The biggest 2026 offseason need for every non-playoff NHL team

Apr 16, 2026, 11:30 EDTUpdated: Apr 16, 2026, 10:05 EDT

The biggest 2026 offseason need for every non-playoff NHL team

Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Though the NHL’s roundly criticized playoff format failed even to necessitate the 82nd game of the 2025-26 season (which can admittedly alter some matchups but will not change the playoff field) next year, we’ll get to watch 84.

You have to wonder how such a shameless money grab even found its way into the new CBA. Did the NHL Players’ Association even read the thing, or were they just that eager to sign on the dotted line once they realized the rising salary cap allowed their best and brightest to make as much as MLB relief pitchers? It’s another great idea from a league that’s always looking for creative new ways to suck all the magic out of the greatest game on earth.

Oh well. Now that I’m through ranting, let’s get to the one positive of a (mostly) meaningless Game 82: an early opportunity to break down what each vanquished team should be looking for this offseason. Read on for the skinny on the Chicago Blackhawks’ vacancy on Connor Bedard’s wing, the New York Rangers’ long road back to relevance, and more on the 16 clubs that didn’t quite make it to the dance.

Calgary Flames: Trade fodder

You can’t fault the Flames’ commitment to starting over; elder statesmen Mikael Backlund, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Blake Coleman are the only players left from the Darryl Sutter 2.0 era. To the studs, indeed. It could be another few seasons before Calgary reaps the rewards of its rebuild, and more selloffs will take place in the meantime. As it stands, Coleman is the only real asset they’d want to sell, though. Craig Conroy won’t take calls on Flames lifer Backlund or top defenseman Kevin Bahl; no one would take Huberdeau’s contract; and experienced players with term like Zach Whitecloud and Ryan Strome will need to stick around a little while if coach Ryan Huska is going to ice a lineup. Conroy should build out the margins of his roster with expendable vets who can benefit from special teams usage on a bad team and buy him more picks at the deadline. The executive had bad luck with that approach two seasons ago, when Anthony Mantha tore his ACL after only 13 games, but re-upping Victor Olofsson on a one-year pact would be a similar upside play.

Chicago Blackhawks: An impact winger

After giving up the most expected 5-on-5 goals of any team this season by some distance, you might expect the Hawks to try to beef up their defense. They would likely prefer a player or two out of their current D corps, the oldest of whom is 24-year-old Alex Vlasic, to take another step up and lead the group. Instead, expect the Blackhawks to take a serious swing for the sort of top-line winger Connor Bedard has been missing during his young career. They have more good prospects than will ever fit in their lineup on hand to make a deal work, and nabbing a 70-point player to stick next to Bedard could have an explosive effect on Chicago’s offensive ceiling after the wunderkid’s year-three breakout. As a bonus, a new top-line wing would help justify Jeff Blashill’s preference for keeping 32-goal-scorer Tyler Bertuzzi separate from Bedard and in the middle six, where Bertuzzi has already developed significant chemistry with both Frank Nazar and Anton Frondell.

Columbus Blue Jackets: A new set of standards

Rick Bowness is 71 and has a cushy TV gig waiting for him should he choose to re-retire. He doesn’t need to be coaching in 2026. He sure doesn’t need to mince words. “These guys, they don’t care,” Bowness fumed after the already-eliminated Jackets glided through a 2-1 season-ending loss to the Washington Capitals. “If I’m back, I’m changing this culture.” You could almost hear a few thousand Ohioans roar in agreement from beyond the walls of Nationwide Arena. Columbus’s fans can deal with losing (they’ve had to, after all), but it’s the listlessness that’s got them down this year; how can the same team that got off to a screaming 19-3-4 start under its new coach strike out in its last six home games with the playoffs on the line? If Bowness is right, and the Blue Jackets’ problems start between the ears, maybe their long-dreaded UFA exodus will end up being a net positive. Guys like Erik Gudbrandson and Boone Jenner are lauded for their leadership and character, but does this team play like it knows who its leaders are?

