Faces in new places for the 2022-23 NHL season

The Alex DeBrincat trade involving Chicago and Ottawa represented a seismic shift for both teams. For Chicago, trading a player as good as DeBrincat for nothing but draft picks (and only one first-round pick) signals the start of a massive rebuilding project that will take years to produce results. For Ottawa, it was one of the moves that show this team is ready to move on from the "rebuilding" to contending phase. DeBrincat is a bonafide star that should give Senators fans some real excitement for the first time in six or seven years. 

There was always a chance that Gaudreau was going to leave Calgary as an unrestricted free agent, but nobody -- NOBODY -- expected him to end up with the Columbus Blue Jackets. But here we are. Gaudreau signed a seven-year contract worth $9.5 million per season to join the Blue Jackets, where he will be a franchise player alongside Patrik Laine. It was a massive win for the Blue Jackets as they have spent most of their existence watching star players leave town. This time they were able to bring one in. That duo should make this a very exciting team this season and maybe help push them to playoff contention. 

The Gaudreau-Tkachuk duo was the league's best last season, and now both are gone. Gaudreau left in free agency to sign with Columbus, and when it became clear that Tkachuk (a restricted free agent) at the start of the offseason was not going to re-sign a long-term deal in Calgary, it paved the way for him to be traded to the Florida Panthers. Tkachuk is one of the league's best young two-way players and the type of winger that every GM in the league would want on their team. He scores, he defends, he drives possession, he is physical, and he is a royal pain in the butt to play against. The Panthers have a lot of players like that, and he should help form a tremendous top-line duo alongside star center Aleksander Barkov. 

Losing Tkachuk and Gaudreau definitely stings for Calgary. But the trade of the former at least brought some serious talent back. In exchange for Tkachuk, the Flames were able to acquire Jonathan Huberdeau (one of the league's top offensive players) and defenseman MacKenzie Weegar (a legit top-pairing defender) to add to their roster. They also quickly re-signed Huberdeau to a massive eight-year contract extension to make him their new cornerstone player offensively. The only players that have outscored him over the past four seasons are Edmonton Oilers forwards Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. 

The Washington Capitals had to do something to address their goalie situation. Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek were not getting the job done, and while it may not have been the only problem, it was undoubtedly one of the biggest problems. They addressed that with a five-year contract for Stanley Cup-winning goalie Darcy Kuemper. Kuemper may have struggled in the playoffs for Colorado, but his track record over the past five years is among the best in hockey. He has the potential to be a significant addition to an already strong team. 

This might be the most intriguing goalie move of the offseason. Georgiev was never going to be a starter in New York with Igor Shesterkin already in place, and given his status as a restricted free agent, a trade seemed inevitable. He struggled at times this season, but he is going to a Colorado team that is absolutely loaded on defense and will provide any goalie with plenty of goal support. It is the best environment for a goalie and each of their past two starters (Philipp Grubauer and Kuemper) excelled playing behind that roster. Both of them turned that success into long-term contracts in free agency. It will be fascinating to see if Georgiev can repeat their success. 

The Rangers wanted to upgrade their second-line center spot and attempted to do so with a seven-year contract for Vincent Trocheck. Trocheck is a good two-way player but there are some questions here. The first is how that seven-year contract will hold up. The second is whether or not Trocheck upgrades the roster when it came at the expense of multiple other free agents on the team, including Ryan Strome (Anaheim), Frank Vatrano (Anaheim), and Andrew Copp (Detroit). Those three were a huge part of New York's depth in the playoffs, and now all are gone. Is Trocheck good enough to overcome all of that? 

The Red Wings have been one of the busiest teams this offseason, adding a new starting goalie (Ville Husso), a new defenseman (Olli Maatta), and several new forwards. The most significant contract among those forwards is the five-year deal to Copp. This deal is very similar to the one signed by Phillip Danault in Los Angeles last offseason in terms of contract length and salary cap hit. Copp is also a similar player in that he provides strong second-line scoring and is an outstanding defensive presence. Detroit finally found its core players with Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider. Now it needed to build around them. Copp should be a significant part of that. 

Another of Detroit's big offseason additions. Perron has had a fascinating career in that this is the first professional contract he has ever signed with a team that was NOT the St. Louis Blues. He has had three different stops in St. Louis during his career, and is now moving on to Detroit. It also has the potential to be a steal of a deal for the Red Wings. Perron has very quietly been one of the league's top-performing wingers the past five years and along with Copp and Dominik Kubalik should help provide some much-needed scoring depth to a Red Wings team that needs to show some real progress this season. 

The salary cap crunch in Minnesota forced the trade of Fiala, and the Kings were there to pounce. Their salary cap space and deep farm system enabled such a move, and Fiala should be a massive addition to a Kings team that took a huge step forward last season to make the playoffs. With Anze Kopitar, Adrian Kempe, Alex Iafallo, Philip Danault, Viktor Arvidsson, and now Fiala the Kings have an outstanding group of veteran forwards to complement one of the best young talent pools in the league. If Quinton Byfield and Arthur Kaliyev can progress this season this could be a very dangerous team in the Western Conference.

