An off-season question facing each team eliminated in Round 1

As the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs rolls on, the eight teams eliminated in Round 1 have been conducting their year-end meetings and media conferences to discuss next steps, takeaways and plan for the 2025-26 season.

Here are some of the pertinent questions heading into the summer for St. Louis, Colorado, Minnesota, Los Angeles, Ottawa, Tampa Bay, Montreal and New Jersey.

St. Louis Blues: Where will Doug Armstrong leave this team before Alex Steen takes over as GM in 2026?

When things were bumpy this past season, and the playoffs a long shot in early February, several St. Louis Blues players appeared on Nick Kypreos’ trade board. Not that it was an everything-goes fire sale, but it indicated the Blues were open for business.

“I did tell my counterparts in the league coming out of the 4 Nations that if we play .500 hockey or .550 or .600 hockey between then and the trade deadline, we’d likely be sellers because it’s not going to be good enough,” GM Doug Armstrong said at his year-end press conference.

A funny thing then happened, and the Blues played .813 hockey over those next couple of weeks, and at the deadline they were one point out of it.

“They had earned the right to stay together,” Armstrong concluded.

While at one point it was possible St. Louis could have made some futures-involved trades, now this team is looking at itself as one on the rise after taking the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Jets to a thrilling Game 7. While Torey Krug’s career is likely over, St. Louis brought in Cam Fowler this season and he’ll be able to sign an extension as of July 1. There is a core group of forwards signed for the long term, including 33-year-old captain Brayden Schenn, who was one of the more rumoured trade candidates.

So what did Armstrong really take away from a season that had two distinct parts and ultimately ended up in a Round 1 exit?

This will be his last summer in the GM chair as the Blues will hand the reins over to Alex Steen after next season. Armstrong will be setting the table for the next front office era and is not shy to do something bold, whether on the trade or free agent market. Last year, it was a couple of offer sheets; what will he have in store this time?

“I think the ‘re-‘ whatever is ending and we’re becoming who we want to be, and now, how quickly do we move up and continue to expand and grow? We could take a step backwards, but I don’t think we’re going to take a step backwards. That’s not how I view the returning players, as aging players that can’t play.”

Colorado Avalanche: Will Martin Necas sign?

Usually the summer months are when a team would undergo major roster renovations, and usually that would follow some in-season disappointment. But the Avalanche did a lot of work on their roster throughout the 2024-25 calendar, from flushing and replacing the entire goaltending setup, to trading out a core superstar, and acquiring a couple of missing pieces at centre. And while it was disappointing in how they were eliminated from the playoffs, it’s hard to call the season a “disappointment” overall — they were the eighth-best team in the league during the regular season and lost to the fifth-best team in a thrilling seven-game series that included two OT losses.

“You go into the playoffs every year, you want to win the Stanley Cup,” Joe Sakic said. “But there’s those years you feel, like 2022, we knew we had the team to do it. We feel like this year’s team was on that level, so that’s why this one’s going to sting, and sting a little longer than other years.”

Pressing contract situations include Brock Nelson, a rental at the trade deadline who didn’t score a goal in the playoffs. There’s also Martin Necas, who was the centrepiece return in the Mikko Rantanen trade. He’s signed for $6.5 million through just next season and could set himself up for free agency in a busy 2026 class as the cap takes off. The 26-year-old was just under a point per game player for the Avs in the regular season and had five points in seven playoff games.

“Martin Necas last year, when Carolina talked contract with him, he was willing to sign for only two years, right to unrestricted free agency and that was it. So one of the things curious about this year is, does Necas feel any differently? Does he commit long term to Colorado or what happens here?” Elliotte Friedman said on Wednesday’s episode of 32 Thoughts: The Podcast.

Given what just unfolded with Rantanen in his contract year, a beloved player brought up through their system, a drawn-out negotiation with Necas could spur more trade action.

Minnesota Wild: What will Kirill Kaprizov’s contract look like, and when will it get done?

The Wild’s management team will finally be able to breathe this summer, released from the constraints left over by the buyouts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. The cap penalties that approached $15 million the past few years will fall to just $1.66 million and come as the salary cap begins its climb towards $113 million over the next three years.

“Since I’ve been here, I believe today and moving forward this is without a doubt the best position this organization has been in,” GM Bill Guerin said. “We’re going to have more flexibility than we’ve ever had here, in my tenure anyway.

“We’re going to add. We’re going to try to make this team better.”

Guerin said he wanted to be aggressive this summer and was tired of sitting on his hands. And the Wild, on the ice, were already in a great position. They were among the NHL’s top teams into 2025 until injuries to key players took their toll. But when they were largely healthy again in the playoffs, the Wild took the Vegas Golden Knights to a thrilling six-game series.

The Wild have signed a chunk of their core to long-term contracts already, bringing cost certainty that strengthens their position and will open up more options in the coming years. They’ll have to figure out what to do with Marco Rossi, a pending RFA, who was moved out of the top-six and onto the fourth line in the playoffs. Guerin said he’d be targeting centre help this off-season and would be wide open to trades that push the team ahead. It’s not impossible that Rossi, after scoring a career-high 60 points, becomes an intriguing trade candidate.

But no matter what the Wild get up to, it all hinges on Kirill Kaprizov, a Hart Trophy candidate before being injured and the team’s second-highest goal scorer despite missing half the season. He is under contract for one more year before becoming UFA eligible, meaning he can sign a contract extension as of July 1.

“Everyone knows how important Kirill is to the team and to the organization and the market. He’s a star player. That’s priority No. 1,” Guerin said.

Even though he’s up for contract renewal at the same time as Connor McDavid, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if Kaprizov could end up being the NHL’s highest-paid player after this round of extensions. As promising as the Wild look today, if Kaprizov leaves, a lot of that optimism would be deflated.

“This is my agent’s job. We will see. I love everything here. Should be all good,” Kaprizov said.

Los Angeles Kings: How do they get past the Oilers and through the Pacific Division?

The first order of business for the Kings this off-season will be to find a new GM to replace the outgoing Rob Blake. Another first-round ouster brought an end to this era of management, which leaves behind a roster in great shape and with lots of younger players still making their way up.

But what will that new leader’s vision be? The Kings were one of the best defensive teams in the league this season, second in goals against and shots against per game. Their offence wasn’t bad either, 14th in the league. And heck, while their power play was a regular-season weakness (27th in the league), in the playoffs it converted on 40 per cent of its chances.

Yet, for the fourth year in a row, the result was exactly the same: a first-round loss to the Edmonton Oilers. This one had a bit more sting to it as well, considering the Kings jumped ahead to a 2-0 series lead before dropping four in a row.

“We had three of the best lines in hockey, we scored goals, we had a 40 per cent power play — we said we needed to tweak our power play, gotta give credit to our guys, they figured it out,” team president Luc Robitaille said at his year-end media conference. “Some teams have a 60-goal scorer, we don’t, but we have a lot of players who can score goals. We play hard. We forecheck and we don’t sit back.”

Some criticism for this loss fell to head coach Jim Hiller, for either allowing the team to take its foot off the gas when ahead of the Oilers, a bad goalie interference challenge at a key moment, or shortening the bench and not utilizing all his depth. Robitaille said he saw no reason why Hiller wouldn’t be back, but also suggested the new GM would make the ultimate decision.

Robitaille has been in his current position with the team since 2017, so he has seen the Kings build up from a non-playoff team to one that has Stanley Cup aspirations but can’t seem to get past the first round. So far, only the Oilers have faced them in the post-season, but how will the Kings position themselves to not only push Edmonton, but Vegas and any other teams on the rise as well?

“I’ve always said that on July 1, if you look at your team and you say ‘what can we add that can help us win the Stanley Cup,’ you’re there, and we’ve been thinking that way for the past couple of years,” Robitaille said. “It’s not about beating one team or winning one round, this is about winning a Stanley Cup.

“Rob made tremendous moves in the summer, but it’s not good enough, so we gotta get better.”

