Winners and Losers of the 2023 NHL Offseason So Far | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

Dmitry Orlov’s move to Carolina helps make the Hurricanes an offseason winner?Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

We’re just over a week into NHL free agency and that means the NHL offseason is just about done until September.

Listen, those cottages aren’t going to fill themselves. With that in mind, it’s time to take stock of who the winners and losers are.

What makes a winner is signing or trading for the right players for the right price to make an ideal impact on the team. What makes a team a loser is doing exactly the opposite of that or just not doing anything at all while their rivals improved.

The standards are simple, but the arguments are not. Those we expect to be heated and grumpy and reflect how we feel about our favorite teams. And yes, we know there are other moves to be made as summer rolls on, but it’s hard to imagine a move so bold it shakes the very foundation of these choices for winners and losers.

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It’s really hard to argue with the offseason the Devils have had. They were able to get Jesper Bratt and Timo Meier signed to long-term extensions and re-signed Erik Haula for three years. They traded for Tyler Toffoli out of Calgary and Colin Miller from Dallas. They also moved out Mackenzie Blackwood and Damon Severson in separate deals.

New Jersey GM Tom Fitzgerald had a busy few weeks, eh?

The Devils didn’t need to make too many adjustments this offseason. After all, they were one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. They knew Luke Hughes would be a big part of their defense moving forward and Akira Schmid showed during the playoffs he just might be their goalie of the future.

They took advantage of everyone seemingly wanting to get out of Calgary by trading for Toffoli and, no offense to Yegor Sharangovich who went the other way in the trade, that’s a marked upgrade on the wing.

Losing Ryan Graves in free agency could be a tough loss, but considering he got a juicy six-year deal from Pittsburgh, they can live with it and adjust. Trading away Severson, who was about to be a free agent, and adding Miller to give veteran depth helps the Devils maintain defensive depth. They were good last year and they’re set up to be good again next season thanks to a strong offseason.

Will Ryan Reaves be the key to getting the Leafs deeper into the playoffs?Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images

Ah, the Leafs.

They got years of playoff anguish out of their system by beating Tampa Bay in the first round before losing to Florida in the second round. Conventional thinking would say they’d just need a few tweaks and get right back to business.

But after years of always falling short in the postseason, they parted ways with GM Kyle Dubas and brought in Brad Treliving, who decided they needed to get tough.

They signed Ryan Reaves to a three-year contract and gave one-year deals to Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi. Reaves gets all the attention here because he got three years and he’s not there to score goals. He’s there to be great in the room and nasty to opponents on the ice.

Is that an element the Leafs were missing? Yes. Is it something they needed to take another step forward? Not really. On top of the angst those moves caused, William Nylander mentioned he wants $10 million a year on his next contract which fired up a new round of trade speculation. It’s never boring in Toronto.

What Toronto needed to address was depth which, arguably, they did with Domi and Bertuzzi up front, but they’re a team that plays a fast, aggressive attacking game. Adding Reaves doesn’t help there. How Domi and Bertuzzi fit into what the Leafs do will be interesting, but it’s hard to see how they improved enough to go deeper into the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup.

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The Predators’ offseason has been a roller coaster of emotions.

David Poile, who was GM of the team since its inception, stepped down and was replaced by longtime coach Barry Trotz and Trotz came in and cleaned house in his own way. He traded Ryan Johansen to Colorado for essentially cap space since the Preds had no plans to keep UFA Alex Galchenyuk. Trotz wasn’t done with his remodeling, as he bought out Matt Duchene’s final three years of his contract.

Those moves were referred to as part of a “culture change” in Nashville which is…interesting, but it was free agency that helped point towards the direction they’re looking to go.

The Preds signed Ryan O’Reilly and Luke Schenn away from Toronto, extended Cody Glass who was coming off a breakout season and added Gustav Nyquist from Minnesota to surround their young/NHL inexperienced roster.

The Predators were able to drag themselves into the playoff race late in the year (thanks, Juuse Saros) and that was without Johansen and Filip Forsberg because of injuries. If things break right in the West, they might be able to sneak in. That’s where these signings come in.

