With the exception of the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, NHL teams can’t afford to take their foot off the pedal for one minute between now and the opening of training camp in mid-September.
Prospects will get their chance to impress in the fall, but the fastest way to strengthen your lineup remains the trade route.
That is why my trade board won’t sleep this summer.
As I see it, the teams that are under the most intense pressure to add a game-changing player include Edmonton, Toronto, Colorado and Los Angeles.
The second tier that doesn’t necessarily have the same urgency, but could use a trade jolt, include Washington, Montreal, Ottawa, New Jersey and Dallas.
Still on the outside looking to get into the playoffs with a trade we have Columbus leading the charge followed closely by Detroit, Utah, Anaheim and Vancouver.
And several teams are looking for a scoring centremen, a premium position that dried up quickly in free agency.
John Tavares never got to the open market, but he would have been the perfect barometer for seeing how much teams were willing to spend for a scoring centre to fill a void.
That is the main reason why I’ve added Nazem Kadri to my list. Given how thin the market is for centres and how well he played last season, Kadri’s stock has never been higher if Flames general manager Craig Conroy chooses to pull the trigger.
Two teams that Kadri continues to be linked to that he appears willing to lift his no-move clause for are the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Another team to keep an eye on this summer is the Pittsburgh Penguins. Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust and Erik Karlsson are officially on my trade list but one that doesn’t make it here (yet) that we should keep a close eye on is — dare I say it — Sidney Crosby.
There is plenty going on behind the scenes with the Penguins, now in a major rebuild and a reported potential change in ownership on the horizon. The Fenway Group remains adamant that their intent is to find a minority investor to move forward, but could they entertain selling the team entirely?
And how would those decisions impact Crosby’s future with the team?
A question that big will take time to answer.
We’ve been watching Bowen Byram for a while and the two-year contract he signed with Buffalo on Monday results in him coming off the trade board for now. The Sabres could still end up trading him, but that’s unlikely for the time being since a team won’t pay a hefty price for Byram given he can walk to unrestricted free agency.
With the biggest names now off the UFA market, teams left on the sidelines will be looking for other ways to improve their rosters and there is the possibility that the trade market could get busy between now and training camps. There are several notable names that, if moved, would bring a huge shakeup to the league.
With a high demand for top players around the NHL, and a diminished pool of talent, it will be very interesting to see which team blinks first.
So here we go with another trade board for the off-season …
What are the Dallas Stars willing to pay Jason Robertson on a long-term extension? That’s the big question here.
Robertson has one year left on his contract and, if unsigned, would become an RFA next summer. At that point he’d be one year away from being a UFA in 2027 and could get there through arbitration. Needless to say, the Stars would rather not go down that path.
Given Mikko Rantanen is making $12 million against the cap, and the upper limit is still on the rise, how high will the Stars be comfortable going on Robertson? The feeling has been that the ask could be to match Rantanen’s AAV. Robertson scored a career-high 46 goals and 109 points two years ago, but has finished with 80 points two years in a row. He scored 35 goals this past season.
At the same time, the Stars are a win-now team and Robertson is their first line left winger. If he’s moved out, what sort of return can they expect to keep pushing for a Cup, and who would be left over to play on the left side? Robertson is 25 years old and firmly in his prime, so GM Jim Nill must tread carefully.
The post-Mitch Marner era in Toronto has begun and the Leafs are left trying to figure out how their forwards will all come together next fall. The team is expected to be working the trade market all summer, and made a move last Thursday to acquire defenceman Henry Thrun from San Jose for Ryan Reaves.
GM Brad Treliving is aiming to give his team a new look next season and change over part of the core. Given the blue line is in a good place and forward is where the Leafs have more questions and holes to fill, might they look to flip a blueliner for, ideally, a top-six scorer?
Morgan Rielly was on our last off-season trade board and remains here today. He has five years remaining on his contract and makes $7.5 million against the cap. However, he also has a full no-movement clause, so any trade would need his approval. If asked, would the 31-year-old Rielly be open to a fresh start?
The draft and opening of free agency have passed without a Rasmus Andersson trade, but still the most likely outcome here is that the defenceman will be on a new team before next season’s trade deadline.
Andersson’s situation is well-known — he is entering the final season of his contract, could become a UFA next July and will turn 29 in October. He has only a six-team no-trade list, but for the Flames to get the most in a return Andersson would have to be open to re-signing with the team that acquires him, and it’s believed his list of preferred destinations is very short.
Another Flames trade candidate, Nazem Kadri’s situation is far less pressing than Andersson’s. He has four years remaining on his contract, makes $7 million against the salary cap, and has a full no-movement clause through 2025-26. After next season, Kadri will have a modified no-trade clause for the final three years of his deal.
So why is he on this list? First, there are a lot of teams in need of a top-six centre around the NHL, so it should be a seller’s market for anyone willing to give one up. He’ll turn 35 in October, has won a Stanley Cup, and is still playing at a high level. Kadri scored 67 points this past season and a career-high 35 goals.
The Flames are building up their young team and while Kadri could still possibly be a contributing piece when some of the youth blossoms, a trade now could also bring Calgary a package that would help them more in the long-term. And that return would improve if the Flames also retain salary. Currently they are only retaining salary on Jacob Markstrom for one more season.
Two teams that Kadri continues to be linked to and appear to be willing to lift his no-move clause for are the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs. Toronto’s Brad Treliving has tried numerous times to trade with his old club in the past only to be shut down by the Flames on Tanev, Zadorov and Andersson, so it may be a stretch for the Leafs to land Kadri.
Erik Karlsson’s signing bonus was paid out earlier this month, meaning the 35-year-old defenceman is owed $11.5 million total over the final two years of his contract. His cap hit is $10 million, but if the Penguins retain money to drop that down further (they’re currently only retaining money on Jack Johnson) then Karlsson will become a more appealing trade target. Just like Seth Jones was seen as a player in decline with Chicago, then became a positive contributor after a trade to Florida, teams may see the same turnaround potential in the three-time Norris Trophy winner.
Last week, the Penguins acquired Matt Dumba from Dallas meaning they now have three veteran right-shot defenders: Dumba, Karlsson and Kris Letang. On the surface, that would seem to make it more likely that the Penguins are trying to find a trade involving Karlsson. He has a no-movement clause so would need to be amicable to any trade partner.
We’ll continue on with the Penguins, who are the NHL’s one true rebuilding team. But just how much they can tear down, and how quickly, is the sticking point.
In Bryan Rust, the Penguins have a player beloved in the market and dressing room who is still highly productive, coming off a career-high 31-goal season. He’s also Sidney Crosby’s linemate and therein lies the complicating factor: while the Penguins are trying to gather younger players and future assets to recover with, the soon-to-be 38-year-old Crosby has two years remaining on his contract and would prefer to remain competitive. This is a difficult path for GM Kyle Dubas to walk.
There is a ton of interest in Rust. He has three years remaining on his contract, makes $5.125 million against the cap, has won two Stanley Cups, and is still highly productive. He also doesn’t have any trade protection in his contract, so the Penguins are free to find their preferred trade partner.
Similar to Rust, 32-year-old Rickard Rakell is also coming off his career-best offensive season, scoring 35 goals and 70 points in 81 games. He has three years remaining on his contract and makes $5 million against the cap, but does have an eight-team no-trade list.
Given how thin the options were in the UFA market this summer, plenty of teams are still seeking top-six scoring help. As the salary cap continues to rise, both players would also bring cost certainty at a low rate for three years. These factors should make the two Penguins forwards all the more valuable as trade assets and drive up the asking price for the Penguins.
