NHL Power Rankings: Where Every Team Stands After the Draft and Free Agency

There's not been a puck dropped in more than a week.

But if you think the NHL landscape is the same as it was on the night the Florida Panthers clinched the first Stanley Cup in franchise history, think again.

Each of the league's 32 teams had gotten busy even before the Panthers vanquished the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7, and the work only intensified with the quick arrival of the two-day draft followed by the onset of free agency on Monday.

Some teams made big splashes. Others made tiny ripples. And the B/R hockey team gathered to discuss each move made and ranked the 32 teams in the aftermath based on where they stand after the two biggest events on the offseason calendar.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought in the comments.

Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau worked well together for several seasons as teammates in Calgary, and they'll get the chance to do it again now that Monahan is a Blue Jacket on a five-year, $27.5 million deal. The 29-year-old had 26 goals between Montreal and Winnipeg last season and netted 30 three times while with the Flames.

His team isn't close to a Cup or even a playoff berth, but it's hard to imagine doing much better than GM Mike Grier did, getting Macklin Celebrini and Sam Dickinson at the draft, signing the team's first pick from last season (Will Smith), and snatching both Tyler Toffoli and Alex Wennberg on Day 1 of free agency.

The Ducks didn't do anything of great substance in free agency, but they did bring in a pair of 2024 first-rounders, Beckett Sennecke and Stian Solberg, to add to a growing cache of young players that already includes Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish and Cutter Gauthier. But it may be a while before the playoff drought, now at six seasons, ends.

It may not yield playoff dividends quite yet but you can't suggest the Blackhawks aren't making serious efforts to improve Connor Bedard's group of playmates. Newly signed wingers Teuvo Teräväinen and Tyler Bertuzzi combined for 46 goals at Carolina and Toronto last season, and they'll join last season's veteran pickups, Nick Foligno and Taylor Hall.

The Canadiens chose Juraj Slafkovsky first overall in the 2022 draft and made a long-term commitment to him two years later, getting an agreement on an eight-year, $61 million extension that'll keep the now-20-year-old with the organization through 2033. He had 20 goals and 50 points in 82 games with Montreal last season.

Owner Ryan Smith heard the boos from new Vegas-area rivals at the draft, but he didn't let it bother him for too long. The artists formerly known as the Coyotes grabbed Jarome Iginla's son, Tij, sixth overall, then instantly gained blue-line credibility with Day 2 trades that brought Mikhail Sergachev from Tampa Bay and John Marino from New Jersey.

The Senators are one of those teams that are near the cusp of the postseason and they accomplished their most important task of the summer when they got Vezina-level goalie Linus Ullmark via trade from Boston. That's a win. Trading Jakob Chychrun for peanuts and paying $4 million for a 36-year-old David Perron, though, seem less impressive.

Chandler Stephenson (from Vegas) and Brandon Montour (from Florida) are familiar names to people who closely follow hockey, but are the guys who'll help the Kraken climb back into Western Conference relevance after last season's regression? For $93.75 million combined over the next seven years, they'd better be.

There wasn't much for the Wild to work with, given more than $14 million in dead cap space from the Ryan Suter/Zach Parise buyouts, so GM Bill Guerin spent money as wisely as he could while grabbing forward Yakov Trenin on a four-year, $14 million deal. He had 12 goals last season while splitting time between Nashville and Colorado and was a plus-15 player.

A five-year extension for forward Yegor Sharangovich, a 31-goal scorer last season, was the biggest news made by GM Craig Conroy, who locked his man up for five years and $28.75 million before he hit free agency next summer. The rest of Conroy's moves bolstered depth, including forwards Anthony Mantha and Ryan Lomberg, and defenseman Jake Bean.

Jake Guentzel didn't come back to Pittsburgh. And Sidney Crosby hasn't agreed to an extension yet. So that left a lot of lower-case headlines for GM Kyle Dubas to make, primarily by signing defenseman Matt Grzelyck (one year, $2.75 million) and forward Anthony Beauvillier (one year, $1.25 million) while sending Reilly Smith to the New York Rangers.

The Flyers didn't set the world on fire in terms of signings, unless getting 36-year-old Erik Johnson is anyone's idea of an inferno, but they did nail down a piece of internal business by agreeing to an entry-level contract with Matvei Michkov. He was their seventh overall selection in last year's draft and was a highlight factory this year in the KHL.

The Sabres cleaned some house with a buyout of Jeff Skinner and by opting not to re-sign Victor Olofsson, then sought out to add some sandpaper to their game with deals to get top-six forward Jason Zucker and bottom-six forwards Sam Lafferty and Nicolas Aube-Kubel. The latter two join Beck Malenstyn, who arrived from Washington in a trade at the draft.

The Devils are loaded with offensive talent but had a chronic issue last season with limiting shots and keeping pucks out of their net. They seem to have addressed both, initially with a late-June trade that brought goalie Jacob Markstrom from Calgary and then on Monday with the signing of 6'3", 206-pound defenseman Brett Pesce from Carolina.

The Blues were almost eerily silent when it came to Day 1 free-agency activity but GM Doug Armstrong opened the checkbook on Day 2, extending forward Pavel Buchnevich for six years at $8 million per to keep him off the UFA market next summer. Kasperi Kapanen was Armstrong's only signing on Monday, agreeing to a one-year, $1 million contract.

Do the Red Wings have what it takes to end their playoff drought next spring? Sure. Maybe. Perhaps. But it won't have much to do with what GM Steve Yzerman has done in this offseason, which amounts to re-signing 35-year-old Patrick Kane and bringing in other 30-somethings in goalie Cam Talbot and defenseman Erik Gustafsson. Ho hum.