Nashville is in a transition of sorts and with their lean towards their younger guys, bringing in guys known for being great in the room and solid on the ice made all the sense in the world. O’Reilly and Schenn are those guys.

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The New York Islanders’ season didn’t exactly scream as one where you want to run it back with the same roster, but GM Lou Lamoriello feels differently.

The Islanders doubled down and committed long-term to four players: Ilya Sorokin, Scott Mayfield, Pierre Engvall and Semyon Varlamov. The eight-year, $66 million extension for Sorokin stands out as a really good move considering he’s one of the best goalies in the NHL and the Isles’ success seems to hinge upon him. Teams paying a lot for a goalie for a long time doesn’t happen often, but for a guy as good as Sorokin, we’ll give it a pass.

But…the seven-year deals for Engvall ($21 million) and Mayfield ($24.5 million) and a four-year $11 million contract for 35-year-old Varlamov are major head-scratchers. Sure, the cap hits for all three aren’t bad, but the years on all of them are just so against the norm. Adding years to knock down the cap hit is a classic GM move, but those kinds of deals usually go for top players and not support guys. Again, not against guys getting paid and having security, it’s just deeply unexpected.

The Islanders are trying to keep up with Carolina, New Jersey and the Rangers within the division and Tampa Bay, Florida, Toronto and Boston in the East. Their only additions outside of last year’s team are Karson Kuhlman, Julien Gauthier and Brian Pinho. It’s hard to see them leaping over the top teams, although their frustrating brand of hockey can upend things in the playoffs if they get there.

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Carolina was one of the top teams in the league last season and they made it to the Eastern Conference Final without Andrei Svechnikov before losing to Florida.

He’ll be back and he’ll have Dmitry Orlov and Michael Bunting to make their team even deeper and even better.

We took the Islanders to task for running it back with a team that fell short in the playoffs, but Carolina doing it with their group makes way more sense. They brought back Jesper Fast along with both goaltenders Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta. The latter part is a bit debatable considering they’ve got Pyotr Kochetkov waiting in the wings to take over the net eventually, but the results from last season are impossible to ignore.

The addition of Orlov makes their blue-line group even better when it was already one of the best in the league. Sure, they’re trying to figure out what to do with Brett Pesce who’s going to be a free agent next summer, but Orlov gives them another puck mover who can score.

Bunting provides an irritating presence for opponents with his work around the net and physical play. That’s something Carolina didn’t have and should they run up against Matthew Tkachuk in the postseason again, they’ll have their own brand of player that makes everyone mad.

Carolina didn’t have to do a lot to work on their team and made the necessary moves to improve in areas they felt needed a little juice (or the same juice when it’s goaltending).

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The Los Angeles Kings’ offseason is one to put a star on to remember everything that went down depending on how things turn out because they made bold moves and going bold means you either wind up looking like a genius or a fool.

The Kings parted with three players, two of them younger players, to add Pierre-Luc Dubois from Winnipeg in a sign-and-trade deal. Dubois arrives in Hollywood with an eight-year, $68 million deal and the need to become the No. 2 center who will eventually be the No. 1.

L.A. sent stud winger Alex Iafallo, prospects Gabriel Vilardi and Rasmus Kupari and a 2024 second round pick to get Dubois. Vilardi is coming off a breakout season and Kupari is on his way up in the NHL world. It’s a stiff price to pay for a player that’s grumbled his way out of his previous stops in Columbus and Winnipeg.

But wait, there’s more.

Goaltending was an issue last season, one which L.A. traded for Joonas Korpisalo to try and fix for the rest of the season, which he mostly did. Korpisalo got a deal from Ottawa they couldn’t keep up with and they filled that hole in goal with Cam Talbot…who was with the Senators last season and struggled. Going into next season having a strong lineup with Talbot and Pheonix Copley in net is risky as anything.

Those moves on top of sending Sean Durzi to Arizona for a 2024 second round pick and then helping the Flyers broker money in the Ivan Provorov trade to Columbus and sending them three players and a pick in the process highlight how much Kings management believes their window to win another Cup is now. These bold moves better pay off or else the 2023 summer will have bad memories attached to it.