Story Archive

The Canadiens' 106-point breakout was the feel-good story of the season. But at 5-on-5 they were a bottom-third team that won on unsustainable shooting and goaltending. The young core is real. The record wasn't.

Chicago just extended Connor Bedard as he heads for shoulder surgery. His points keep climbing, but three years in, one underlying number says the franchise player hasn't arrived where it matters most.

The romantic wants the Chicago reunion. The numbers say Patrick Kane, at 37, is still a real top-six player - and that's exactly why he shouldn't waste it on a rebuild. Why Buffalo is the fit where the heart and the head finally agree.

His save percentage fell off a cliff - .925 to .895 in a year. But the expected-goals math flips the story: elite on the hard shots, leaky on the easy ones, buried in volume behind a broken team. What the numbers really say about the best goalie on the market.

The NHL just expanded to 84 games for the first time in three decades. The official line is "more hockey for the fans." It's really about revenue - and it comes at a cost to bodies and the record book.

Steve Yzerman just stepped down as Red Wings GM - with his captain asking out and the rebuild stuck. Where that leaves Dylan Larkin, and why he may be stuck in Detroit longer than he wanted.

The reflex take is that $18M for a 67-point player is an overpay. The underlying numbers - a 55% on-ice expected-goals share at 20, an elite power play, penalties drawn - tell a more interesting story.

The new NHL 27 cover athlete scored 115 points at 19 - and San Jose now has to pay him, possibly more than anyone in hockey. Inside Macklin Celebrini's record-setting extension question.

The reigning Hart winner is coming off a down year, on a team that collapsed from the Presidents' Trophy to the lottery - and he's made clear he wants a change. Inside the Connor Hellebuyck trade situation, the suitors, and what a deal would cost.

Seven benches turned over this offseason - Babcock's controversial return, a fired-then-hired domino from LA to Toronto, and a Vancouver promotion with a family twist. Every new NHL head coach, and the job each one is walking into.

The Cup champion, a healthy dynasty ready to reload, and a McDavid team that finally fixed its net. After a franchise-altering offseason of trades, the draft and free agency, here's where all 32 NHL teams stand entering 2026-27.

Philadelphia tried to steal a 21-year-old franchise centre with a poison-pill offer sheet. Anaheim matched it - and took on the largest cap hit in the NHL. Inside the boldest gambit of the offseason and who actually won it.

The salary cap leapt to $104M, but the biggest money never hit the open market - it went to extensions. San Jose spent big around Celebrini, Toronto rebuilt its crease, and the Kings quietly bargain-hunted their way through a thin class. Who won July 1.

A generational talent went first to the team that collapsed to get him. San Jose stockpiled three first-rounders. Minnesota drafted three players all weekend. Here's how all 32 teams did at the 2026 Draft.

McTavish to St. Louis. Peterka to Boston. Nurse's $9.25M gone. Thirty-nine trades reshaped the league in two weeks - here's every one that matters, graded on paper before a single puck drops.

Four goalies, an emergency trade, a first-round exit. Then, in nine days, Stan Bowman hired Mike Babcock, moved Darnell Nurse's $9.25M, and rebuilt the crease around a Cup-winning goalie. Edmonton finally attacked the right problems.

The season is over and the Cup has a name on it. So we went back through the year's biggest trades - summer blockbusters and deadline dice-rolls - and graded them the only way that counts: by what actually happened.

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When the Carolina Hurricanes acquired Logan Stankoven from Dallas at the 2025 trade deadline, the immediate reaction across the league was measured skepticism. A year and a half later, after Carolina's Stanley Cup victory, the trade deserves a closer look at what the underlying numbers actually show

The 2025-26 NHL regular season is complete. Sixteen teams are in. Sixteen are out. The Colorado Avalanche finished first overall with 121 points. The Vancouver Canucks finished last with 58. Between those two extremes sits the most interesting question in hockey right now: what do these final standi

Vegas fired Cassidy with eight games left, went 7-0-1 under Tortorella, signed Carter Hart who went 6-0-0 at .930, watched Mitch Marner lead the playoffs with 21 points in 16 games, swept the 121-point Avalanche in the WCF, and lost the Stanley Cup Final to Carolina in six.

