Originally posted on Daily Faceoff
Merry almost Christmas, Daily Faceoff family! For the third year running, our staff is doing its darndest to help out the neediest among us, the billion-dollar franchises and million-dollar athletes we cover, with 11th-hour letters to the North Pole.
Futile and silly, you say? Tell that to the teams that already got their gift! The Minnesota Wild have been waiting a quarter century for Cup contention, and just like that, Quinn Hughes pops up under the tree nearly a month early.
It feels like it’s been roughly that long since the Oilers had a goalie they trust, and a goalie is just what they got when Tristan Jarry headed out to Alberta. There’s no consensus on whether Jarry is all that trustworthy, and he’s already hurt. Santa can only do so much without using Tom Brady’s unethical science to clone Curtis Joseph.
Jolly old Saint Nick even knocked out a few of last year’s wishes in the 12 months since the last time we wrote. The Anaheim Ducks wanted improvement behind the bench with Greg Cronin and have taken flight under Joel Quenneville. The Dallas Stars sought a big trade and ended up bringing in Finnish Superman Mikko Rantanen.
What does Chris Kringle (I’m running out of nicknames here) have in store for 2025? Can his Vatican connections exorcize the curse that evidently hangs over the Toronto Maple Leafs? Can those resourceful elves rig the lottery for the Calgary Flames? And can the magic of the Christmas season put Florida captain Sasha Barkov’s bum knee back together? We won’t know unless we ask, and ask we did on behalf of all 32 teams.
Anaheim’s peers in the Western Conference have been hard at work signing their best players to long-term (or at the very least, medium-term, looking at you, Edmonton) contract extensions this year. Jack Eichel in Vegas. Kirill Kaprizov in Minnesota. Martin Necas in Colorado. Adrian Kempe in Los Angeles. Thanks to their breakouts so far this year, the Ducks now have two franchise players, both eligible for and worthy of big-dollar deals in Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier. These fans have been patient through a long rebuild that is only just now beginning to pay off. General manager Pat Verbeek could deliver them a wonderful holiday gift by locking down at least one of those two stars. -Kyle Morton
Though the Bruins have benefited from Elias Lindholm’s bounce-back year and Morgan Geekie’s continued emergence, they go as star goaltender Jeremy Swayman goes. With backup Joonas Korpisalo (3.63 GAA, .880 SV%) down to 6-7 on the year after an early shower against Ottawa, Boston needs better goaltending on Swayman’s off days to maintain its surprise playoff charge. Reigning Bastien Award (top AHL goalie) winner Michael DiPietro has long been one of the AHL’s elite netminders with the Providence Bruins and could represent an easy fix. The success of longtime P-Bruin Brandon Bussi in Carolina should serve as a reminder that sometimes an opportunity is all a successful AHLer needs to take the next step. -Anthony Trudeau
When a team that isn’t abjectly terrible finds itself at the bottom of the standings, I like to think of them as being a hot streak away from being a hot streak away. Think the 2019 Blues or 2024 Predators, groups that used multiple extended hot stretches to launch themselves back into the playoff picture. Buffalo has been exactly that team, aside from a few blatantly tanked seasons, for most of its 14-year playoff drought. They’ve been the kings of achieving that first hot streak, but they’ve always found a way to follow it up with an equivalent losing streak, or at least something bad enough to cough up their momentum. Here we are again. A six-game winning streak has the Sabres at 17-14-4 and just three points out of the second wild card in the East. They’re now one more hot streak after the break, away from looking like a real playoff team. Let’s see it. -Kyle
Last year’s ultimately futile playoff race was a pleasant distraction from on-ice malaise and off-ice tragedy for Calgary fans. That doesn’t mean it didn’t get them any closer to nabbing a franchise forward to pair with prized goalie Dustin Wolf and promising blue liner Zayne Parekh. Landing western boy Gavin McKenna as the team’s first-ever No. 1 overall pick would go a long way toward reigniting interest in this once-proud club. The Flames would love nothing more than to delay their Christmas present until the draft lottery this summer; an already bad team that expects to part with key veterans Rasmus Andersson and Blake Coleman ahead of the trade deadline, Calgary should have among the best odds. -Anthony
It’s December 23 as of this writing, and Carolina’s star winger has had three major injury scares. He’s survived a blocked shot off the foot that knocked him out of a game, as well as a stick directly to the eye that left him writhing on the ice and fortunate to avoid a serious situation. Now, he’s out on a week-to-week basis after crashing into a goal post at full speed. The Hurricanes have long been knocked for lacking the sort of game-breaking offensive talent that can break through in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and carry them past an opponent like Florida. Scoring at a 45-goal pace so far this year, Jarvis seems to be blossoming into that sort of player in his age-23 season. He’ll need to be on the ice for it to matter, though. -Kyle
