NHL offseason winners and losers, 4 Nations request and happier times in Vancouver: DGB Grab Bag

Were halfway through the season and havent done a Grab Bag yet.

Lets fix that today, with your favorite Friday complete waste of time ...

My winners and losers from the 2024 offseason (that due to a scheduling error is only being published now) What can I say folks, mistakes happen.

Back in the days before the start of the 2024-25 season, I wrote a thorough look back at the offseason and assigned the traditional winner and loser labels to various teams based on the moves they made.

Then, due to a series of unfortunate circumstances which I wont bore you with the details of, the post didnt run in time.

Also, I somehow didnt notice that, until just now.

Dont ask questions, just go with it.

Advertisement Anyway, I thought it would be fun to look back at my list and see how I did.

Ill be honest, I think it holds up amazingly well.

I guess Im just really good at this.

Loser: Nashville Predators Signed Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault , disrupting their delicate team chemistry and potentially setting them up to finish in last place.

I am definitely writing this before the season begins.

Winner: Detroit Red Wings Gave the Sharks a second-round pick to take Jake Walman s contract, freeing up crucial cap space they can use later to fill critical roster holes, such as their desperate need for a player like Jake Walman.

Winner: New York Rangers Failed to land any players who would be reasonably expected to help them during the 2025 playoffs, so full points for being ahead of the curve.

Winner: Chicago Blackhawks While many have criticized their offseason additions as lackluster or even a step backward, they wisely left themselves with enough cap space that midway through the season they should be a leading candidate to be involved in a Mikko Rantanen trade.

Losers: New Jersey Devils / Ottawa Senators Foolishly pursued fickle and injury-prone All-Stars such as Jacob Markstrom and Linus Ullmark instead of paying up to land one of the more reliable goaltending choices that was available, such as Marcus Hogberg , Jaxson Stauber or Kevin Lankinen .

Winner: St.

Louis Blues Were able to sign two players to predatory offer sheets without worrying about future retaliation on any of their top players, since they dont have any.

Winner: Pittsburgh Penguins Finally got captain Sidney Crosby signed to a reasonable extension, wisely leaving enough room under the cap to surround him with good players when hes on the Avalanche by March.

Winner: Los Angeles Kings Moved on from Pierre-Luc Dubois , which is obviously the key to building a winning team that will exceed expectations both on and off the ice.

Advertisement Winner: Washington Capitals Acquired Pierre-Luc Dubois, which is obviously the key to building a winning team that will exceed expectations both on and off the ice.

Loser: Montreal Canadiens Made a handful of smaller roster moves which will only serve to detract attention from Lane Hutson s pursuit of Paul Coffeys career scoring record.

He is the greatest blueliner in history and will be the unanimous winner of the annual award for best defenseman, which by that point will be called the Lane Hutson Trophy.

When Lane Hutson is not on the ice, all the other players should be saying Wheres Lane Hutson? Winner: Philadelphia Flyers Have accumulated underrated depth at center, both wings and defense, so should be all set as long as those are the only positions on a hockey team.

Winner: Vancouver Canucks Finally solved their locker room problems by letting Elias Lindholm leave in free agency, at least assuming that whats J.T.

Miller s I HATE ELIAS chest tattoo was referring to.

The three stars of comedy The third star: Yaroslav Askarov At least hes honest.

What goes through Yaroslav Askarov's mind before a penalty shot? Askarov: "WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA NO NO NO" pic.twitter.com/xc8SPBBPb6 Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) January 28, 2025 This is also how I react to waking up every day, so I can relate.

The second star: Hockey marketing at its finest The 4 Nations Face-Off feel the excitement! these clips are killing me pic.twitter.com/BsuPBYa2bt laur (@passionista34) December 12, 2024 Hes right, I did guess it was Connor McDavid .

The first star: This Absolute A+ prop comedy here.

Then he waddled away.

pic.twitter.com/cN9uLWVHId Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) January 12, 2025 Also, every time I see this image come up on my feed somewhere, I have to stop and laugh at the ridiculous-looking duck.

Im assuming that Wild Wing wasnt looking to help Gritty go viral so they just found the skinniest person they could fit into a second-hand Spirit Halloween costume, and that makes it so much better.