Colorado's 121-point Presidents' Trophy season had everything: MacKinnon's historic even-strength production, Landeskog's return, the Jennings Trophy, and a WCF sweep shaped by injuries to Makar and MacKinnon.

The Hurricanes swept their first two opponents to go 8-0, responded to losing ECF Game 1 with four straight, and to losing SCF Game 1 with five of the next six. Ehlers was the offseason's best signing. Stankoven was the trade that reshaped the franchise. Bussi stopped Marner's penalty shot and shut out Vegas in Game 6. Brind'Amour, who raised the Cup as Carolina's captain in 2006, raised it again as their coach.

The preseason over-under was 91.5 points. They scored 106. Caufield's 50, Suzuki's 100, two Game 7 wins, and a 5-2 win in Raleigh against the eventual champions. The rebuild arrived three years early.

Sixteen wins, three losses, one Stanley Cup. The complete, game-by-game record of how Rod Brind'Amour, Jordan Staal and Brandon Bussi led Carolina to the 2026 Cup, twenty years after the first.

Buffalo broke a 14-year drought, won 109 points and the Atlantic Division, and lost Game 7 of the second round to Montreal in overtime. Dahlin's Norris-and-Masterton season, Samuelsson's +41, the 10-game streak, and the goaltending decision that defined the summer.

Kaprizov passed Gaborik as the franchise goals leader in 121 fewer games. Boldy scored 42 and won Olympic gold. Quinn Hughes arrived from Vancouver and led the team in assists. Eleven years of first-round exits ended in Game 6 against Dallas. Then Minnesota led Game 5 in Colorado 3-0 entering the third, and the season was over an hour later.

Anaheim hadn't played a playoff game since 2018. Quenneville returned to the NHL. Gauthier scored 41 goals. The Ducks eliminated the defending Western champions in Round 1, then lost to Vegas with an 0-for-11 power play. Fifteen players got their first taste of the playoffs. The drought is over.

The preseason over-under was 84.5 points. They finished with 98. Beat Pittsburgh as 3.8% favourites. Swept by the eventual Cup champion Hurricanes in Round 2. The biggest single-season turnaround in the East. The Michkov question defines the summer.

Anze Kopitar's final NHL season ended in a Colorado sweep. Five straight first-round exits. Hiller fired in March. Kempe signed eight years, Panarin arrived, and a franchise must decide what comes next.

Nikita Kucherov scored 130 points. Andrei Vasilevskiy was a Vezina finalist. Tampa won 50 games. In Game 7 they outshot Montreal 29-9 and lost 2-1 on two deflection goals - the fourth straight first-round exit. Kucherov has never scored in any Game 7 of his career.

Third in the NHL. Third consecutive 50-win season. Robertson and Johnston the first teammates in franchise history to each score 40+. Then a six-game first-round loss to Minnesota with one goal from Rantanen and three from the rest of the forwards.

The Penguins returned to the playoffs after four years out, scored 288 goals (3rd in the NHL), and nearly completed an impossible 0-3 comeback against the Flyers. The summer that follows is the most consequential since Crosby signed his first contract.

Last in the East a year ago, back in the playoffs this year. Swayman a Vezina finalist. Nine playoff debutants. McAvoy played through a broken hand. And 0-3 at TD Garden when it counted.

138 points and a sixth Art Ross for McDavid. 1,000 career points and 14 missed games for Draisaitl. Four goalies. Both stars injured. Anaheim PP 50%. Knoblauch fired. The Edmonton question, one year older.

Year One as the Utah Mammoth: franchise records in wins, points, and points percentage. Guenther 40 goals. Vejmelka 38 wins. A first home playoff win at the Delta Center, and six games against the eventual Cup finalists.

The Senators had their best regular season in years - 99 points, Stutzle at point-per-game, Sanderson at Norris level. Then Zub went down in Game 1, Hall concussed Sanderson in Game 3, and Carolina swept them on the way to the Cup.

The Blue Jackets improved from a league-worst 59 points three years ago to genuine playoff contention - and then stalled. Fantilli career high in back-to-back years, Marchenko 60+ again, Greaves wins the job. Sixth straight missed playoff. The summer writes the ceiling.