“Oh yeah sure, just go out and acquire a top winger,” you may be thinking while reading this. Well … yeah? The Blackhawks showed some drastic improvements in the first chunk of 2025-26, but since Nov. 20, they’ve lost 12 of their last 15 games. Connor Bedard will be out of the lineup until at least the new year, and I’m sure a major upgrade on his wing would be a far better gift than anything wrapped underneath the tree this winter. The Blackhawks have no shortage of top-tier prospects they could package in a trade, including some who have already had a taste of professional hockey. No offense to Tyler Bertuzzi or Ryan Donato, but if Chicago wants to take a step forward, it needs more talent for Bedard to play with. -Hunter Crowther
The Avalanche have been about as close to perfect as a team can be this season, as they’re off to a 26-2-7 start to the season, and have backed it up with a 58.94% 5v5 xGF% that sits first in the league. The problem is that they may be too hot. I’ve talked about the regression that can come with a Presidents’ Trophy-winning team before (here and here if you’re curious). The problem with most of those teams (especially the record-setting ones like Tampa Bay and Boston) is they usually use up all of their good luck by the time the playoffs come around. If the Avalanche continue at this pace in the regular season, that may spell doom for their Stanley Cup chances if their regression comes in the spring rather than the winter. That, and if the team goes all out for the regular season, they may tire themselves out come playoff time. -Scott Maxwell
A pink slip isn’t much of a Christmas present at all, but it’s hard to see how Columbus is going to fix anything without moving on from coach Dean Evason. The former Wild bench boss admirably squeezed some extra juice out of the Jackets during last season’s feel-good 89-point finish, but glaring defensive holes have prevented the Metropolitan Division’s last-placed team from taking the next step. The Blue Jackets brought in veteran forecheckers Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood during the offseason to increase their zone time, but are still being drawn into the sort of track meets they lack the elite goaltending or high-end scoring to survive. Perhaps a new voice behind the bench could help the Blue Jackets’ pricy blue line better limit chances. -Anthony
I was tempted to gift the Stars the first spot in the Central, as it will be hotly contested amidst this arms race between the Avalanche, Stars and Wild. But instead, I’ll give them something they’ve been in search of for several years, outside of a brief stint with Chris Tanev – another top-four defenseman. Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell have been excellent on the top pair, but Thomas Harley has been fed to the wolves alongside Ilya Lyubushkin with a 30.62% xGF% together. For context, Harley jumps up by 49.6% relative to Lyubushkin. The team is in desperate need of another defenseman in that top four, and whether that comes internally or via the trade market, they need it soon if they want to keep up with Colorado and Minnesota. -Scott
Red Wing fans had high hopes after reports linked Detroit to Quinn Hughes trade rumors, only to see the elite blueliner get dealt to the Minnesota Wild. While dreams of Hughes carrying the puck up the ice at Little Caesars Arena were dashed, the Wings being tied to Hughes indicates Steve Yzerman and co. think now is the time to make a move. Detroit is at the top of the Atlantic Division going into the holiday break, and with it being a decade since Hockeytown was in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Yzerman should be at the forefront of the league’s next big trade. -Hunter
Poor Connor McDavid. The man signed a discount two-year deal with the Oilers to build a Stanley Cup-winning team around him, and they just can’t get the goaltending situation figured out. For two and a bit years, they ran with a tandem of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard, who were good at times but not good enough to win it all. Edmonton committed to the duo for significantly longer than they should have, and what was their solution? A relatively lateral move for Tristan Jarry at too high of a price. Now three games into his Oilers stint, Jarry is injured and the Oilers are back to the drawing board. Maybe the solution is patience, maybe it’s Connor Ingram, maybe it’s Alex Lyon, but the Oilers just need an actual answer in net right now. -Scott
I mean, duh? The entire narrative surrounding the Panthers this season is how people don’t know what to make of them because this isn’t the team at its full strength. The long-term injuries to arguably their two best players in Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk alone are enough to justify this present. Still, Tomas Nosek and Dmitri Kulikov have also missed time, not to mention Eetu Luostarinen’s burn injuries. Getting healthy just in time for the playoffs (especially if by some miracle Barkov can return) is all the Panthers need to contend for the Cup again. -Scott
Years ago, the L.A. Kings adopted a trap defense straight out of the Dead Puck era, erstwhile coach Todd McLellan’s strategy to get the most out of Hall-of-Famers Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty’s twilight years. McLellan’s 1-3-1 trap, and successor Jim Hiller’s 1-2-2, helped the Kings return to relevance in the standings, but neither system has worked in the playoffs; L.A. has infamously dropped four-straight first-round tilts with the Oilers. The boring shtick has run its course, and it’s severely limiting the offensive ceilings of potential stars Quinton Byfield and Brandt Clarke. You know, the guys who are going to replace Kopitar and Doughty sooner rather than later. Maybe this is more of a New Year’s resolution, but it’s time for a hockey Glasnost in L.A. -Anthony
The Wild went from potential playoff contender to potential Cup contender with the Quinn Hughes acquisition. However, Sunday’s loss to the Avalanche was a stark reminder that they’re still a step behind the big dogs in the Western Conference. The most glaring absence is their center depth, especially when Marco Rossi was one of the pieces going to Vancouver for Hughes. Minnesota still has a solid prospect and draft pick capital to work with, so why not take another big swing and add another top-six center to work with Joel Eriksson Ek to truly fortify this team. -Scott
Really? The same team that used just to give away Hall-of-Fame goalies like Tony Esposito and Rogie Vachon wants another star shotstopper? Even after enjoying Patrick Roy and Carey Price for 25 of the past 40 years? Talk about greed. To be fair to the Habs, they had been happy enough to settle for the quiet competence of Sam Montembeault during most of their post-Price endeavors. The difference now is that Montembeault, who only last year was named to Team Canada, has faltered so badly in his 15 starts that he needed to take the dreaded AHL “hard reset” in Laval. On the bright side, Montreal must love what it’s seen from 21-year-old Jacob Fowler’s audition as Montembeault’s eventual replacement. All Fowler has to do to match the rookie CV of Roy or Ken Dryden is drag the Habs to a Stanley Cup victory. No pressure, kid! -Anthony
Nearly a decade after Barry Trotz rounded out his 15-year stint behind the Preds’ bench, he was named the club’s second-ever GM. Trying out a career coach in the big chair is hardly unprecedented. Grizzled hockey men like Scotty Bowman, Glen Sather, and the late Keith Allen all achieved success in front office roles. Unfortunately for Trotz and the Predators, there is little evidence his stint as an executive will be more than a footnote to his Hall-of-Fame bona fides; his attempt to build a Cup team by surrounding franchise icon Roman Josi with veteran UFAs is gathering rust at the bottom of the Cumberland River. Can Trotz just trade away O’Reilly, Stamkos, and the rest of the old timers so we can pretend this never happened? And do we really have to wait until March? -Anthony
If this wishlist were being put together a week ago, I would have said that a top-six forward should actually be a top-six center, as the Devils clearly needed a stopgap with Jack Hughes hurt. But Jack is back, and now one thing is obvious once again: Ondrej Palat feels very out of place when he’s playing in that top six. Arseny Gritsyuk has looked good at times in that role, but what would really boost the Devils is if they added a true top-six power forward. I’ve said that Ryan O’Reilly would be perfect in that role (and also be a great top-six center in case of a Jack/Nico Hischier injury), but just getting Palat out of that spot consistently would really help this team. -Scott
Winning the Matthew Schaefer sweepstakes last summer effectively ended the Islanders’ long-awaited teardown before it really kicked into gear. Schaefer is an even better, more fully formed prospect than even his most optimistic supporters anticipated, a true star on the blue line at just 18 years old. He’s not the only top player on Long Island, either. Franchise goalie Ilya Sorokin and the power and skill combination of Bo Horvat and Mat Barzal at center give the Isles a strong spine down the middle. However, they could still use an elite goal scorer out wide to really unlock their offense. Those don’t grow on trees, so Santa might have to do some heavy lifting for GM Mathieu Darche’s pro scouting department. -Anthony
