The 2023-24 National Hockey League is almost over.
Aside from the ongoing hockey, there’s plenty of news regarding teams gearing up for an exciting off-season, as well as the latest Daily Faceoff Trade Targets article. Let’s dig into all that!
Daily Faceoff Top Trade Targets
On Thursday morning, Frank Seravalii of Daily Faceoff released his latest Trade Target list for the upcoming off-season.
Featuring 25 players, there was only one Edmonton Oiler player on the list, Darnell Nurse. The 29-year-old left-shot defencemen has had a mixed postseason. He’s evidently an important player for the Oilers, as he played just four minutes and 20 seconds in Monday’s Game 2 loss to the team. 
However, he’s also had some pretty awful games this postseason, especially in Game 3 of the Western Conference Final. Nurse has a back-loaded deal worth a cap hit of $9.25 million. Seravalii explains any potential trade as “a bad contract for a different bad contract.”
There are some other interesting players on the list. It seems like it’ll only be a matter of time before Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner is moved, as he ranks first on the list. The Carolina Hurricanes look like they’ll take a different approach to the 2024-25 season, and moving pending restricted free agent Martin Nečas could signal that move, he ranks second on DFO’s list.
A current (Nikolaj Ehlers) and former Winnipeg Jet (Patrik Laine) rank third and fifth respectively on the list, with the latter reportedly asking for a trade for a fresh start. Laine on the Oilers would be fun, sign me up.
Boston Bruins netminder Linus Ullmark is fourth on the list, one of four netminders to appear on it. At the eighth spot is Calgary Flames netminder Jacob Markström, the 10th is Juuse Saros, and at the 20th-spot is Elvis Merzlikins.
Jalen Chatfield re-signs with Carolina
The Carolina Hurricanes have re-signed their third pairing defencemen, Jalen Chatfield, to a three-year deal with a cap hit of $3 million a year. This, according to Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli.
The undrafted player broke into the National Hockey League in 2020-21, playing 18 games for the Vancouver Canucks before signing with the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2021 off-season. He mainly played in the American Hockey League in his first season in the organization, scoring six goals and 18 points in 44 games, while playing 16 games at the NHL level.
Chatfield became a regular in the 2022-23 season, scoring six goals and 14 points in 78 games, before an even better 2023-24 season where he scored eight goals and 22 points in 72 games.
At similar age to Edmonton Oilers’ defenceman, Vincent Desharnais, this is a good indication of how much he’ll get as a pending unrestricted free agent. Like Chatfield, the Oilers defender is a third-paining defenceman who only scored a goal and 11 points in 78 games while playing a crucial role on the penalty kill.
He certainly won’t make $3 million a season, perhaps somewhere around the $2 million range.
San Jose has a new head coach
Former San Jose Sharks head coach David Quinn led the team to an NHL-worst 19-54-9 record for 47 points. It was good for the organization, as they’ll land Macklin Celebrini at the 2024 draft. Not so great for David Quinn though, as he was fired.
On Thursday, the Sharks announced their new bench boss for the 2024-25 season and beyond, Ryan Warsofsky. The 36-year-old who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, has spent the last two seasons as the team’s assistant coach focusing on defense, helping defencemen Erik Karlsson to his second Norris Trophy.
Warsofsky’s first head coach gig came in 2016-17 with the South Carolina Stingrays, where they went all the way to the finals that season, but lost. The next season, they posted a 48-16-8 record, but lost in the first round. In the next season, Warsofsky earned a promotion to the assistant coach of the Charlotte Checkers, where the team won the Calder Cup in the 2019 post season.
Prior to the pandemic shutdown, Warsofsky was promoted to the head coach of the Charlotte Checkers and had a 34-22-5 record, but no postseason was played. In the abbreviated season, he led the team to a 21-9-3 record for a .682 record, but that somehow wasn’t good enough for the postseason.
Warsofsky won his second Calder Cup in the 2022 postseason after leading his team to a 50-16-10 record, the .724 winning percentage being the best of his career. This also earned him an NHL assistant coach position.
Blues GM Doug Armstrong re-signs, Alexander Steen to take over in 2026
There was another move in team personnel on Thursday, as general manager and president of hockey operations of the St. Louis Blues, Doug Armstrong, re-signed to a three-year deal. He had two seasons left on his pre-existing deal.
Armstrong has been in the league forever at this point, getting his start in a team’s front office in 1990-91 with the Minnesota North Stars. He eventually became the general manager during the 2001-02 season, well after they moved to Dallas.
Eventually, he was fired in 2007, joining the St. Louis organization seven months later. Armstrong has been the team’s general manager since July 1, 2010. In that time, he’s won a Stanley Cup (2019), the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award (2011-12), and has made the postseason 10 times.
However, Armstrong’s tenure as the general manager has an expiration date. He’ll stay within the organization as the president of hockey operations, with long-time St. Louis Blues’ player Alexander Steen taking over as the general manager for the 2026-27 season.
Steen, originally drafted in the first round of the 2002 draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs was traded to St. Louis in late 2008 for Lee Stempniak. In 12 seasons with the organization, Steen scored 195 goals and 496 points in 765 games and was an alternate captain from the 2010-2011 season until his retirement before the 2020-21 season.
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