Not a particularly (W)ild free agency

 The trade deadline and July 1st offer hockey fans an incredible burst of transaction activity that you don't particularly see anywhere else in sports. Hockey rosters are ever in flux, and at this point, a certain subset of fans are braced and excited for that chaos every year. 

But this year, what happened? You can look at a couple of the biggest names as of late June and get a pretty good idea of the situation. Mitch Marner was traded on the 30th of June before signing an extension with his new team, the Golden Knights. Brock Boeser just signed himself a 7 year deal with his current and former team, the Vancouver Canucks. 

This is a perfect example of a good problem, though. Teams have more room, so they are able to spend more money to keep their own. Boeser didn't mind Vancouver, so he stayed. Marner didn't care to spend more time in Toronto, and the Leafs made sure to get something in return. Neither needed to hit the open market because everyone has the ability to add players. There wasn't a particularly great need for Marner because nobody was looking to replace their top players.

This was a real let down for a team like the Wild (my team of choice) who has been in cap hell for years since jettisoning Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. They were supposed to be in a great position to start adding to a young and developing roster, but now, there just wasn't that much out there to attract them, nothing that was going to substantially improve the roster immediately or in the near future. 

This is a blip, though, and not a symptom of the way things will always be. It is great news for players, because with a larger cap, teams will start paying them more. Eventually, the contracts in effect right now will expire, and expectations for those players is that they should make more money as well. Teams will spend nearer to their cap again, and more players will be forced into free agency to seek the best deal they can get.

But this year, I give you permission to stop refreshing SportsNet's free agency tracker. Stop refreshing the SportsNet tracker and enjoy your weekend. 

You two again?

 

As I noted earlier, we are seeing a lot of familiarity late in the playoffs this year, including a rematch of last year's finals. The Panthers avoided an inauspicious place in history, after watching the Oilers nearly win the Cup after Florida was initially up 3-0, and now we know the 2025 series probably won't ever hold a candle to last year. 

It will still be good, however.

These are two evenly matched teams, as proven by last year's Final, and are clearly familiar with each other as well. There will be no feeling each other out, no surprises and no punches pulled. Game one went to overtime this time around. No 8-1 games here, not in 2025. Both teams know the stakes. 

And I can't reiterate this enough. These teams really know each other. Since the beginning of the 2024 Finals, the Oilers have played the Panthers more than three times than they have played the Calgary Flames. By the end of the month, they will probably be at 4 times, but probably 5 times as many.

If you've ever wondered if there was any reason, beyond the obvious trophy hunt, these playoff series seem to have an edge. That's why. Familiarity breeds contempt. The Oilers play the Panthers more than the Flames. The Panthers play the Oilers more than the Lightning. 

This is the NHL's most active rivalry in 2025.

Total Eclipse of the Splash

 

You know what? The Utah Mammoth announced their new nickname within the last few weeks, and the franchise has already moved on. A good franchise recognizes that while a new name is fun, it's the hockey that is important. Good for you, Utah Mammoth, for not being self indulgent and sticking to the hockey. 

The name is fine.

The more things change...

Hockey seems like the kind of sport where truly anything can happen. The game is in constant motion, it's played on ice and uses a curved stick with a round pick in an oval rink. At the professional level, it's rare to find one uniting language that every member of a line speaks. Of all games, it seems like one at which "luck" should play an outsized role. 

If not luck, then the extended grind of the season and playoffs should ensure a bit of change from year to year. The salary cap, too, prevents the teams at the top for keeping all of the best players forever. The salary cap are there for parity, and definitely not an excuse for owners to save a few bucks.

It's hard to repeat, and the game is simply more vulnerable to chance than other sports played in North America, especially at an elite level where the top talent to the bottom isn't so dissimilar. Half the league makes the post season every year, which further brings about the potential for chaos. A long season helps sort teams out a little bit, but that often gets thrown out the window in a short series.