At one point, Mika Zibanejad was among the league’s most productive forwards, averaging around a point per game in six of his nine seasons in New York. But after a 2024-25 campaign that saw him score only 20 goals and record his lowest point total (62) in a full 82-game season since 2017-18, it’s starting to look like we’re on the back-9 of Zibanejad’s career. With just 27 points through the first half of this season, Rangers’ management should look to move the Swedish forward. With a weak upcoming free agent market and slim pickings among potential trade targets for this year’s deadline, Zibanejad could fetch New York a healthy return. -Hunter
After former Vezina winner Linus Ullmark ended both Ottawa’s playoff drought and reputation as a “goalie graveyard” in 2024-25, Sens GM Steve Staios paid him handsomely to keep up the good work for another four seasons. It’s apparent now, though, that Ullmark is no longer manning the net in the Canadian Tire Centre, having been kidnapped by the dastardly Maple Leafs. Instead, the Leafs have put Dan Cloutier in a Scooby Doo-esque Ullmark disguise to torpedo their rivals’ season, and to great effect: the faux Ullmark has been one of the NHL’s worst full-time netminders. Getting the real Ullmark back from whatever Toronto basement he’s holed up in would help the Sens stand out in a crowded Atlantic Division. -Anthony
The Flyers’ search for high-end talent beyond 20-year-old Matvei Michkov and a very young pipeline led them to Trevor Zegras last summer. Zegras’s silky hands earned him fame early in his Anaheim career. Still, his stunted development and a logjam of talented forwards convinced the Ducks to ship him to Philadelphia for only a modest return. Perhaps Ducks GM Pat Verbeek was too hasty in his dismissal of the mercurial playmaker; Zegras, still just 24, has already scored more goals and points than in his final season in SoCal and is on pace to smash career highs in both categories. Finding more hidden gems that have run out of chances elsewhere could speed up Philly’s slow and steady rebuild. -Anthony
Kyle Dubas’s quest to make the ancient Pens younger and more dynamic will certainly entail some difficult decisions on veteran players. The toughest call, save for the nuclear Crosby option, was what to do with Evgeni Malkin, a giant of the sport whose effectiveness had waned in recent seasons. Now that the team has won just one game in nine tries since a resurgent Malkin hit the IR, keeping the future Hall-of-Famer through the end of his career seems a lot more appealing than whatever B- prospect or conditional draft pick a 39-year-old 2C with iron knees fetches on the trade market. Avoiding the ensuing outrage from both the fanbase and the locker room is just gravy. Perhaps Santa can help Dubas draw up an extension. -Anthony
The Sharks’ forward group will join the ranks of the NHL’s elite in no time. Undrafted Collin Graf and big Russian Igor Chernyshov are forcing their way into a nucleus made up of franchise centerpiece Macklin Celebrini, an MVP candidate at 19, and fellow top-ten selections Will Smith, William Eklund, and Michael Misa. San Jose may have an embarrassment of riches up front, but the blue line is still far away from competing. GM Mike Grier has all the confidence in the world that teenage rookie Sam Dickinson will one day lead the group, but could use a veteran righty (not you, Klingberg) to run the show with Dmitry Orlov in the meantime. Any chance Dougie Hamilton would sign off on a trade to the Bay Area? -Anthony
Aside from some nifty expansion selections like sniper Jared McCann, rushing defenseman Vince Dunn, and reliable goalie Joey Daccord, what exactly have the Kraken done right during their brief existence? Neither Matty Beniers, Shane Wright, nor any other homegrown prospect looks like a strong bet to develop into a star, let alone a superstar. The guys who are in their prime, like Daccord, McCann, and Dunn, are nice players, but by no means franchise pillars. The guys who aren’t, like Adam Larsson and Chandler Stephenson, have term and trade protection for no apparent reason. Last year, I said I wasn’t “trying to write a hatchet job [about Seattle] so close to Christmas.” After another year of incoherence, I can’t help it. The only thing bleaker than the weather in Seattle is the hockey team. -Anthony
A Stanley Cup tends to smooth over history’s rough edges, and, overall, the good has far outweighed the bad during Doug Armstrong’s 15 years in charge of the Blues. Still, Armstrong, who will take over as President of Hockey Operations in the offseason, hasn’t exactly set GM-in-waiting Alex Steen up for success over the past few years; the success of his dual offersheets to Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway and a late charge into the 2025 playoffs could only mask the shortcomings of a broken core for so long. If ‘Army’ can find a way out from underneath Brayden Schenn, Justin Faulk, and perhaps even Jordan Binnington’s deals while piling up draft capital, he’ll leave on a high (blue) note. -Anthony
