adrian Kempe, Martin Necas, Alex Tuch and the mid-30s version of Artemi Panarin are all enticing adds, but some of them, too, might be tempted to re-sign as opposed to testing the waters. Alex Ovechkin, John Carlson, Evgeni Malkin and Patrick Kane are certainly household names. But their bank-robbing days have long passed.
Rasmus Andersson and Mike Matheson are solid D-men, sure, but the juice of March 6 (trade deadline) and July 1 (free agency) is draining fast.
Commissioner Gary Bettman refutes the notion that more frenzy and player movement are better for business.
“I think a lot of fans like having continuity and rooting for their players,” Bettman said this week. “If you polled most fans, they probably don’t like free agency. I mean, it’s good for your business in terms of writing stories. But if you’re a lifelong fan of the team, and you’ve watched a young player, a superstar in some cases, develop and grow, you like seeing him stay where he is.”
Fair.
Oilers Nation is relieved. Wild supporters can enter the turnstiles expecting highlights.
But you also like seeing your favourite team’s GM with better and more options to spend what is a rapidly increasing player budget.
The more McDavids, Kaprizovs, Eichels and Connors who take themselves off the market, the more likely we are to see perceived overpays and potential regrets.
Fans who gasped at the deals inked by serviceable but unspectacular free agents like, say, Cody Ceci ($4.5 million times four years) and Brian Dumoulin ($4 million times three years) in L.A. in 2025’s open market should get ready for more stunners.
As franchise faces are rushed to be retained, it appears we could be on the brink of a middle-class resurgence. The good-not-great player was the one squeezed most by the pandemic flat cap.
This changing climate presents a great opportunity for the Nikolaj Ehlers of the league (his $51 million cash-in ain’t shabby).
If you’re Tuch, Necas or Kempe and wish to hit a home run, you’ll have your pick of the litter (i.e., pick of the pockets) on Canada Day.
The demand is outweighing the supply something serious.
2. Prediction time!
Adhering to a self-enforced rule that two teams per conference that failed to make it last season will make it this one, here are my 2026 playoff picks.
Atlantic Division: Lightning, Maple Leafs, Panthers, Senators, Red Wings
Metropolitan Division: Hurricanes, Devils, Rangers
Central Division: Jets, Avalanche, Stars, Blues
Pacific Division: Golden Knights, Oilers, Canucks, Ducks
Bonus!
Biggest gainer in standings: Ducks (80 points in 2024-25)
Biggest dropoff in standings: Kings (105 points in 2024-25)
3. Submitting an opening roster that averages six-foot-two and 210 pounds, the Toronto Maple Leafs are literally the biggest, heaviest team in the NHL.
“If everyone is playing to their capability, we should wear teams down and grind the other teams down in a full 60-minute game,” says Dakota Joshua, boosting the mean at six-foot-three and 218. “You’ve got to use it to your advantage and make sure you’re using it the right way.”
While the core of the group (sans one notable exception) has remained intact for nearly a decade, it’s incredible how swiftly Brad Treliving and Craig Berube have transitioned from a slippery, skills-first supporting cast to recruiting a bunch of giant goalies, long-reach defencemen and burly wingers asked to charge the net and grind the corners.
4. Would anyone be all that surprised if the Florida Panthers opened a new practice rink on the Death Star?
Not since the Danbury Trashers has a hockey team embraced the evil villain role with such enthusiasm.
Did you see the Cats’ 2025 championship rings?
Whether you think it is brazen or classless, brilliant or braggadocious, the jewelry piece is certainly on brand. As in-your-face as Paul Maurice’s forecheck scheme.
Each bauble is engraved with a silhouette of a rat and the motto WE APOLOGIZE TO NO ONE. The four cities the Florida men knocked off to reach their goal are also engraved and stroked through inside the ring.
After watching the Panthers’ triumphant episode of Prime Video’s Faceoff docuseries, the the stick-it-to-our-enemies ring design hardly comes as a shock.
Matthew Tkachuk’s gleeful request to spray champagne to the Oilers’ win song, “Pink Pony Club,” immediately after Game 6 is something.
But the hot-mic chirps caught en route to the rings are downright devislish.
Brad Marchand to Toronto’s Max Domi in Round 2: “You’ll always be in his f—–’ shadow. You’ll always be the guy who could’ve been good.”
Tkachuk to Carolina’s Jordan Staal in Round 3: “You quit on your team, captain. You quit on your team.”
“A classic chirp is something easy. Something truthful that gets under their skin,” Tkachuk explains, discussing the art the way a Michelin chef might describe tonight’s special.
“You could see we played some teams that were getting rattled,” Marchand agrees. “Taking bad penalties or getting caught out of position.”
Hockey players and humility in victory are nearly synonymous. Nearly.
And then there’s the ratty, tax-free Floridians you love to hate.
5. No one on the Calgary Flames scored more goals last season than Nazem Kadri (35). No one was particularly close.
(With Jonathan Huberdeau out, the Flames’ next-best scorer, Matt Coronato, had 11 fewer tucks than Kadri in 2024-25.)
And yet, when Ryan Huska looked down his bench, searching for an opening-night shootout hero against bitter rival Edmonton, the coach picked seven other shooters before tapping his most experienced and best option.
An antsy Kadri beat Stuart Skinner as the tie-buster’s 16th(!) participant and sealed the win.
“Sixteen?!” Kadri told reporters post-game, with a smile. “Oh my God, you’re going to have to talk to Husk about that.
“I wanted to put it in the back of the net.”