Detroit Red Wings: A foil for Steve Yzerman

If the Wings were going to can Steve Yzerman, they’d probably have already done it to avoid giving the Devils and Maple Leafs head starts on their own executive searches. Some combination of Yzerman’s relationship with ownership, his record of success in Tampa, his (increasingly shaky) reputation as a player developer, and the fact that he’s Steve Yzerman seems to have insulated him from the consequences of four straight second-half collapses and the NHL’s longest active playoff drought. As my colleague Hunter Crowther suggested on Monday, the Wings at least need to consider another senior executive who will give Stevie Wonder a fresh perspective on his player valuation (why’d we hear about “untouchables” not named Seider in a trade for Quinn Hughes?) and free agency, where Yzerman has a knack for finding the sort of “[empty] jerseys” coach Todd McLellan has repeatedly called out. Perhaps a new set of eyes à la Jarmo Kekalainen in Buffalo helps the Wings shake something loose.

Florida Panthers: A safety net in goal

Despite their rotten, injury-ravaged season, the Cats don’t have major needs; their 2025 Stanley Cup roster was the most complete in recent memory, and each of Florida’s top-four defensemen and top-six forwards (seven, if you count the contract Brad Marchand is totally going to finish) are locked up through 2030. A rare spring vacation all but ensures the Panthers will be back healthy, dangerous, and insufferable in 2026-27. There is one Stanley Cup hero Bill Zito never got around to extending, though: Hall-of-Fame goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. Zito has stated his interest in keeping ‘Bob’ in Sunrise, but it raises questions when a player just 13 months younger than Hall of Fame-eligible Carey Price labors through a career-worst season (.877 SV%). Backup Daniil Tarasov hasn’t looked like the long-term solution, so a new contingency plan is needed. Could an Anthony Stolarz reunion be in order?

Nashville Predators: Bridge players

Outgoing GM Barry Trotz elicited a collective groan from the Nashville faithful when he explained that he hung up the phone on trade offers for living legend Steven Stamkos and pending UFA Erik Haula, among others, out of respect for the Preds’ “playoff race.” It wasn’t Trotz’s first bizarre decision, but he does leave behind an exciting prospect pool led by promising rookie Matthew Wood (17 G) and OHL standouts Brady Martin and Cameron Reid. There’s also a capable veteran core of Stamkos, enjoying an incredible eighth season above the 40-goal plateau, top center Ryan O’Reilly, and franchise hero Roman Josi. Once and future stars abound in Nashville, but is anyone making a real impact on the NHL roster actually in his prime? Aside from Luke Evangelista (24) and Filip Forsberg (31), not really. This club needs more connective tissue between its two disparate generations, so it would behoove the next man in charge to try out some of the buy-low trades for twenty-somethings that the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins have mastered of late. Sort of like Tommy Novak, who Trotz sent to the Pens in a puzzler last season.

New Jersey Devils: Whole milk

He might have inked high-scoring stars Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt to two of the best value deals in the NHL, but deposed Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald could never keep his books clean. A major payday for Johnny Kovacevic ahead of contract negotiations with Luke Hughes was a particularly puzzling blunder, and the Timo Meier they’ve gotten (28 G, 54 P per 82 GP) in Jersey is not the Timo Meier they’re paying for ($8.8-million AAV). It’s probably going to take a clean break from Dougie Hamilton for the next GM to clean up this cap mess. Fitzgerald was a bad accountant, but he was a decent talent evaluator, and it’s hard to figure out how the team he built on paper has been so consistently lackluster on the ice. Then again, the team he built on paper never seems to make it to the ice. Season after season, the Devils are eviscerated by injuries, especially to the elder Hughes. In 2025-26, Hughes (21 games missed), brother Luke (14), Brett Pesce (45), Stefan Noesen (44), and even talented new Devils’ winger Arseny Gritsyuk (18) fell victim to whatever curse is hanging over the Prudential Center. If these guys can ever stay healthy, maybe ‘Fitz’ will benefit from an after-the-fact re-evaluation.

New York Islanders: Roster spots

General manager Mathieu Darche may have doubled down on his guys with the J-G Pageau extension and a few surprising veteran additions, but the Isles’ late-season collapse doesn’t hurt too bad, big-picture wise; the emergence of young players like Emil Heineman, Cal Ritchie, and, oh yeah, Matthew Schaefer, made 2025-26 a major win for a team that has long needed fresh faces. The next step is to continue the youth movement by having the likes of Cole Eiserman and Victor Eklund join the big club, but where? Lou Lamoriello made some crafty moves on his way out the door, but he also left an awful lot of fat for his successor to trim before Darche further clogged things up with aging Cup winners Brayden Schenn and Ondrej Palat. Darche needs to open some space up for his next wave of prospects and any other acquisitions he makes this summer, but that could be tricky given some of the bad money on the books. Any takers for another two years of frequent scratch Anthony Duclair (19 G in 108 GP for NYI)? What about Pierre Engvall, who played 0 games of professional hockey this season, till … 2030?

New York Rangers: Considerable patience

Having two of the sport’s true game winners, Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin, on the payroll would tempt any GM to try to build another contender around them quickly. That pressure is even greater for Chris Drury, who must feel that acknowledging how broken he has left the team around Fox and Shesterkin could cost him his job. Still, it was Drury’s call to gut the core of his 2023 Presidents’ Trophy winners and two-time conference finalists for pennies on the dollar, and it’s his job, for now, to rebuild from the rubble. That could mean using all seven of his 2026 draft picks in the first three rounds, taking on bad contracts in exchange for futures (NYR will have at least $27 million in cap space), or hitting the phones to gauge interest in coveted second-line center Vincent Trocheck and a resurgent Mika Zibanejad (34 G, 78 P). Whatever Drury does, he must acknowledge that 2026-27 is the start of his publicly announced retool, not the end; his last quick fix, Ranger captain J.T. Miller, is about as popular on Broadway as the Philadelphia Flyers.

San Jose Sharks: Productive defensive minutes

Kiefer Sherwood’s decision to stick around in San Jose, where he, Alex Wennberg, and Tyler Toffoli will continue to serve as veteran mentors for the Sharks’ Macklin Celebrini-led youth brigade, has left GM Mike Grier’s forward group fully stocked up ahead of 2026-27. Their blueline is nowhere near as inspiring. Dmitry Orlov and John Klingberg have probably shown more juice than could have reasonably been expected at the start of the season, but neither should be a top-pairing option at this stage of his career. Sam Dickinson will be that sort of player someday, but he will continue to learn on the job in lighter usage for another season or two. With Celebrini’s MVP-caliber play hastening this rebuild at an unforeseen pace, Grier needs to find someone, anyone who can log 22+ minutes without drowning. Dougie Hamilton, whose contract has become an anchor in New Jersey, is an obvious buy-low option, but Grier might prefer someone who can help both now and later, like, say, California native Cam York (PHI).

Seattle Kraken: New ideas

Does anyone believe Bobby McMann is hitting free agency? Though McMann has been excellent in Seattle (10 G in 17 GP for SEA) since the Toronto Maple Leafs sent him to the Pacific Northwest, he is otherwise perfectly emblematic of the new guys’ typical forward: a hardworking, north-south volume shooter who can fill in on a top line but won’t ever drive the bus himself. That’s not me picking on McMann. He’s a legitimate NHL player with some plus qualities. That could describe most of the Kraken’s roster, but, without a linchpin to tie the whole operation together, they have been worth less than the sum of their parts. Maybe one of Jake O’Brien or Berkly Catton can be that guy, but that’s a lot of pressure to put on two kids who aren’t old enough to have a drink or named Macklin Celebrini. Perhaps with Ron Francis gone, GM Jason Botterill can focus on either making the big swings or taking the steps backward necessary for removing Seattle from the murky middle, where interest in the team has stagnated at warp speed.

St. Louis Blues: Renewed commitment to Robert Thomas

It makes sense that incoming St. Louis GM Alex Steen would want to distinguish himself from Doug Armstrong by making aggressive moves towards a rebuild. Armstrong was always more of a retool guy, perhaps too wrapped up in the memory of the worst-to-first 2019 Cup team Steen played on to know when more drastic measures were needed. If Steen wants the Blues to bottom out, trading away their offensive engine and best player, Thomas, would certainly improve their draft position while returning a haul. Still, the same thinking that kept the Blues from shopping Colton Parayko until recently should apply here: if you trade Thomas, how quickly will you end up needing another player just like him? At a premium position, is there any guarantee you’ll find one? Thomas’s youth, team-friendly contract and apparent willingness to stick it out in St. Louis, where he’s developed serious chemistry with foundational wingers Jimmy Snuggerud and Dylan Holloway (20-5 5-on-5 game score as a line), should make him untouchable. Time will tell if Steen sees things that way.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Speed and skill

Ironic, right? The last time Toronto had a regime change, they thought they needed more heft, more grit, more “snot” (gross), to break through in the postseason. Now, after the hefty, gritty Leafs Brad Treliving built proved too slow and stiff to make the dance in the first place, the Leafs restart once more with a new set of needs. Mitch Marner’s departure left them light in the creativity department beyond William Nylander. There aren’t a ton of blazers in Toronto, either. Nylander can fly, but with Bobby McMann gone, no one on the current roster looks likely to benefit from his rush offense. Jake McCabe is the only member of an ancient defense corps who still moves well. The front office that has made its team younger, quicker, and better in the shortest amount of time is probably in Pittsburgh, where old beau Kyle Dubas has made his case for the Jim Gregory Award as the NHL’s top GM. Could MLSE convince Dubas’s lieutenant, Jason Spezza, who left Toronto in a huff when Dubas and the Leafs parted company, to take over in the big chair?

Vancouver Canucks: A good, old-fashioned house cleaning

Each time I read speculation on what ‘Nucks president Jim Rutherford will do about the future of coach Adam Foote and GM Patrik Allvin, I find myself wondering why that would be Rutherford’s call to make. Was Rutherford on vacation when his front office left Bruce Boudreau flapping in the wind? What about when the Canucks chose J.T. Miller over Bo Horvat and ended up with neither? Rutherford certainly made a point to show up whenever he had a chance to speak with the media. He wouldn’t miss a chance to confirm negative speculation surrounding his club, or to telegraph big moves, like his trades of Horvat, Miller, and Quinn Hughes. A hockey guy from the old school, Rutherford was supposed to restore an air of respectability around Vancouver in the wake of Jim Benning’s disastrous tenure. His Canucks will finish a season that began with playoff hopes with nine home wins, having locked up 32nd place with two weeks remaining. Do they feel respectable? Everything (and everyone) must go, starting at the very top.

Washington Capitals: A (900-goal) sniper

The Caps probably don’t belong on this list; if they weren’t so gung-ho about preparing for life after Ovechkin at the deadline, when they traded away all-time great defenseman John Carlson and all-time great glue guy Nic Dowd, the big man would probably be gearing up for one last dance with Sidney Crosby and the Penguins. The dejected Capitals’ 4-1 loss to the Flyers five days after they moved Carlson ended up being a season-ending four-point swing. Despite the narrow miss, Washington remains the gold standard for retooling on the fly. They’ve hit on reclamation projects (Dubois, Chychrun), they’ve hit on high picks (Ryan Leonard), and they’re even hitting on their pet projects; diminutive Cole Hutson (43rd overall in 2024) and man mountain Ilya Protas (75th) were never supposed to be this good, this fast. Still, if the Caps’ efforts to get younger and better at the same time are all about moving on from ‘Ovi,’ who remains noncommittal about his future, there’s still not a player in the organization who can replace his one-timer threat. Then again, will there ever be?

Winnipeg Jets: A second-line center

The Winnipeg Jets’ quest for a 2C since an errant Nik Ehler’s slapshot ended Bryan Little’s career has been like a Manitoban version of the New York Jets’ search for a quarterback. Vlad Namestnikov, a 33-year-old, seven-team man, filled that role as admirably as he could have on their 2025 Presidents’ Trophy team. Winnipeg’s best attempt at an upgrade on the hardworking Russian ahead of this season was to coax local boy Jonathan Toews out of semi-retirement. Toews’s name value might have put some butts in seats, but he was a 37-year-old man whose two-season hiatus from hockey featured some Dr. Strange-esque dabbling in the world of Eastern medicine. I’m not joking about that last part- that really happened. There are the bones of a good team within the Jets, who still have their best line, top-four defensemen, and MVP goalie from that magical 2024-25 season on the payroll. So what GM Kevin Cheveldayoff really, really needs is a center, any center, who can defend better than 103-point man Mark Scheifele and score more than blood-and-guts captain Adam Lowry. If only Sean Monahan had stayed.

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