Two moves that could shake up the Western Conference
Published
The NHL off-season has officially arrived. Over the next two weeks, anticipate a firehose of personnel changes across the league — starting with the 2025 draft on June 27 in Los Angeles, and peaking with the opening of unrestricted free agency on July 1.
A rising salary cap and steady trade chatter positions most teams, buyers and sellers alike, to get active in this window. And while we are heavy in the speculation phase right now, allow me to focus on two potential moves that could immediately shake up the NHL’s Western Conference.
Toronto forward Mitch Marner signing in Vegas? Vancouver and Edmonton working out a trade for goaltender Thatcher Demko? I see both as extremely viable right now. Let’s talk through them both.
Mitch Marner - Future Vegas Golden Knight?
Anytime a superstar is even remotely available, assume the Golden Knights will bid them up.
Vegas has proven time and again they will chase star power, and while Toronto hasn’t closed the door on a Marner return, you have to imagine there is significant pressure in the Maple Leafs organization to genuinely reset the makeup of the lineup — to say nothing of the sure to be astronomical contractual ask from Marner off a career-high 102-point season.
If Marner hits free agency, rest assured any contender with cap space will be making an immediate phone call to his camp. But Vegas offers several things that may put them in pole position: setting aside the salary, Vegas is a perennial contender with a proven track record of winning, with veteran players at every level.
Need a defensively insulating winger on Marner’s line? Here is Mark Stone. Need an elite centre to make Marner’s attacking skill from the wing shine? Few compare to Jack Eichel. And speaking of Eichel: has there been a bigger example in the last decade of a player’s image being so positively rehabilitated? It wasn’t long ago that Eichel and the Buffalo Sabres organization were at one another’s throats. Now he’s a Stanley Cup champion.
Say what you will about Marner’s playoff futility, he’s been one of the most electric forwards in the league for years. In fact, compare him to the top of the Vegas lineup (we’ll use Goals Above Replacement as our unit of measure here), and you can envision how seamlessly he should fit in:
The Golden Knights enter the off-season with close to $10 million in cap space, but several holes to fill on their active roster.
Recent rumours that defenceman Alex Pietrangelo may be shelved for significant time on long-term injured reserve would add another $9 million of incremental cap space, giving general manager Kelly McCrimmon nearly $20 million in total space to work with. If you hated Vegas’ cap gymnastics over the years, you might want to brace for impact if they can engineer a Marner signing through this.
That said, losing Pietrangelo creates a hole on the Vegas blueline, and the counterargument may be that they need to leverage any remaining cap space to shore up the back end. It’s certainly another option for McCrimmon.
From one Pacific Division team to two others — let’s talk about another possible major deal, this time between Vancouver and Edmonton.
Could the Oilers pry Thatcher Demko out of Vancouver?
Two things can be true at the same time. One, Connor McDavid is very likely to stay in Edmonton beyond his current contract, which expires at the end of next season. Two, McDavid still has zero Stanley Cups to his name— and like any supernova talent, he can and should use this window as leverage to force any requisite lineup improvements to ensure he has a path to the title in Edmonton.
The Oilers and GM Stan Bowman have already publicly acknowledged they’ll be looking to improve at forward and in net, strong emphasis on the latter.
We discussed at the trade deadline how thin the possible goaltending improvements were from around the league, looking at names like Karel Vejmelka in Utah (now long-term extended) and John Gibson in Anaheim (still available). Both were likely upgrades over the Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard tandem, but Edmonton chose to punt to the summer.
I can’t foresee any scenario where the Oilers run it back in net, but the options around the league still are few and far between. That said, a division rival in Vancouver may have the answer in Demko, a 29-year-old veteran with a proven track record of higher-end play. He also has struggled in recent years to stay healthy, which might be enough for the Canucks to consider moving on.
Compare Demko to the likes of Skinner, or Gibson for that matter, and you can get a sense of how productive – if healthy – he could be manning Edmonton’s crease.
Notably, all three goalies have nearly identical usage rates over the past four seasons:
Gibson has materially outperformed both, and if you prefer more traditional measures like raw save percentage, Demko’s a bright spot there too – his four-year stop rate (91.0) is 11th best in the league over this window, sandwiched between names like Nashville’s Juuse Saros and Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky.
Why would Vancouver consider trading Demko to a rival in Edmonton? There are several reasons. Chief among them: Demko’s health has not exactly been robust over the years, and the Canucks have both Kevin Lankinen and Arturs Silovs waiting in the wings.
Even with the injury history, a goalie of Demko’s calibre will be in high demand, allowing Vancouver to be patient and wait for the right trade return.
Do you know which team can’t be patient? The Oilers. Bowman has already acknowledged he’s investigating upgrades this summer.
The Canucks are in an odd moment in time where the argument they should be buyers is probably as compelling as the one they should be sellers. But if Demko isn’t a long-term fit in Vancouver, acquiring an impact player from Edmonton’s skater group (or, one of those close-to-NHL-ready prospects) could be attractive and doesn’t get in the way of whatever Patrik Allvin wants to do with the rest of his roster.
Connecting two divisional rivals on a prospective goalie trade isn’t common, but the Oilers have a pressing need with few options, and the Canucks — at least with respect to a Demko deal — are in the driver’s seat.
And while moving an impact goalie within the division could seem counterintuitive, if the Canucks are bearish on Demko’s durability and can secure the best offer from Edmonton, why would they balk? After all, these two teams connected on a Vasili Podkolzin trade just last summer.
One way or another, I think a lot of the decisive off-season action will come from the Pacific Division. And if both moves did materialize, I’d be fascinated to see how betting markets reacted, with the Golden Knights and Oilers already having some of the shortest 2025-26 Stanley Cup odds.
Whatever happens, the next two weeks will be frenetic. Embrace the chaos!
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference