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Good morning to everyone except whoever it is that photoshops traded players into their new uniforms three seconds after a trade happens. It’s not often we get to say this in December, but all the attention is focused off the ice these days. Let’s get into it …
It Happened
If you’re the sort of hockey fan who keeps up on NHL news solely by reading this newsletter and nothing else, you may want to sit down. The days since we hit “send” on Friday morning’s edition have been busy.
We’ll get to the two trades. But first, some big news in Buffalo …
(George Walker IV / Associated Press)
Sabres finally make a change at the top
Kevyn Adams is out as GM, a move many Sabres fans had been begging for (and that our Matthew Fairburn and Tim Graham telegraphed days before it happened.) He’ll be replaced by former Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekäläinen, who’d been with the team as an adviser since May.
It’s always tough to see anyone lose a job, but it’s fair to say this one was probably overdue in Buffalo. Adams was considered a head-scratching hire when he got the job — check out this profile from 2020 — and hadn’t been able to get the Sabres back into the playoffs. That drought is already at a league-record 14 years, and it sure doesn’t seem likely to change this year. Worse, the Sabres often felt like an organization in disarray, and the fans knew it.
That doesn’t mean it was all Adams’ fault. He often seemed to be playing a tough hand, like with the Jack Eichel situation a few years ago. His track record was mixed, like all GMs, and it’s fair to wonder whether anyone can win with Terry Pegula running the show. (And Adams was right about the palm trees, by the way.)
All that said, he had five years on the job, which is more than almost anyone with his record of success ever gets in this results-oriented league. And sometimes you really do need to make a change for the sake of making a change — if only to persuade your long-suffering fans that somebody out there is paying attention.
Kekäläinen is a reasonable hire, and it’s worth noting that he’s getting the job on a full-time basis, not on an interim basis. He’s been there long enough that he won’t try to play the “I need a season to get my bearings” card, but not so long that you’d say he was a part of the problem. His track record in Columbus was decidedly mixed, but he took some big swings, and the Sabres will need that. And don’t forget, he was the GM who persuaded Johnny Gaudreau to come to Columbus, a market that can be at least a little Buffalo-like in terms of attracting talent.
Will it work? Hard to say. But it can’t get much worse, and the Sabres couldn’t keep being the organization that tried nothing and was all out of ideas.
OK, on to the trades …
(David Berding / Getty Images)
Welcome to Quinnesota! And, um, Edmon(tris)tan
I apologize for that headline, we’re trying to delete it.
First, the Quinn Hughes blockbuster. All four players involved have made their first appearances with their new team, and there was a lot to like for both sides. Hughes didn’t waste much time making a first impression on Minnesota fans, scoring a goal in his debut.
The goal was part of an impressive blowout win over the Boston Bruins in which the Wild looked like real contenders. And in Vancouver, Zeev Buium got a goal of his own in his debut and also added an assist for two points, because he’s apparently twice as good as Hughes. Don’t argue with me, that’s just how the math works.
Meanwhile, the rest of the league is still coming to terms with the megadeal. The ripples are being felt by every team, but some more than others. There are big questions in New Jersey, where we’d all assumed Hughes would eventually wind up so he could play with his brothers. That could still happen, although it sounds like the Wild have a real shot to get an extension done, which leaves you wondering if the Devils have a Plan B. At least they were presumably in the running, which is more than some other teams may be able to say. And as Harman Dayal points out, the trade is bad news for teams in the Central, which was already stacked and arguably now features the three best teams in the league — two of whom will play each other in the first round.
The Hughes deal came just hours after another shocker involving a Canadian team: The Oilers finally got a goalie. Is Tristan Jarry the right goalie? Time will tell, although some of us were hoping they’d aim a little higher, and the initial trade grades were only so-so. Stuart Skinner wasn’t the only problem in Edmonton by any stretch, as your friendly Friday newsletter guy breaks down in this piece. But going into yet another playoff run with Skinner as the top option felt inconceivable, and eventually, Stan Bowman was going to have to pull the trigger. On Friday, he decided he’d waited long enough.
By the way, the Oilers and Penguins play each other tonight. More on that in a bit.
Trivia Time💡
In honor of the Oilers solving(?) their goaltending problems with the Jarry/Skinner trade, let’s go with a goalie trade question.
In the cap era, we’ve seen a goalie win the Vezina after being traded the previous offseason (Sergei Bobrovsky in 2013), and we’ve seen a goalie traded right after winning the Vezina (Marc-Andre Fleury in 2021). But one thing we’ve never seen, in NHL history, is a goalie who was traded during a season in which he went on to win the Vezina, a fact it’s fair to say Jarry and Skinner are unlikely to change.
We’ve come close, though. So, for today’s trivia question, can you name the only goalie to be part of a midseason trade and then go on to be a Vezina finalist that same year?
(Hint: The trade we’re looking for came in January, and it only cost the acquiring team a pick.)
Answer down below.
Coast to Coast
🤡 The Athletic is running our Ultimate Front Office Rankings, and it starts with a poll where you can weigh in.
👶 Don’t miss our group effort on the fastest-rising prospects in each pipeline. And speaking of prospects, Scott Wheeler has a name you’ll want to know for the 2026 draft.
🦅 Team Canada and Team USA wrapped up their women’s Rivalry Series, but I don’t know who won because I don’t think they were keeping score. Here’s whose stock is rising and falling in the aftermath.