With all that chaos and room for drama cooked into every season, every Stanley Cup Playoff, you might reasonably expect to be surprised all the time. Despite these headwinds against predictability, however, both the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers have returned to their respective conference finals. Heck, the Oilers are even playing the Stars again, just like last year's WCF.

It's a testament to the depth and talent in Edmonton, Florida and Dallas, surely. It's hard to reach this level consistently, which is why -- Hold on, I'm being told that this is actually Florida's third trip to the ECF in a row? And before that the Lightning made the Stanley Cup Final three year in a row? And before that, in '16 and '17 the Penguins won the Cup in back to back years? And before that, the Cup was just handed back and forth between the Kings and the Blackhawks? 

So there is actually quite a lot of precedent for a team to be strong enough to return to the Finals every year, despite all we hear about luck and the challenge of sustaining relevance. And further, there are teams like the Maple Leafs, who have consistently been unable to win the Stanley Cup in nearly 60 years, or the Wild who have busted out of the first round in the playoffs 8 times in the past 10 years. How do you explain that level of consistency from the other end? Why are the Hurricanes going to lose in the Eastern Conference Finals again?! 

For all the luck, all the team turnover and all the variance we expect from teams playing throughout the year, the NHL is stratified. I'm sorry, this just means that the Maple Leafs are never winning the Cup again.

Jim Hiller keeps his job

 

Jim Hiller, the only former member of the Milano Vipers to currently coach an NHL team, has been allowed to keep his job in a fairly unlikely confluence of circumstances. Todd MacLellan was fired last year, and Hiller was installed initially as an interim coach. Somehow, against all odds, his half season of work earned him the 25-26 coaching job. The Kings were better than they were last year (they won 2 games against the Oilers in the first round of the Playoffs instead of one). After this season, GM Rob Blake and the Kings went their own way and Ken Holland was installed as the new coach. An interim coach has only a tenuous grasp on a head coaching job, and one who sees a change at the top even less so. And yet, Hiller is still sticking around, despite a short resume and the mildest of success. Why? Allow me to take a quote out of context and clip it so it's the funniest part, when taken by itself. "He'll be a better coach next year"

Optimism!

The wrong end of a loaded cannon

 Brad Marchand had a bad reputation as a junior player. He was difficult to deal with both for opponents and in some cases with his own teammates. This wasn't some sort of tough guy on ice persona. He'd always been an angry kid, and to his credit has been meeting therapists for much of his life. 

Over the long arc of his lifetime, it's been beneficial, undoubtedly, otherwise he would have stopped using that resource, but in the crucial development times of junior hockey, Marchand saw himself traded twice, ending up with his hometown Halifax by the time he was ready to turn professional. 

Halifax reached the Finals of the QMJHL playoff in his final year in juniors, and after being a bit too much for the coach, he was a healthy scratch in Game 4, the clinching game, which really must have irked the already angry kid from Halifax who had proven to be an important scorer in his time with not only Halifax, but with Moncton and Val d'Or as well.

And then, to add insult to injury, after the playoffs were over, the Bruins, the team in the NHL that owned his rights, told him to go ahead and spend the winter in Halifax, and come show up for camp in the fall. Marchand came to the Bruins pissed off. Well, even more pissed off than usual, and that irritation and aggression has been slowly leaching off of him for years with verbal and physical jobs, scraps and bring a general nuisance to opponents. Which is good. The Bruins weren't bothered him, and against all odds, he was in the Boston system for 15+ years.

Now that we have Marchand's background, and know that whatever problems he has had have been with him for his entire life, and he is constantly working on himself. That said, I can't tell you what Toronto ever did to him

Total Eclipse of the Splash

 

Man, times change, huh? It's been 25 years since the Bruins picked in the lottery, which is incredible. After such a long run of success, one has to believe that they felt like nothing went right for them this year. It's hard for them, in a way things haven't been challenging in a long time. Sheesh, they couldn't even move up in the lottery this year.