The Jordan Kyrou trade rumours won’t go away. The 27-year-old winger has scored 30 goals three years in a row, reached at least 70 points in three of the past four years and is squarely in his prime. He also comes with term: there are six years left on his contract with an $8.125 million cap hit.
GM Doug Armstrong considered deeper changes to the Blues roster this past season, but after the team surged following the 4 Nations Face-Off he backed off and they played their way into the playoffs. It’s believed Armstrong would still like to change over some of this roster and while trading away a quick and dangerous winger like Kyrou would be a difficult move to make, it would only be done if St. Louis got a big return.
Don’t think of this as a rebuilding trade, but a re-tooling one. Armstrong has already made one “hockey trade” this off-season, sending Zack Bolduc to Montreal for Logan Mailloux, and would be seeking the same sort of deal around Kyrou, on a larger scale.
Just two years ago, Dougie Hamilton played all 82 games in a season, scored 74 points and finished sixth in Norris Trophy voting. Since then, he has played in 84 regular season games across two seasons. In March of this past season, he sustained a lower-body injury that kept him out of the lineup until the final game of the regular season.
The Devils are looking at anything that might improve the roster this summer after they were quickly knocked out in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs by Carolina in five games. Can they accomplish that by moving Hamilton in a hockey trade that brings a solid contributor back?
Hamilton is 32 years old and makes $9 million against the salary cap for another three years. He also has a 10-team no-trade list, so the Devils will have some space to be creative in finding a partner. This would not be an easy deal to make, but after the Luke Hughes extension gets done (which GM Tom Fitzgerald said was his top priority right now) the picture could become a little clearer as to how a Hamilton trade might go down and why it might make sense.
The most important contract Minnesota would like to get done this summer is Kirill Kaprizov, one year away from him becoming a UFA. But Marco Rossi is close behind, a current RFA who is eligible to sign an offer sheet at any time.
Rossi is an interesting case. He’s a 23-year-old centre (turning 24 in September) who had a career season with 24 goals and 60 points in 82 games. But come playoff time he was used on Minnesota’s fourth line and averaged 11:08 of ice time per game. Now a new contract needs to be worked out and while Rossi might want a longer-term, bigger-money commitment, the Wild seem less prepared to do so.
Wild GM Bill Guerin has said he’ll match any offer sheet signed by Rossi. There is a long list of teams in need of a centre, so Rossi is an intriguing trade candidate given his age, the position he plays, and the trajectory of his career.
However, if this trade does occur, it might only happen after Kaprizov gets his extension. Until that contract is done, there will be some level of uncertainty, making it more challenging for Guerin to give up another top-six contributor such as Rossi.
The biggest piece of unfinished business for the Colorado Avalanche to figure out is what the future plan is with Martin Necas. The central piece coming back in the Mikko Rantanen trade, Necas largely performed as expected which, in turn, means he is in line for a healthy raise from his current $6.5-million cap hit.
Necas has one more season left on that contract, after which he’ll become a UFA so the Avalanche have to figure out if they want to extend him at a higher number or flip him again. This was the same situation Rantanen was in with the team last year and the Avalanche traded him when they concluded they weren’t willing to meet his asking price. Rantanen ended up signing in Dallas for a $12 million cap hit.
In a growing salary cap environment, the feeling is Necas could get $10 million or more. Are the Avalanche willing to go that high?
While we do also have Morgan Rielly on this list, if the Leafs move a defenceman it’ll likely only be one of them. But while Rielly comes with the complication of a no-movement clause, Brandon Carlo has just an eight-team no-trade list and so is also worth putting on the trade board.
Making $3.485 million against the cap for another two years, Carlo was a welcome addition to the Leafs’ defence corps, averaging 19:13 of ice time per game and nearly two minutes on the PK. In the playoffs, he was among the team’s shot-blocking leaders.
