Friday Links: Learning From the Finalists

What lessons can the Stars takeaway from the Avalanche and Lightning? Plus, head coaching hires, looking ahead to the offseason, and more.

The Stanley Cup Final is underway, which means it’s time for the annual tradition of examining what teams can copy from the finalists to improve their own Cup chances next year.

For starters, both teams have done a great job at acquiring new, inexpensive talent in not only free agency, but also via trading, something the Dallas Stars haven’t done much of for awhile:

It helps that [Joe] Sakic and Lightning GM Julian BriseBois have been highly active on this front. Since 2019, they’ve traded four players and given up at least six picks of consequence to add to their roster. The only time Jim Nill got frisky with draft picks was with the Mats Zuccarello trade in 2019. The only hockey trade of note over the last three years was Devin Shore for Andrew Cogliano—hardly a gamechanger.

Of course, the Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning also have the cap space to do that because little of it is tied up in underproductive players. And, well…

Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, and Jake Oettinger haven’t even been paid yet, but their contacts will be closer to what Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin make now in their 30s, when they soak up 23 percent of the Stars’ cap. In other words, the Stars are about to enter into their true window with 23 percent of the cap tied into substandard production, possibly more on the off chance they re-sign John Klingberg and his deal ages badly, too. It’s not a death knell for future success, but it is a significant obstacle.

You can read more from David Castillo here.

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Around the League

The Montreal Canadiens have traded captain Shea Weber — who will be finishing out his contract on LTIR — to the Vegas Golden Knights for Evgenii Dadonov:

Speaking of the Vegas Golden Knights, they made the first hire of the coaching carousel by snatching up Bruce Cassidy:

The second domino to fall was the Philadelphia Flyers, who hired…. John Tortorella:

Down Goes Brown focuses on the postseason in his latest mailbag:

Greg Wyshynski, in contrast, is focusing solely on the upcoming free agency pool:

…Just kidding — he also took a look at where Andrei Vasilevskiy sits among all-time NHL greats:

Gary Bettman discussed some interesting subjects in the NHL’s state-of-the-league press conference:

We’re firmly at the “everyone starts doubting the consensus #1 pick is actually drafted first” stage of NHL Draft discussion:

Finally, if you need a new hockey stick, then consider supporting a good cause while you’re at it: