MTPS: NHL Free Agency Winners, Losers, and WTF's
Over $650 million spent on Day 1 of NHL free agency, and not all of it wisely. From Drury’s big day to baffling deals in LA and Edmonton, here’s who won, lost, and completely lost the plot.
It is July 1, 2025, 7:13 p.m. EST, to be precise. As of right now there have been 106 contracts signed in NHL free agency, totaling $652.7 million. Not all of that was money well spent. In fact, some of the deals and trades were so bad you can almost picture fans having this conversation with their teams’ owners about their general manager…
Like Jacques Cousteau, let’s dive right in…
Winners
New York Rangers
Let’s get this out of the way right now: Chris Drury’s tenure as president and general manager of the Rangers has been bumpy at times. But this was, without a doubt, his very best day on the job. He signed Vladislav Gavrikov for less money than worse players were getting (yeah, I’m looking at you Ivan Provorov), and turned K’Andre Miller into one elite prospect, a first round pick and a second round pick in the 2026 Draft. There was also the two-year contract for Will Cuylle at a very reasonable $3.9 million per year, and the sneaky-good signing of Taylor Raddysh, a quality depth option, for two years at $1.5 million per year.
That’s a tidy bit of work right there, and my guess is he’s not done. Puckpedia shows the Rangers with $1.4 million in remaining cap space, but that also includes some players who will not be on the 23-man roster. Would it surprise anyone to see the Rangers now flip Urho Vaakenainan and his $1.5 million salary to add another forward (Anthony Mantha)? None of this makes up for some of the bad moves he's made or will make in the future. But that’s a conversation for another day, though. Today is about what Drury did on this day, and what he did is gooooooooood.
*The one caveat I will put on this is: While the return for Miller was objectively great, and the contract for Gavrikov was fantastic relative to both his ability and the contracts given out to other players, the reason any of this happened is because the Rangers totally and completely failed in their development of K'Andre Miller. Here you have a freakishly gifted young man with the athletic profile of a top pair defenseman and the Rangers couldn't make it work because of serially inept coaching. The Rangers did a phenomenal job salvaging a bad situation, but it was a bad situation largely of their own making.
The 2026 Florida Panthers
The Panthers were a dominant playoff team and, to date, the only player they’ve lost is a third-pair defenseman in Nate Schmidt (whom they aptly replaced with veteran defenseman Jeff Petry). It’s not without its cost, though. To keep the band together, Bill Zito handed out a bunch of long-term, big-money deals, that are probably not going to age well. That starts with six years for the 37-year old Brad Marchand. But, that’s a problem for another time, and perhaps another GM. For the upcoming season, the Florida Panthers get to run it back and go for the three-peat.