🎙️ More Hughes blockbuster coverage on “The Athletic Hockey Show” podcast, with insight from our own Thomas Drance, plus Max Bultman and Jesse Granger on Jarry being dealt to the Oilers. Watch or listen here.
🤔 And one last Jarry note you may have been wondering about: Wait, how did he have new Oilers goalie gear ready to go the day after the trade?
What to Watch
📺 Islanders @ Red Wings
7 p.m. ET on ESPN+
The Islanders may be the league’s hottest team right now. They’re certainly in the running for most surprising. They head to Detroit to face a Wings team that continues to hover around the top of the Atlantic. A conference final preview? No, obviously not. (But … maybe?)
📺 Oilers @ Penguins
7:30 p.m. ET on TNT / Sportsnet
You can’t go wrong with a classic Sidney Crosby versus Connor McDavid matchup, especially because this might be one of the last we get to see. But there’s even more intrigue here thanks to the two teams having just pulled off a blockbuster goalie swap. Will we see Tristan Jarry or Stuart Skinner face their old teams? Not necessarily, because NHL coaches hate fun, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.
📺 Capitals @ Wild
8 p.m. ET on ESPN+
All eyes will be on Hughes. But the Caps have a couple of American defensemen who are pretty good in their own right, and I’m guessing Jakob Chychrun and John Carlson wouldn’t mind sending a message to any Team USA blue-line scouts.
Full NHL schedule here. Try streaming games like these for free on Fubo.
(Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Best Served Cold 🥶
🎯What exactly is a “revenge game?”🎯
You may have noticed that in the blurb about tonight’s Oilers/Penguins game in the last section, I didn’t call it a “revenge game.” That’s because I think we’re using that term way too much lately.
To be clear, the Revenge Game is indeed a thing. When a player is run out of town, returns with a new team and proceeds to light his former employers up, it’s a fantastic sports moment. And fans have been blessed with plenty of memorable Revenge Games over the years.
But like anything, the concept loses its fun if you start to overdo it. And man, are hockey fans ever overdoing it these days. Just because some fourth-liner who had a cup of coffee with your favorite team eight years ago gets a secondary assist against them doesn’t mean you have to run to your window and scream “REVENGE GAME” at random passers-by.
(Wait, “passers-by”? Is that a word? Should it be “passerbys”? Oh no, now I’ve got the weirdos who say “Games 7” all excited about a grammar argument. You know what, forget I mentioned anything.)
Anyway, don’t yell at, uh, people who are passing by. At least not all the time. And yes, that applies even if you think you’re doing it ironically, because at some point it all just becomes noise and people stop paying attention.
So, what is a revenge game? I think we need to check a few boxes:
• First and foremost, the relationship between team and player has to have ended badly, and it has to have been at least largely the team’s fault. Trading a player away could qualify. So could watching them leave as a free agent, if the team didn’t make much of an effort to re-sign them. But if the player is the one who chose to leave, it can’t be a revenge game, because there’s nothing to get revenge for.
• I don’t think the revenge game has to be the very first time a player faces his old team, although that certainly helps heighten the drama. But it does need to be relatively soon. Your 14th matchup against your old team is not a revenge game. I feel like a one-year window should suffice.
• The player has to be an actual star if anyone else is supposed to care. Sorry, depth guys, if you wanted a revenge game then you should have been better at hockey.
(Chris Tanouye / Getty Images)
Now let’s apply those rules to some recent NHL transactions:
• Tristan Jarry and Stuart Skinner: Skinner certainly qualifies. Jarry is a tougher call because it sounds like he was happy to get a fresh start in Edmonton. That said, they did waive him twice. I’m willing to hear arguments on either side of this one.
• Chris Kreider last night in New York: Definite revenge game.
• Quinn Hughes in Vancouver: Not a revenge game. Sorry, but the Canucks treated him well, the fan base adored him and from all accounts it was his reluctance to re-sign that forced a deal the team didn’t want to make. And that’s completely fine, because players have rights and they’re allowed to use them. You just can’t cry “revenge” about it afterwards.
• Mikko Rantanen: Colorado definitely qualified, not just as a revenge game but as the ultra-rare revenge playoff series. But games against Carolina? Not revenge games.
• Jonathan Toews: His return to Chicago in January is going to be too much of a celebration to be a revenge game, although it’s closer than you might think given how the Hawks decided to move on from the Toews/Kane era.
• Trevor Zegras: He’s got two games against the Ducks still to come, including one in Anaheim, and they are absolutely revenge games.
• Mitch Marner: His first game back in Toronto won’t technically be a revenge game because it was his choice to leave. But he’ll think it is, and Leaf fans probably will too, and either way he’s definitely breaking Darryl Sittler’s record that night, so we might have to make an exception.
• Sidney Crosby when the Avalanche play the Penguins in March: Oops, this one doesn’t go on the list until the trade deadline.
Glad we got that all settled. (Now about this new trend where every player who ever played so much as a game for a team has to get a maudlin “thank you” video in their first game back …)
(Derek Leung / Getty Images)
Trivia Answer
On Jan. 15, 2015, a Minnesota Wild team desperate for goaltending decided to roll the dice on the Arizona Coyotes’ Devan Dubnyk for a third-round pick. It was the third time in a calendar year that Dubnyk had been traded, and nobody thought all that much of the move at the time. But Dubnyk went on an all-time heater while starting nearly every Wild game the rest of the way, and ended up finishing third in Vezina voting — but also fourth in Hart ballots.
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