Tanner Jeannot, Andrei Kuzmenko and Vladislav Gavrikov are the biggest pending UFAs here, and the Kings have designs on keeping all of them. But what exactly will the new vision be to bring about change and finally get them out of Round 1?

Ottawa Senators: How do they find more goals at 5-on-5?

It’s all good in the nation’s capital after the Senators accomplished everything that was reasonably expected of them this season: jumping over Buffalo and Detroit in the Atlantic to get into a playoff spot, and taking the Maple Leafs to a hard-fought sixth game in a series that had three overtimes.

But the world of pro sports has a very “what have you done for me lately” outlook, so as good as the Senators and their fans can feel about this season, the overarching question from here is: how do you come back better?

The most pressing area of weakness — and one the team tried to address at the trade deadline — is its ability to score at 5-on-5. The Senators ranked 31st in the league by that stat during the regular season, and in the playoffs, they ranked 13th out of 16 teams. If not for their 11th-ranked power play, Ottawa’s offence may very well have held them back out of the playoffs.

But as one of the younger teams in the playoff orbit still, the Senators seem to largely be banking on internal growth to take care of any shortcomings. Another year of progress, another year under Travis Green, and another year better. Perhaps the Senators already have the major pieces in place and it’s just a matter of getting more out of them as they mature.

“I think that’s internal as well. I think there’s going to be some growth in that area. With the group we have returning there are some areas I’m going to look at,” GM Steve Staios said about his team’s scoring. “The market will dictate if you can add those types of players or improve in that area, and until you find that opportunity, it has to come from within.

“The off-season will be another opportunity for me to see if I can add to this group, but nothing specific at this point.”

As far as contracts go, Claude Giroux signed here to get back to the playoffs with the Senators but could become a free agent again this summer. His offensive totals have declined each year he’s played in Ottawa. And Fabian Zetterlund, a promising pickup who saw his underlying numbers vastly improve after the trade but failed to record a point in the playoffs, is an RFA.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Did they already set the table for next season?

Listen to Julien BriseBois at his year-end press conference and you’ll hear a GM who isn’t frustrated or disappointed with another Round 1 exit (their third in a row) so much that a big overhaul is necessary. On the contrary. After last year’s exit, BriseBois talked about how he wanted the team to improve defensively or find more depth, but after he addressed all those needs, the tone this season was more like exasperation — what the heck else were we supposed to do?

“We have four 35-goal scorers, seven 20-goal scorers, the third-highest scoring defence group, an outstanding head coach, outstanding coaching staff, that’s the makeup of a really good hockey team,” BriseBois said. “We finished first in the league in goals for, fourth in goals against, fifth on the power play and sixth on the penalty kill. In the 20-season history of the salary cap era only eight teams can say they finished in the top six of those four categories in the same season: five of them won the Presidents’ Trophy, and of those eight teams four lost out in the first round of the playoffs, three in the second, one made it to the Stanley Cup Final, none of them won the Stanley Cup. It’s hard to win a championship.”

“If we match those numbers (in 2025-26), I’ll be ecstatic.”

Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand were big trade deadline pickups — Bjorkstrand is still under contract for next season and was not healthy enough to play in this year’s playoffs, while Gourde is a pending UFA with a history in Tampa Bay.

Gage Goncalves, Conor Geekie and Emil Lilleberg took important first steps with the team and showed well. There are multiple award finalists on the roster, the big acquisition of Jake Guenztel through free agency last summer ended with the player scoring 41 goals. It’d be hard to imagine them making as big of a splash on the open market this year.

Coming into the playoffs, Tampa Bay was one of the hottest teams in the league and a favourite against Florida. Their five-game elimination hurts, but according to BriseBois, the foundation for contending into the future is already solid.

“I wouldn’t say there’s something jumping out at me,” BriseBois said about any off-season goals. “I would say I’m excited about our future significantly more so today than I was a year ago.”

Montreal Canadiens: Can they find a solid second-line centre?