Ottawa's other big move this season was to add Giroux in unrestricted free agency. He may not be the franchise player he was earlier in his career with the Philadelphia Flyers, but he is still an outstanding player and should be a significant boost to an improving Senators forward group. With DeBrincat and Giroux joining Ottawa this offseason, they now have a very formidable top-six that already includes Brady Tkachuk, Drake Batherson, and Josh Norris. Defense and goaltending are big question marks, but their games should not be boring this season. 

Columbus made two big free agent signings in Gaudreau (great signing) and Erik Gudbranson (questionable signing) and also re-signed Patrik Laine to a significant four-year extension. That meant somebody had to go, and that somebody was Bjorkstrand. Seattle ended up getting him for two draft picks (none of them a first-round pick) which is a steal for what Bjorkstrand provides. Seattle did not have a good expansion draft or initial roster build, but it has made up for it in a big way this offseason. 

Along with Bjorkstrand, Seattle also added Burakovsky in free agency. Those are two excellent additions to a top-six that needed a little spark, and with draft top draft picks Matty Beniers and Shane Wright on the horizon you can see the pieces starting to come into place for the Kraken. They just need to get the goaltending situation straightened out after a disastrous debut season. 

The Penguins are bringing back mostly the same forwards and the exact same goalies, but they have done some work to overhaul their defense. John Marino was traded to New Jersey for Ty Smith, while Jan Rutta was signed in free agency. The most significant deal, though, was to trade Mike Matheson to Montreal for Petry and forward Ryan Poehling. Petry is an excellent addition because he gives them a legit second-pairing defenseman to play on the right side behind Kris Letang, meaning that on any given night the Penguins will have either Letang or Petry on the right side of their defense for the majority of the game. There are not many teams in the league that can top that. 

The Hurricanes have an outstanding team that does everything well, but it needs more impact players. They attempted to address that this offseason with two blockbuster moves. The first of which was to bring in Brent Burns from the San Jose Sharks, replacing Tony DeAngelo on the blue line after he was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers. Burns is nearing the end of his career and has some flaws defensively at this point, but he can still score and drive offense from the blue line. He is a better version of DeAngelo. 

Carolina's other big move this offseason was to acquire Pacioretty from the Vegas Golden Knights in a salary dump move. On the surface, this trade is huge because Pacioretty is precisely what the Hurricanes need. That is the good news. The bad news is just a couple of weeks after the trade the Hurricanes announced that Pacioretty is going to miss six months after undergoing surgery to repair an Achilles injury. He should be back later in the season and in time for the playoffs (which could open up some more salary cap room when Pacioretty goes on the long-term injured list) but this is probably not how the Hurricanes drew this up for this season. 

Even though it has not produced much in the way of results in recent years, the New Jersey Devils have had a knack for making some big splash moves in the offseason. They added John Marino from Pittsburgh on defense, but the most significant move was probably the signing of Palat. Tampa Bay had to let Palat go in its yearly salary cap shuffling, but he is still a very good player that should bring responsible two-way play with 20 goals and 50 points on the offensive side. Very strong complementary piece for the Devils to add to the core of Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes. 

Toronto is a tough one to figure out here. After six straight first-round exits there is no team in the NHL facing more pressure to win this season. Another first-round exit is not an option and should not be acceptable. The team itself is good enough to seriously compete. The forwards are as good as any team in the league. The defense is better than it gets credit for being. But that goaltending situation is looking rough. After letting last year's starter, Jack Campbell, leave in free agency, the Maple Leafs addressed the opening by acquiring Matt Murray from Ottawa and signing Ilya Samsonov after he was not given a qualifying offer by the Washington Capitals. Murray and Samsonov have been of the least productive goalies in hockey the past two seasons. The Maple Leafs are rolling the dice with the most important and impactful position in the sport in a season where the pressure is on to win, and win a lot. 

The Oilers have not always been quick to address their weaknesses in the Ken Holland era (or they have been bad at it) but they at least attempted to address one of their biggest this offseason by bringing in Campbell to be their new starting goalie. I have some questions about his consistency and whether or not he is the guy to help them reach the next level, but I do think he is an upgrade over the Mike Smith and Mikko Koskinen duo they were using the past two years. 

This offseason has been a success for the Nashville Predators. They managed to re-sign Filip Forsberg, they added Nino Niederreiter on a great short-term contract to bolster their forward depth, and then picked up Ryan McDonagh from the Tampa Bay Lightning in a salary cap move. McDonagh has definitely slowed down a little bit, but he can still make an impact as a top-four defenseman. The concern is how well his career holds up over the remainder of his contract, which still has four more years with a $6.75 million salary cap number.