It was figured to be a stand-pat start to free agency for the Islanders, who did make a moderate splash with a four-year deal for Anthony Duclair. The 28-year-old winger split time between San Jose and Tampa Bay last season but was a 31-goal scorer for Florida as recently as 2021-22. If he's close to that guy again, $14 million will seem like a bargain.

Just when it looked like the Capitals would be irrelevant during Alex Ovechkin's chase, they got busy. A deal with Los Angeles brought Pierre-Luc Dubois and was followed by another with Calgary for Andrew Mangiapane. Goalie Logan Thompson arrives from Vegas to duel for the starter's net and Day 1 of free agency was a blue-line bonanza with a trade for Jakob Chychrun and a seven-year contract for Matt Roy.

It's Toronto. So nothing matters until the postseason and nothing will be discussed in the meantime other than Mitch Marner's future. But defense was clearly on the mind of GM Brad Treliving as free agency neared, and he made deals for blue-liners Chris Tanev, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Jani Hakanpaa. A good, targeted haul for a team with not much to spend.

Yes, GM Rob Blake may have performed the magic act of the summer by getting rid of the black hole that was the Pierre-Luc Dubois contract. But he saw key role players Viktor Arvidsson and Matt Roy exit, too, and a return haul that includes Warren Foegele (from Edmonton), Joel Edmundson (from St. Louis) and Darcy Kuemper (from Washington for Dubois) isn't exactly a reason to reserve a parade spot.

Nowhere was the Day 1 free agency news bigger than Florida's Gulf Coast, where the Lightning bid farewell to captain Steven Stamkos and made room to bring in the most coveted of the summer's free agents, Jake Guentzel. The 29-year-old Guentzel is younger and a more accomplished player on the back end, and has four seasons with 30 or more goals.

The Jets have the league's best goalie in Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck, and they created a curious logjam by signing both Kaapo Kahkonen and Eric Comrie as backups. Those adds, though, don't cover the holes created by the exits of forwards Sean Monahan and Tyler Toffoli, defenseman Brenden Dillon and previous backup goalie Laurent Brossoit.

Say what you'd like about the Predators but don't suggest for a moment that they're not all-in on the 2024-25 season. Nashville made the biggest Day 1 splashes of any team, snatching Steven Stamkos from Tampa Bay, Jonathan Marchessault from Vegas and Brady Skjei from Carolina on a trio of deals that combined to cost $20.5 million annually. And then they held on to one of their own, extending goalie Juuse Saros for eight years and $61.92 million.

The Hurricanes went all-in at the trade deadline to get Jake Guentzel, then not only didn't win the Stanley Cup but couldn't re-sign him either. He's off to riches in Tampa Bay and was followed out the door by short-term teammates Brady Skjei, Brent Pesce and Teuvo Teravainen, too. Shayne Gostisbehere and Sean Walker arrive, but it's a net loss overall.

It's got to be a step back in Vegas, no? The Golden Knights will look different without original "Misfit" Jonathan Marchessault, not to mention Cup winners Chandler Stephenson, Alec Martinez and Michael Amadio, all of whom were gone on Monday. The team was a big winner at the trade deadline and has Noah Hanifin and Tomas Hertl from that haul, but still.

Even as they claimed the Pacific Division title and waged a classic seven-game war with Edmonton in the postseason's second round, the Canucks knew the 2024-25 roster would look different. Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov are off to Boston, while the Bruins watched Jake DeBrusk exit their building on the way to Vancouver on a seven-year, $38.5 million deal.

Jonathan Drouin flourished in Colorado upon reuniting with junior teammate Nathan MacKinnon, and he and the Avalanche chose to keep the mojo going with a one-year, $2.5 million deal. It's a big bump from the $825,000 pact he signed last summer before producing 19 goals and a career-best 56 points.

There aren't many players in the NHL who seem truer to the Boston Bruins' two-way prototype than Elias Lindholm, so it made perfect sense that the free-agent forward was drawn to the Original Six franchise (as was former Vancouver teammate Nikita Zadorov) with a deal that'll pay him $54.25 million over seven years.

The biggest move of the offseason for the Rangers was shedding the contract of Barclay Goodrow to San Jose, and the team added a small piece to presumably compete for Goodrow's role when it signed bottom-six grinder Sam Carrick to a three-year deal at $1 million per season. Adding Reilly Smith via trade from Pittsburgh was also shrewd, if not transcendent.

The Stars didn't move the needle much in terms of moves, losing Chris Tanev to Toronto and bringing in Matt Dumba to replace him on a two-year deal worth $7.5 million. Beyond that, Dallas swapped free-agent backup goalies and signed a handful of lower-profile defensemen including Ilya Lyubushkin and Brendan Smith.

The Oilers have been hurting since a seven-game loss to Florida in the Stanley Cup Final, but they've chosen not to sit idly while doing so. Hockey operations boss Jeff Jackson took the reins from Ken Holland and got busy in free agency, bringing in Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner to bolster scoring depth and cutting Jack Campbell loose with a buyout.

Let's face it: If you're introduced at the draft as the Stanley Cup champions, you aren't exactly wallowing in self-pity over your situation. So the fact that GM Bill Zito was able to win a title and hold on to his biggest free-agent piece, Sam Reinhart, is a triumph. The blue line took a hit with Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Brandon Montour leaving, but it's not a fatal blow.