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Ottawa Citizen
3 days ago
- Sport
- Ottawa Citizen
Cowan: Will Canadiens follow Panthers' roster-building blueprint?
Now that the Florida Panthers have been crowned Stanley Cup champs for the second straight season, the focus will switch to the June 27-28 NHL Entry Draft in Los Angeles. Article content There will be no shortage of mock drafts and prospect analysis until then, and Montreal fans will be wondering whether the Canadiens will keep their two first-round picks (Nos. 16 and 17) or look to trade them to fill the second-line centre hole and/or add some experience on defence. The Canadiens hold 10 other picks at the draft — two in the second, three in the third, two in the fourth and one in the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds. Article content Article content 'As somebody that has a long history with the draft, would I like more draft picks right now?' Jeff Gorton, the executive vice-president (hockey operations) asked after the Canadiens were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Washington Capitals. 'You always want more … more swings at it during the draft.' Article content Article content Gorton could have accumulated more draft picks if he had traded players eligible to become unrestricted free agents on July 1 — including Jake Evans (who was re-signed), Christian Dvorak, Joel Armia and David Savard (now retired) — but decided to keep them all, figuring they would give the Canadiens a better chance of making the playoffs. Article content Gorton was right and the experience young players gained in the playoffs is something you can't buy. Article content 'If we would have traded some of the players we were talking about trading, I don't think we would have made it,' Gorton said. 'So there's no regrets.' Article content Article content With all that in mind, it's interesting to note that only four Florida players were selected by the Panthers at the draft — all in the first round. Article content Captain Aleksander Barkov was the No. 2 overall pick at the 2013 draft, defenceman Aaron Ekblad was the No. 1 pick in 2014, Anton Lindell was No. 12 in 2020 and Mackie Samoskevich was No. 24 in 2021. Samoskevich only played in four playoff games. Of the other 19 Panthers to play at least one playoff game, 11 were signed as free agents, seven were acquired via trade and one was claimed off waivers. Article content
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Could Bruins trade first-round pick?
BOSTON — For the first time in Don Sweeney's tenure, the Bruins own a Top 10 selection in the NHL Entry Draft. Boston is slated to pick No. 7 overall, their highest draft choice since drafting Tyler Seguin (No. 2) in 2010. Advertisement However, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll stay there. During Marco Sturm's introductory press conference on Tuesday morning, Sweeney left the possibility of a trade wide open. 'We've been an aggressive organization, whether or not you want to point out fault in regard to trying to win and accomplish the ultimate goal. That's what we're here for,' Sweeney said. 'So we will use the draft capital and try and improve our hockey club this year and moving forward in every capacity possible. It might be making the selection, but it won't mean that we aren't having conversations that say, 'How do we improve our hockey club today and moving forward.'' Sweeney's trade deadline fire sale has Boston's draft arsenal well stocked. In addition to No. 7 overall, the Bruins have an extra second-round pick this year, an extra first-round pick in 2026, and another future first-rounder in either 2027 or 2028. Advertisement Here's how Boston's draft picks look in the next three drafts: 2025 1st round (BOS) 2nd round (STL) Trent Frederic trade 2nd round (CAR) Charlie Coyle trade 3rd round (BOS) 4th round (PHI) Brandon Carlo trade 5th round (BOS) 6th round (BOS) 7th round (BOS) 2026 1st round (BOS) 1st round (TOR) Brandon Carlo trade 2nd round (BOS) 3rd round (BOS) 4th round (BOS) 6th round (BOS) 7th round (BOS) 2027 1st round (BOS) 1st round (FLA*) Brad Marchand trade *Top 10 protected, can also become 2028 1st if Florida trades 2026 1st ahead of 2025 NHL Draft 2nd round (BOS) 4th round (BOS) 5th round (BOS) 6th round (BOS) 7th round (BOS) More Bruins content Read the original article on MassLive.
New York Times
12-06-2025
- Business
- New York Times
What is the trade value of Vancouver's 2025 first-round NHL Draft pick?