This season was all gravy for the Canadiens, who truthfully would have been happy just with meaningful games in the playoff race late into March or early April. That experience alone would have been helpful and uplifting for a young group, but they went a step further and got all the way into the playoffs a year or so ahead of schedule.

So, now what?

“I think when we said 2024 would be a big summer, I said 2025 would probably be bigger and I would assume that would continue to be the case every subsequent summer until we arrive and we feel we have a team capable of competing every year for a Stanley Cup,” said GM Kent Hughes. “I think we can all agree, although we took strides, we’re not there yet.”

There were tons of great stories and things to build on from here. Lane Hutson had a rookie season for the ages and could become the next truly special two-way defenceman. Ivan Demidov flashed late in the season and in the bit of playoff action he saw, and having him start from training camp on gives Montreal another rookie who could be a game-changer. Alexandre Carrier was a pickup on the back end to add some experience, and the 27-year-old was a solid player for the Canadiens and young enough to be part of the core group as it evolves and grows up from here.

But there are still areas that need to be addressed. There are a lot of smaller players on this roster, and so size and compete level will be the type of things the Canadiens brass looks at improving. More directly, Montreal could use an infusion of something on the second line to better support the first.

The most obvious position, then, is at centre after Kirby Dach had another severe injury and had his season cut short due to knee surgery. That’s two years in a row for Dach, so it’s less clear how he’ll end up fitting in with the group.

Montreal would do well to head into the free agent or, more likely, trade market to find a centre for the second line. This management team has not been shy to make the big, bold move, and now that they are moving into a phase where competing and winning are becoming more of an expectation, they could use any number of their wealth of prospects or picks to seek one out.

“What does that represent in terms of blocking an opportunity for a young player down the road, how far are we willing to go in doing that?” Hughes said about acquiring any new players. “That’ll be the framework with which we make our decisions.”

New Jersey Devils: After getting their goalie last summer, can they get more scoring this summer?

The Devils took a big stride last summer when they added the key and obvious missing piece, a goalie. Jacob Markstrom was everything they hoped for, stabilizing the net and helping the Devils to the league’s fifth-best goals-against average in the regular season, up from 26th a year ago. And despite winning only one playoff game, Markstrom posted a .911 save percentage and stopped 5.7 goals above expected for one of the better marks in Round 1.

If he had a bump in Round 1, he instantly recovered, so the quick exit is not at his feet. And while the Devils did have some key injuries that surely cost the team (not least of which was to Jack Hughes), there was one carryover problem from the regular season that the Devils couldn’t overcome in the playoffs and will now be management’s focus to address in the summer.

“Scoring goals is a hard thing to do in this league, but we had to figure out different ways to score because of personnel, grinding goals out, getting to net front, getting to the hard ice, getting to the goalie, screens, tips, things like that,” GM Tom Fitzgerald said. “And we need certain guys to pick the pace up a bit.”

The Devils were the lowest-scoring team in Round 1 and their power play was completely shut out. They were 20th in goal scoring during the regular season — the only playoff team that scored less were the Minnesota Wild. And while there were some solid seasons from top-six players, with Nico Hischier scoring a career-high in goals, Jesper Bratt a career-high in points and Hughes with solid totals in limited action once again, the Devils had a clear issue generating goals further down the lineup.

Daniel Sprong and Cody Glass were small acquisitions made to try and address this shortcoming in-season, but they managed only three goals between them and none in the playoffs. Dawson Mercer became the face of New Jersey’s depth scoring concerns — a 27-goal scorer two seasons ago, Mercer failed to hit 20 this season.

Tomas Tatar scored seven times all season and is a pending UFA, as are Sprong, Curtis Lazar (two goals) and Nathan Bastian (four goals). Glass is an RFA. The Devils could flush out all of these players to create maximum space or even explore trading out someone (Mercer?) to change up the group.

Fitzgerald seems open to anything that will fix the depth scoring.

“We won’t be coming back with the same group because it wasn’t good enough,” he said. “I think players underachieved. I think players who have scored enough in this league to give assurances we have depth scoring, didn’t.”

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