It may be hard to believe the Leafs would trade away Carlo so soon after paying a steep price to acquire him, but the fact is Toronto doesn’t have many assets to make a deal with. Right-shot, minute-munching defencemen will always have a market in the NHL and so Carlo is the one trade chip that could command a lot of attention. He could be part of a deal that adds some scoring to the forward group as they recover from the loss of Mitch Marner.
We’ve been watching this player on the trade market since before the March trade deadline, when the Kraken were sorting through options on their players and had plenty of teams interested in Jamie Oleksiak. Seattle’s one notable change to the blue line so far this off-season has been to sign Ryan Lindgren — another physical, left-shot blueliner.
The question now is if that makes Oleksiak more available on the trade market, or is it just a sign of the type of player the Kraken want more of? GM Jason Botterill talked about wanting the Kraken to have more size and meanness and they’d lose some of that if Oleksiak (6-foot-7, 252 pounds) were moved.
However, he does only have one more season left on his contract and makes just $4.6 million against the salary cap. Several teams could afford that and after the Florida Panthers won another Stanley Cup the flavour of the day in the NHL is toughness, so the Kraken may be able to get a nice return for Oleksiak.
The Panthers were able to keep all three of their big UFAs and now have a deep core of talent locked in for a long time. But today we look at a team that is $3.725 million over the cap and have to wonder how they’ll become compliant before next season begins.
Florida has some time to think about it and one thing that could factor into a decision is Matthew Tkachuk’s injury status. There’s a possibility that Tkachuk’s long-suffering injury may need corrective surgery which could keep him out through the Christmas break. It doesn’t appear that Tkachuk’s Olympic participation in February is in jeopardy at this point in time, however.
If Tkachuk were to miss the beginning of the season and be out for a while, the Panthers would be able to get under the cap by putting his contract on LTIR.
Aside from that, the quickest way to take a bite out of their overage would be to trade Evan Rodrigues, who makes $3 million against the cap for another two seasons. But this is a well-liked player in the dressing room and a productive middle-six winger coming off a 15-goal season. He also scored 15 points in 21 playoff games this past spring.
The Lightning have little in the way of cap space this off-season and may look to create some more without looking for a package of only futures. They’ve already traded Ryan McDonagh away once, back in 2022, then re-acquired him in 2024. Now he may end up being on the move again.
At 35 years old, McDonagh has just one more season remaining on his contract with a $6.75-million cap hit and a modified no-trade list. He can still play at a high level and showed it in 2024-25. McDonagh led the Lightning with a plus-43 rating, he averaged over 20 minutes of ice time per game and more time on the penalty kill than any other Lightning player. A left-shot defender, there are a lot of teams around the NHL that view him as one of those defencemen who will play the game to a high level late into his 30s.
After winning the off-season last summer, the Predators are now considering how to react to the fact this roster fell well short of the playoffs. If they have a chance to move one of their expensive, long-term contracts, Jonathan Marchessault would be the most likely. In the first year of his deal with Nashville, his goal total was cut in half from his last season in Vegas, dropping from 42 down to 21.
There are several teams that have a need to add scoring into their top-six mix, including Ottawa, Toronto and Edmonton. The question would be if he’d lift his no-movement clause to go anywhere. Marchessault’s contract runs another four seasons with a $5.5-million cap hit.
TRADED OFF REAL KYPER’S LIST THIS SEASON: Seth Jones, Ryan Lindgren, Alexandre Carrier, Cam Fowler, Taylor Hall, Martin Necas, J.T. Miller, Marcus Pettersson, Drew O’Connor, Trent Frederic, Yanni Gourde, Reilly Smith, Carson Soucy, Brock Nelson, Dylan Cozens, Mikko Rantanen, Scott Laughton, Brandon Tanev, Charlie Coyle, Casey Mittelstadt, Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo, Chris Kreider, Trevor Zegras, Evander Kane, JJ Peterka, Noah Dobson, John Gibson, Nic Hague, K’Andre Miller, Viktor Arvidsson, Mitch Marner