The Vancouver Canucks intend to swing the bat this offseason. The roster needs a significant freshening up after a dismal, drama-plagued campaign saw the club miss the Stanley Cup playoffs and trade their top centre in-season. The franchise sits at a major fork in the road with an underachieving core group that will enter next season with a lot to prove, and surrounded by a ton of uncertainty about its future. Advertisement Fireworks shouldn't just be expected to pop off above Griffiths Way this summer; they're almost certainly required if this hockey club is going to protect its future and salvage an era of Canucks hockey that once seemed so promising. In considering Vancouver's options this offseason, one asset looms especially large as potential trade asset weaponry: the club's 2025 first-round pick, which sits at No. 15 in the draft order. Given the club's short-term priorities and their Les Snead-like organizational track record, the No. 15 pick feels like a gimme to be dealt before Vancouver makes a selection at the decentralized 2025 NHL Entry Draft, to be held in Los Angeles June 27-28. That is why, in a recent The Athletic staff mock draft, we just projected a trade rather than have Vancouver make a draft selection. Given the widespread expectation — held both by us and the industry at large — that Vancouver is more likely than not to utilize the pick to bolster their roster, we figured we'd best give the buying power of this central asset more thought and attention. We built a data set, based on 10 years' worth of draft trades, to try and enhance our understanding of how valuable a middle-of-the-order first-round pick on the trade market has been, historically. So what should Vancouver be able to acquire with their first-round pick? First-round picks move relatively frequently on the NHL trade market. They're a standard form of currency, the de facto coin of the realm, utilized as a major or major secondary asset in all sorts of trades. For our purposes, we want to set up parameters in parsing the history of NHL trades that are roughly analogous to the Canucks' situation while also having a big enough data set to create some meaningful takeaways from this exercise. In order to try and get some sense of what the No. 15 pick should be worth on the trade market, we've decided to look at NHL trades over the past 10 years that prominently featured first-round picks between 11th and 20th. We wanted to cast something of a wider net downstream of the 15th selection while keeping the parameter really tight as the draft order inches closer to the top 10. Advertisement This is because expected draft value typically falls very quickly at the outset of the NHL Entry Draft and then flattens out somewhat. As a result, the value of the 10th pick tells us marginally less about what we can expect the value of the 15th than the value of the 20th pick, given expected draft pick value. We also wanted to exclude certain types of transactions for the sake of simplicity, and to keep this exercise as straightforward and true to life as possible to the situation that Vancouver finds itself in ahead of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft. For example, if Vancouver moves their pick, it's going to be to acquire win-now help. As such, we're not quite as interested in the exchange value of the No. 15 pick from the perspective of trading down at the NHL Entry Draft, to maximize aggregate draft capital. Trades that don't feature an active NHL-level player (or promising prospect) won't be included in our data set as a result. There are a couple of other sorts of deals that we're going to exclude here. Somewhat frequently, picks in this range of the first round are moved as part of deals at the trade deadline that fall into a classic 'buyers chasing playoff success' pattern that we often see from NHL teams. If Vancouver moves their pick, it won't be in this type of deal. And anyway, the trade value of win-now players at the NHL trade deadline is usually inflated, and considering them here doesn't really help us understand what teams would part with in the weeks leading up to the draft to acquire the 15th selection. Deals of this sort, or deals where the pick was acquired 12 months (or more) ahead of time, have been excluded from this sample. There is one more somewhat common variety of trade that pops up when you analyze the recent history of mid-first-round draft picks: the in-season trade that doesn't really fall into the classic trade deadline buy/sell bucket. Advertisement Usually, these sorts of deals occur in midseason and involve a player who either has term remaining on their deal, or are otherwise viewed by the team acquiring them as 'long-term fits.' The 2023 No. 17 pick that moved twice, for example, from the New York Islanders to the Canucks and then from Vancouver to Detroit while as the principal asset that sent Bo Horvat to Long Island and Filip Hronek to Vancouver, are two examples of this sort of trade. For now, we'll also exclude this variety of deal from our analysis. In-season trades necessarily are governed by different dynamics, given the relative dearth of teams with cap space during the campaign, and we're really focused on trying to get a better feel for the purchasing power of Vancouver's 2025 pick in the period leading up to and during the NHL Entry Draft itself. With those qualifiers out of the way, we're left with nine examples of pre-draft trades that included mid-first-round picks based on our definition and returned active players ahead of or during the NHL Entry Draft: Now that we've laid out our data set, let's go over some key takeaways to be aware of in evaluating the exchange value of picks like Vancouver's 2025 first-rounder. The first thing that jumps off the page when we consider these nine trades and the patterns that exist within this data set is that in every single relevant, comparable deal the team acquiring the more established, proven player had to include additional assets beyond the mid-first-round pick in the trade. A pick in the middle of the first-round draft order can serve as the centrepiece asset of a trade for a good young player and often has over the past decade, but over the past 10 years, we haven't seen a pick within range of Vancouver's No. 15 selection be utilized straight up to acquire a proven commodity NHL-level talent. While there isn't much in the way of a clear positional trend that we can pick out of this data set — there are several prime aged forwards, and several good young defenders that were acquired for packages built largely around mid first-round picks in our sample of trades — it seems notable that the only nominal centre in our dataset is Kirby Dach. And at the time of the trade, Dach had just completed his age-21 campaign and had yet to hit more than 10 goals or 30 points in a single season. Advertisement Across the past decade