Be it resolved Were weeks away from the return of best-on-best tournament hockey, kind of.

The 4 Nations Face-Off feels like a watered-down version of the World Cup, but thats not bad.

Its not the Olympics , but its also not All-Star weekend, so well take it.

You can find the schedule here , although you may notice that its a little vague when it comes to which teams will be considered home or away for the games.

Thats an important detail since it determines things like last change and faceoff protocols.

And just to be clear, thats all it should determine.

Advertisement Im talking to you, arena operations staff, because this is something thats bugged me about international hockey over the years.

Inevitably, youll get situations where the host nation is the away team for a game because thats just how a fair tournament has to work.

But when that situation comes up, we really dont have to go all out to pretend the team that 95 percent of the fans are rooting against is the home team.

That means we can ease off on things like blaring the goal horn every time Finland scores on Canada in Montreal, or when Sweden gets one against Team USA in Boston.

We dont need the spotlight and the music and that whole deal, especially if youre going to treat the host nation with dead silence when they score.

Its perfectly fine to just do the ballyhoo for both sides or neither.

But it looks ridiculous when youre on your 18th pump of the goal horn in front of a crowd thats dead silent because everyones rooting for the road team.

We already get enough of that silliness every time the Senators host the Leafs.

Please dont do it for the 4 Nations too.

Thanks in advance.

Obscure former player of the week A lot of people have strong opinions about young offensive defensemen these days, so Im assuming that this is a fun and positive topic that people enjoy discussing.

Great, this weeks obscure player is Jeff Sharples.

Sharples was a second-round pick out of the WHL by the Red Wings in 1985, hearing his name called right after the back-to-back picks of Joe Nieuwendyk and Mike Richter.

He went back to junior for another year, then turned pro in 1986, playing three NHL games for Detroit before heading to the AHL for the rest of the year.

He cracked the Wings lineup on a full-time basis for the 1986-87 season and posted strong numbers right out of the gate.

The highlight came in a home-and-home with the Blues in December, when Sharples recorded a goal and four assists in a pair of wins, including combining with the unlikely duo of Steve Yzerman and Bob Probert for three power-play points in the same game .

That game pushed Sharples career total to 20 points in 26 games, making him the fastest Detroit blueliner to ever reach that mark.

That record would eventually be broken by some kid named Nicklas Lidstrom, and later was almost matched by Moritz Seider .

Moritz Seider recorded his 20th career point (3-1720 in 29 GP).

He required the third-fewest games by a rookie defenseman to reach the mark with the @DetroitRedWings behind Nicklas Lidstrom (22 GP) and Jeff Sharples (26 GP).

#NHLStats : https://t.co/GmoeSVNw6v pic.twitter.com/vbN2MHuiGg NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) December 15, 2021 Sharples offensive output cooled off after that explosion, and he finished the year with 16 points in his final 33 games, giving him a season total of 35 points.

He followed that with a 13-point sophomore season, and ...

that was it.

The Wings traded him to the Oilers as part of the Jimmy Carson blockbuster , but while nobody knew it at the time, Sharples final NHL action had already come and gone at the age of 21.

Hed spend the next decade in the AHL and IHL before hanging up his skates in 2000.

He did some coaching and then went on to become a pilot .

So there you have it when a defenseman scores a lot of points early in his career, he might be Jeff Sharples.

He also might be Nicklas Lidstrom.

Unless hes Moritz Seider.

Those are the only three options, so good luck out there everyone.

Classic YouTube clip breakdown Its been a rough year in Vancouver, to put it lightly.

A season that began with plenty of well-founded optimism was quickly sidetracked by injuries and absences and has now devolved into a full-fledged dressing room debacle thats left fans waiting around for the core to be blown up in a series of trades the team will almost certainly lose.

Advertisement So ...

yeah, not great.

If you know any Vancouver fans, consider offering them a hug.

Today, while you might expect us to twist the knife by taking shots at the city and its fans, were going to do the opposite.

Lets try to raise some spirits by remembering a truly great moment of time in Canucks history and maybe also remind the fan base that miracles can happen.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip or anything else youd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] .

(Top photo of Elias Pettersson and J.T.

Miller: Danny Murphy / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.