But, uh, why was the veteran game-breaker selected only after some kids and a defenceman (Rasmus Andersson) got their attempts?
“After the (15th shooter) he looked back and said, ‘Can I have this please?’” Huska said. “So, I’m glad we went with him instead of choosing someone else at that moment.”
A splendid finish to the longest opening-night shootout in the event’s 20 NHL seasons. We’ll remain curious here as to why Huska waited so long.
6. They say it’s a young man game, and yet the oldest team (Winnipeg, with an average age of 31.3) is the defending Presidents’ Trophy champion, and the second-oldest (Florida, 31.2) is coming off back-to-back Cups.
In fact, the six oldest rosters (add Colorado, L.A., Carolina and Toronto) all consider themselves contenders. Greybeard powers in (eighth-oldest) Vegas and Tampa Bay (10th oldest) aren’t far behind.
Conversely, only two of the NHL’s 10 youngest teams (Dallas, 27.7; Montreal, the youngest at 26) made the dance last spring.
To be young and on the rise is a recipe for hope.
To be old and a step below the contenders, however, indicates the need to reset.
Hence the predicament the Penguins (seventh oldest) and Predators (ninth oldest) find themselves in this season.
7. More spoilers. This time for the 2026 NHL awards.
Hart: Connor McDavid
Art Ross: Connor McDavid
Rocket: David Pastrnak
Calder: Ivan Demidov
Norris: Quinn Hughes
Vezina: Jake Oettinger
Selke: Sam Reinhart
Ted Lindsay: Connor McDavid
Jack Adams: Joel Quenneville
Bill Masterton: Jonathan Toews
GM of the Year: Kevin Cheveldayoff
Presidents’ Trophy: Vegas Golden Knights
Stanley Cup: Winnipeg Jets
8. The Maple Leafs, according to Sportico, are the NHL’s highest-valued team at $4.25 billion.
“Still undervalued, in my opinion,” commissioner Bettman said Wednesday during a visit to the mecca.
To that point, then, do the owners and league execs discuss adding a second franchise to the GTA? Go where the money is?
“That doesn’t come up at all,” Bettman replied. “And I think people tend to forget that expansion is not really the money-making opportunity that it’s perceived to be. Because when you admit a new partner, you’re now dividing the national revenues by an extra portion. That has an economic consequence and an economic value to it. You may get some cash up front, but over time, it isn’t the boon that sometimes it’s portrayed to be. And so, no, we’re not focused on expansion anywhere right now.”
Not focused, but listening.
The NBA, MLB, and NFL have no issue milking their most successful markets with multiple franchises. The NHL has three solid teams in New York–New Jersey. But Greater Toronto — home of the richest team despite a low Canadian dollar — remains a no-go.
Speaking of Canada, it’s been 32-plus years since Bettman awarded a Stanley Cup to a team north of the border. Would it benefit the NHL to mix in a champion north of the border?
“I love all my children equally, all my grandchildren equally. I love all my teams equally,” Bettman smiled. “You know what the beauty of our competitive balance is? Anything can happen.”
9. Bettman publicly projected the 2026-27 salary cap at $104 million, but the hot goss in the schoolyard has agents and managers bracing for an even greater bump from the current $95.5 million upper limit.
“I don’t know who’s making that suggestion or why,” Bettman countered.
The commissioner believes there to be a misperception about why the cap — which is directly tied to revenues — is jumping so fast.
The 2025-26 cap is still artificially low to prevent the 2025 free agent class from benefiting from a gigantic spike and leaving their peers in the dust.
“We didn’t want it to happen all at once, because that would have skewed salaries and been, if you will, fortuitous and maybe unfairly for the players who happen to be free agents when that happened,” Bettman explained.
“So, we’re staging how we catch back up with what the cap would otherwise have been if we didn’t have a flat cap.”
With the cap estimated to hit $113.5 million in 2027-28 and keep jolting beyond that, fans in small markets should start preparing for their favourite team to stop spending to the limit.
Bettman — a huge proponent of parity and revenue sharing — balks at the idea that these spikes will create a competitive gap between the haves and the have-nots.
We remain skeptical. Let’s see.
10. Yes, with the reduction of exhibition games down to two (praise the hockey gods!), the 2026-27 season will start earlier. In September.
That means the Stanley Cup will be awarded earlier, before the kids are out of school and we’re halfway to a tan, right?
“Not so fast,” Bettman cautions. “Because we have two more regular-season games that have to be fit in.”
11. The funny thing about Craig Berube’s rush to shift Max Domi into the middle whenever a Toronto centreman gets injured is that Domi skated exclusively on the wing in junior.
Not until Domi’s third season in the show did Arizona Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet approach the winger with an idea ahead of Sidney Crosby and the Penguins’ annual trip to the desert.
“All of a sudden, Crosby’s coming in, and I show up to morning skate and he goes, ‘Hey, you ever play centre?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, when I was, like, 14.’ He goes, ‘All right. Just curious.’ And then I showed up for the game, and he goes, ‘Yeah, you’re going to play centre tonight.’ I remember taking a faceoff against Sid, and I actually got a picture of it on my phone.”
Head-to-head in the faceoff dot against his childhood idol and the best at the position.
“Not gonna lie,” Domi smiles. “I actually think I beat him the first one, and then went 0-for after that.”
Domi scored that game, but the Penguins walked out with a 4-2 win.
12. Massive respect to Jonathan Toews, who played his first NHL game in 910 days… on home ice, no less.
“Just trying to contain myself a little bit there,” the Winnipegger said of the moment.