of NHL trade activity, there isn't really an example of a team trading an asset like Vancouver's 2025 pick and returning an established centre in the transaction. Given that a 'top two-line centre' is the Canucks' greatest need this offseason, that isn't an especially promising historical truth. In all likelihood, if history is any guide, the No. 15 pick won't be sufficient to land the centre ice help that Vancouver craves this summer. Across our data set, there are two primary profiles that the primary targets acquired by teams hawking mid-first-round picks on the trade market fit into. The first profile is the young up-and-coming player who has usually played through their entry-level contract. This is a label that rather neatly matches nearly half of the main target players in our dataset (Reinhart, Dach, Romanov, Hamilton). The second profile that pops up in these deals is the more obviously established, about-to-be-extension-eligible player in their mid-20s. This label applies neatly to the four remaining names in our data set (Lucic, Trouba, Ristolainen and Fiala). In all of these cases, it had become apparent that the team in question would have difficulty retaining the player for personal reasons or cap/financial ones, necessitating something of a hard pivot by their current team. With both profiles, it seems, cap and financial dynamics — and the pressure point of either negotiating a second contract, or buying unrestricted free agent years when a player is about to become eligible to hit the open market — rather clearly seem to shape which players tend to move in these sorts of trades. There's a lesson in that, perhaps, in that it might help us understand which sorts of players might be available to Vancouver in a trade involving the Canucks' 2025 first-round pick in the weeks ahead. A player like Minnesota Wild centre Marco Rossi, for example, would fit into the category of a player coming off his entry-level deal and in need of a significant raise. A player like Anaheim Ducks forward Trevor Zegras or Dallas Stars winger Jason Robertson, on the other hand, would fit in the latter category of a player approaching extension eligibility and the age at which NHL players become eligible for unrestricted free agency. Finally, we have one last player profile that doesn't fit neatly into the other obvious categories, the sore thumb trade in our sample: the Kasperi Kapanen deal. Kapanen was 23 years old at the time of this trade and one full season into a second contract bridge deal when the Pittsburgh Penguins reacquired him from the Toronto Maple Leafs in late August of 2020. The date there tells the entire story: Kapanen's bridge deal was signed in a world where the Maple Leafs and general manager Kyle Dubas would've reasonably expected the salary cap to rise on an annual basis, and the trade occurred just a few months after the imposition of the NHL's flat cap era, when it was clear that salary cap austerity would shape the league for the next several seasons. Advertisement The Kapanen deal is, in some ways, a relic of a moment and time. A trade shaped by factors that we aren't likely to see repeated this summer, given the historic cap growth that the NHL is projecting for next season (and for two seasons beyond that). It is nonetheless a trade that sticks out in this data set as especially instructive from a Canucks perspective. The deal was completed, after all, on the Pittsburgh Penguins side by current Canucks president Jim Rutherford during his time as Pittsburgh's general manager. (Top photo of Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Bruins coaching rumors: Another finalist named in search
The Boston Bruins are narrowing down candidates to be their next coach, and another finalist has entered the mix. Jay Leach had an in-person interview at Warrior Ice Arena and is finalist for the position, a league source told The Athletic's Fluto Shinzawa on Thursday. Advertisement Leach was an assistant coach for the Bruins last season and was in charge of defense. Before that, he spent three years with the Seattle Kraken after he was coach of the Providence Bruins for four seasons. Boston's defense allowed 3.30 goals per game in 2024-25 — which was 26th in the NHL. The Bruins were without Hampus Lindholm for much of the season due to a knee injury, and Charlie McAvoy missed the second half with an AC joint injury. Both players are expected to be healthy for training camp. Ontario Reign coach and former Bruins forward Marco Sturm and Washington Capitals assistant Mitch Love are also finalists. The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta added that former Edmonton Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft is also among those still in contention. Joe Sacco, who took over as interim coach after Jim Montgomery was fired, was originally in the mix, but it's unclear where things stand with him. Advertisement General manager Don Sweeney told the Boston Herald's Steve Conroy that he expects to have a coach in place 'well before' the NHL Entry Draft, which begins on June 27. More Bruins content Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Boston Bruins general manager provides coaching search update
The Bruins' search for a new coach is underway and it appears they've narrowed down their list. In a phone conversation with the Boston Herald's Steve Conroy, general manager Don Sweeney confirmed he was no longer waiting on candidates who are still coaching in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Advertisement That seemingly would eliminate Dallas Stars assistant Misha Donskov, who was a popular name in rumors. Sweeney added that the Bruins expect to have a coach 'well before' the NHL Entry Draft in June. While the GM didn't name who was in Boston's search, he confirmed the team spoke to Rick Tocchet — who signed with the Philadelphia Flyers. In April, Sweeney said that waiting for permission to speak with potential candidates in the playoffs could present challenges. Joe Sacco was named interim coach in November after the Bruins fired Jim Montgomery. He went 25-30-7 and while Boston missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016, Sacco was put in a tough position that only got tougher after the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off and the trade deadline. Advertisement The Bruins struggled to find consistency and los Charlie McAvoy to an AC joint injury and infection he suffered in the February tournament. This was in addition to dealing with Hampus Lindholm's knee injury that sidelined him for most of last season. Then Boston traded Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo and Charlie Coyle. Sacco's effort with the roster he had in front of him didn't go unnoticed by president Cam Neely. He's among the candidates, as is Bruins assistant Jay Woodcroft. More Bruins content Read the original article on MassLive.
