July 1st is always an eventful day in the NHL. Players find new homes via free agency and trades for a majority of the day. Some teams do better than others when it comes to approaching this day. This year had several teams finding elite talent, while others had to sit back and dig to find some skill in the lower ranks of free agency.

WINNERS
NY Rangers (obviously)
The Rangers were able to sign 27 year-old Artemi Panarin to a 7 year, 11.6M per year contract. Sounds pricey, right? Maybe... but considering the fact that the NY Islanders were offering 12.5M and Columbus was offering 13M to land the Russian stud, the Rangers’ offer looks pretty good. Still not convinced? The Rangers’ best winger as of right now is Chris Kreider. Kreider’s career high in goals is 28. That’s not too shabby. Panarin’s worst season saw him only pot 27 goals. One less than NY’s best winger. So, 11.6 for an elite scorer on the wing sounds like a pretty good deal.

Dallas Stars
While they weren’t able keep the Norwegian BEAUTY (heavy emphasis), Zuccarello, the Stars went out and acquired another highly-sought after UFA in Joe Pavelski. Pavelski has been the captain of San Jose for the past few years and has been a consistent scoring threat, even in his mid-30’s. They also got an aging Corey Perry, who will likely fill a 3rd/4th line role. Just like the St Louis Blues who had Alex Steen on their 4th line during their Stanley Cup championship (like yesterday), the Stars now have a veteran goal scorer on their depth chart. As long as his knees hold up, Dallas should be looking like a beast next season.

LOSERS

Tampa Bay Lightning

The Bolts had an incredible season last year by tying the 95-96 Red Wings for most wins in a regular season. They followed it up with… well… you know the story. Similar to the 95-96 Red Wings, it will only be natural for them to take a step back next season. Free agency was an indication of that. The Lightning were handcuffed this season by bad contracts that have completely eaten up all of their cap space. This offseason had the President’s Trophy winners rumored to sign the likes of Wayne Simmonds, Erik Karlsson, or even Joe Pavelski. None of these names will be wearing blue and white next season because Tampa was unable to acquire any of them. At their high asking prices, it was not going to be easy to sign any of them, but it seems like they were gearing up to get at least one when they traded JT Miller to Vancouver to free up some space. None ended up coming to Tampa Bay and now the Bolts have some more work to do before October rolls around.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Columbus made a last-ditch effort to keep Panarin from heading to a new city by offering him an 8-year, 13M per year contract. It didn’t work. Panarin took less money to play in NYC. Tough look…. Bobrovsky has signed with the Florida Panthers which leaves CBJ without a solid #1 goalie. Without many options left in free agency, the Blue Jackets now must scramble to find good scoring and solid goaltending in the next few weeks. Potential goalie targets could be Cam Ward, Scott Darling, or Michael Neuvirth. All are decent short-term solutions, but none are currently at the level of Sergei Bobrovsky.

Written By Andrew Silvers

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