2025 NHL team report cards: Draft, free agency and trades - ESPN

The compressed NHL offseason — draft, mega-trades and free agency all within a 10-day period — is an opportunity for every front office to improve its roster. Some general managers need just a few players to remain a top Stanley Cup contender — or ascend to that status. Others need to be a bit more aggressive to raise their club's competitive level, or perhaps their vision is on 2026-27 or beyond for a serious playoff push.

With the initial wave of additions and adjustments complete, it's time for an honest assessment of each front office based on what was reasonably expected.

Here are report cards for all 32 NHL teams, based on the moves made through Monday. These are based on the moves they made, the moves they perhaps wanted to make, and their needs entering the proverbial dog days of mid-July through training camps in September.

Note: Advanced statistics are from Natural Stat Trick and Evolving Hockey. Cap and contract information is from PuckPedia as of July 8; teams with negative remaining cap space are that much over the cap, and must be cap-compliant by opening night. Kristen Shilton covered the Atlantic and Metro teams, Ryan S. Clark the Central and Pacific clubs. Teams are listed alphabetically within each letter-grade tier.

Draft recap: All 224 picks
Grades for all 32 teams
Winners and losers

Key players added: D Jeff Petry, G Daniil Tarasov
Key players lost: D Nate Schmidt, G Vitek Vanecek
Remaining cap space: None (projected $2,950,000 over)

Overall grade: A+

Florida GM Bill Zito gets top marks for somehow keeping all the key pieces of the Panthers' recent Stanley Cup runs off the open market. Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad and Brad Marchand received long-term contracts from the club that will chisel its name