How shocking was Johnny Gaudreau’s decision to flee Southern Alberta for Central Ohio? Well, Sportsnet’s Sonny Sachdeva compiled a list of “wildly intriguing long-shot landing spots” for Johnny Hockey when we were still in the speculation stage of this trip, and even as our man let his imagination run wild, Columbus The Blue Jackets didn’t enter the conversation.
Perhaps it’s only fitting that a man whose NHL career itself seemed like an unlikely proposition made what was — to put it mildly — an unexpected decision to sign a seven-year, $68.25 million deal with the Jackets.
If Taylor Hall raised eyebrows signing a one-year contract with the Buffalo Sabers two years ago, Gaudreau melted faces by walking down the aisle with Columbus.
Whatever your perspective on Gaudreau’s call, it was clearly the headliner on the NHL’s opening day of free agency. But there was still plenty more to chew on while we waited for that 165-pound chip to drop. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some winners, losers, and situations that fall somewhere in between, now that the ink on some of these big contracts is starting to dry.
Winners
Columbus Blue Jackets
We can’t start anywhere else and we also can’t help but be a little bit happy for a club that has been rejected in the recent past by big name players either leaving town or choosing never to come there. Columbus knew it would be difficult to re-sign Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchesne or Sergey Bobrovsky in the summer of 2019, but chose to go all-in anyway and ended up with the first playoff series win in franchise history before and the three he actually inked elsewhere.
What’s interesting about this Gaudreau scenario is that in the past Columbus tried to woo stars by offering the heaviest contracts. Whether trying to get Panarin to stay on a bigger deal than the one he signed with the New York Rangers or flirting with an RFA offer sheet for Mitch Marner later this summer, GM Jarmo Kekalainen seems to have embraced the idea that he can to have to hit star socks to make him surrender to Columbus.
While we knew Gaudreau would be leaving money on the table the moment he decided to leave Calgary — about $15 million, as it turned out — for what we all assumed would be an Eastern Conference team, it’s not like Columbus had to to blow other teams like the New Jersey Devils or New York Islanders out of the water with the $9.75 AAV they got Gaudreau to agree to.
Whatever the case, it’s already done. Fire the cannon.
The Ottawa Senators
Even when they were at their best, the Sens were never a summer winning organization. In 2022, though, I’m not sure anyone had a better offseason than Ottawa general manager Pierre Dorion, because signing Claude Giroux to a three-year deal with a $6.5 million AAV was just the latest in a string of strong and savvy moves.
Giroud may turn 35 midway through next season, but it’s a lot more than someone with area connections coming “home” to play the stretch. With 23 points in 18 games as a Florida Panther after the final trade that sent him there from Philly, Giroud showed just what he can do on a good team. Are the Ottawa Panthers good right now? No. But the front six is awfully stacked with Giroux joining a group that includes Brady Tkachuk, Drake Batterson and the man who started this summer’s winning streak for Dorion, Alex DeBrincat.
Throw in Cam Talbot — acquired via trade just before the free agency market opened — and it’s very easy to see an Ottawa team that hasn’t made the playoffs since coming within one goal of the 2017 Stanley Cup Final ., could jump up and push for a postseason position in 2022-23.
Carolina Hurricanes
Who needs signings when you can acquire top-tier talent in a trade without giving up, well, basically anything? The additions of Brent Burns — still a tormenting monster at 37 — from the retooled San Jose Sharks and Max Pacioretty from the battered Vegas Golden Knights were great moves for a fantasy team trying to clear its final championship hurdles. Pacioretty has one more year left on his deal, and if it’s a good one, it’s easy to envision a 40-goal season for him.
Edmonton Oilers
Keeping Evander Kane and Brett Kulak were really good developments to keep the momentum going for a team that reached the final four last season. It would be pretty painful to see Kane, in particular, walk out the door after we’ve all seen how good he is next to Connor McDavid.
Goaltending questions have plagued this franchise for some time, and while it would be foolish to just assume it’s ancient history now with the signing of Jack Campbell — the sample size of the 30-year-old late bloomer as a No. 1 is still relatively small — it’s still a very smart play by GM Ken Holland to give Campbell a five-for-five and hope he dramatically builds on what he’s been getting in the crease. If Campbell is indeed the long-term solution, it will be a watershed day in Oil Country.
Charlie Lindgren, Washington Capitals
We always talk about big numbers early in free agency, so here’s a modest one for you: 28. That’s how many career starts 28-year-old Charlie Lindgren has made. In the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season, that number was zero, meaning he has played five games in the past two NHL campaigns. However, all of those outings came during a 10-day stretch with the St. Louis Blues last December, and Lindgren stopped 113 of the 118 shots he faced for a .958 save percentage. He also had a strong showing in the AHL regular season last year for, really, the first time in his career and a decent showing in the playoffs in that league with the Springfield Thunderbirds.
Still, it was enough to entice the Washington Capitals — who made Darcy Kuemper their starter earlier in the day — to offer the lefty goaltender a three-year, $3.3 million contract. That number, which Cap Friendly says is slightly higher than Lindgren’s estimated career earnings to date.
I see what you did there
Detroit Red Wings
Not that anything Steve Yzerman has done is a stroke of genius, it’s just that bringing in the likes of Michigan boy Andrew Kopp, hard-nosed D-man Ben Kiarot and veteran scorer David Perron is a sure sign that Yzerman is ready to kick this rebuild off on a new gear. If Ville Husso’s play works in goal, the Red Wings figure to be much more competitive this season.
Tampa Bay Lightning
Picture the scene; you’re in some Tampa joint overlooking the bay, enjoying a happy drink when you walk in $159.6 million worth of newly extended Lightning talent. Talk about a round for the house!
OK, so Mikhail Sergachev, Anthony Cirelli and Eric Chernak might not actually be in Tampa right now to celebrate, but you get the idea. By signing the trio to eight-year extensions a year before they were all eligible to become RFAs, Tampa locked up core players with all kinds of great hockey in front of them next to the pretty friendly Florida numbers we’re used to. It alleviates the feeling of having to deal with Ryan McDonagh and knowing you won’t be able to bring back Ondrej Palat.
Colorado Avalanche
You knew there would be some losses, but getting Josh Manson back on the blue line is a huge win, and it’s easy to see Arturi Lehkonen, recently extended, scoring a few more important playoff goals for this club over the next half-decade. Keeping Valery Nichushkin’s hulking figure around for another eight years means fans of the defending champions are sure to have a party all summer long.
Pittsburgh Penguins
For a while there, it seemed like there was a real chance Evgeni Malkin would walk out the door. But his decision to re-sign just before the market opened means both he and Kris Letang — after a season of speculation — will return to the club for what will likely be the last good years of their careers. I don’t know what those trades will look like in Year 4, but that’s not the point for Pittsburgh; by keeping both, GM Ron Hextall stuck a lever in his team’s Stanley Cup window and left the thing open for at least another spring or two.
Toronto Maple Leafs
What it lacks in security the new goaltending battery of Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonov can make up for in upside. Murray has championship pedigree and lost his way in Ottawa; Samsonov was a first-round pick who looked like a surefire No. 1 pick in the early stages of his development. The latter is only 25, and more than one boy in his position only begins to find himself at that age. The 1998 signing of Curtis Joseph was not an option for the Leafs and GM Kyle Dubas did a decent job navigating the situation in front of him.
Losers
Every team flattened by Gaudreau’s shockwaves
Nothing about the way the Calgary Flames played this should really leave them labeled as “losers.” They selected Gaudreau in the fourth round of the 2011 Draft, showing faith in a small player that no one else stepped up to take. Gaudreau scored in his first game with Calgary and scored his final tally as a Flame in what turned out to be his final contest with the club, the overtime affair Edmonton won to take the Battle of Alberta in Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Between those events, Gaudreau did enough for Calgary and GM Brad Treliving to float an eight-year max offer, which according to various reports came with an AAV of $10.5 million. It’s not Calgary’s fault they didn’t pick him up, but it leaves the Flames hurt.
If he wasn’t going to sign with Calgary, it looked like some places close to home like Jersey, Long Island or…
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