The fact that the Lightning have been this good this season with the injuries they’ve had on the blueline is nothing short of a miracle. Not a single defenseman has played all 36 games this season, and the veteran options in Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak. So really, they just need any defenseman right now. But even when the team is healthy, it’s clear that they lack a puck-moving defenseman on that blueline. Hedman is still quite good at that, but he can’t be their only option at 35 years old. Darren Raddysh has been a promising option, but it feels like the one thing that can really bring the Lightning back to Cup contention is another puck-mover on the back end. -Scott
What else can you even say about this team at this point? While many (including myself) saw a decline coming with the loss of Mitch Marner and just the regression that comes with overperforming last season, very few people thought it would be this bad. Everything has gone wrong at the same time, and everyone is to blame. The players (including the core) aren’t getting the job done. But the players have struggled because Craig Berube’s system clearly isn’t working. But then Berube’s system isn’t working because Brad Treliving hasn’t given him the right players or constructed a good enough team. So, what do you do when the same problem happens over and over again ,and everyone is at fault? The Leafs continued to be cursed, and an exorcism may be the only thing that saves this team. -Scott
Unshackled from the Yotes’ miserly owners, Utah GM Bill Armstrong has made major trades in both offseasons since the NHL came to Salt Lake City. Stanley Cup-winning blueliner Mikhail Sergachev and slick German winger JJ Peterka are both good players who fit Utah’s timeline. Still, they haven’t taken the Mammoth to the next level like Armstrong would have hoped, and a down year from captain Clayton Keller isn’t helping matters. Finding a center to slot behind injured top pivot Logan Cooley could give Utah more options to get the best out of Peterka, Keller, and emerging sniper Dylan Guenther. Bridging the gap to top prospect Caleb Desnoyers with Ryan O’Reilly would be the dream scenario, but the line for ‘ROR’ will be Black Friday long. -Anthony
It’s too late for Santa to undo the you-know-what show between J.T. Miller and Elias Petersson that ruined last season for the Canucks. Too late for him to untrade Quinn Hughes, the best defenseman in franchise history, and too late to unhire the unprepared head coach whose most significant selling point was his relationship with Hughes. Oh well. Perhaps Santa can help the Canucks brass avoid more dumpster fires in the years to come by informing them they don’t need to clue the media into literally every crisis going on behind closed doors. President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford, GM Patrick Allvin, and two head coaches running have turned the ‘Nucks beat into a feeding frenzy by confirming every juicy rumor surrounding their club, and some that weren’t. Circle the wagons, boys! -Anthony
The Golden Knights went into the season expecting solid bottom-six minutes from Brandon Saad, Colton Sissons, and Reilly Smith, a trio of 30-something two-way players with nearly 300 games of playoff experience between them. Unfortunately for the Knights, they all seem to be hitting the wall at the same time; Smith paces the trio with just three goals and six points. Cap space is tight, and the prospect coffers are bare in Vegas, so it will be crucial for Saad, Smith, and Sissons to turn back the clock in the second half if the Golden Knights are going to cash in on captain Mark Stone’s career-best production and win the Pacific Division. -Anthony
Ahead of last season’s 4 Nations Faceoff, Team Canada baffled onlookers by overlooking Logan Thompson’s star turn in the Caps’ crease. Thompson remains the NHL’s top Canadian shotstopper ahead of the Olympics, except this time, power forward/supervillain Tom Wilson and blue line dynamo Jakob Chychrun are also in the running to don the red Maple Leaf. Would it really be the worst thing for the Capitals if the Canadian trio got the shaft from Doug Armstrong and co.? Alexander Ovechkin and Aliaksei Protas represent banned nations, and John Carlson hasn’t suited up for Team USA in nearly a decade. If Thompson, Wilson, and Chychrun get snubbed, all of Washington’s stars can rest up somewhere on a beach as Division rivals from Carolina and New Jersey take a beating in Milan. -Anthony
Typically, the Jets have been able to ride Connor Hellebuyck to results regardless of their shortcomings. In the two seasons Hellebuyck swept major goaltending honors and added a Hart Trophy from 2023-25, Winnipeg managed a 56-win pace during his starts. When the Jets cratered (3-8-1) while Hellebuyck recovered from knee surgery last month, that was normal; backup Eric Comrie lost more than he won last season even as the Jets claimed the Presidents’ Trophy. What isn’t normal is that ‘Bucky’ himself is just 9-8-2 this year despite typically glistening numbers (2.48 GAA, .912 SV%). Winnipeg’s depth scoring and even-strength results have totally collapsed in front of Hellebuyck, and it seems not even the Hall-of-Fame shotstopper can stave off a lost season. -Anthony
Originally posted on Daily Faceoff
Published: 7 hours ago
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