Close Season
After dealing with Anchorage in the first round of the playoffs, Colorado beat Dallas 4-1 in the second round, LA Kings 4-2 in the Conference Final, then beat the New Jersey Devils 4-2 in the Stanley Cup final. So we were knocked out by the eventual champions. That makes us equal second best team in the league in my opinion.
Connor McDavid was league MVP again, 3 of the last 4 years, just missed the year he was injured. Not bad, still no Stanley Cups though. No awards for Anchorage players, and I didnt win GM of the year either. It's an injustice.
Rookie Draft
It was a strange draft this year, it was all a bit....well...crap. Seemed like the talent was much worse than previous years. Thanks to the playoff run we didn't pick til 21st, got a Canadian LD called Easten Turko. He really wasn't any better than what I'd expect to get in the 3rd round in previous years. Anchorage also ran into a bug in the late rounds, from the 5th round onward Anchorage couldn't pick anything other than goalies, no other position showed up to select. Thanks to hording lower round picks, we now have 8 terrible goaltender prospects, maybe one of those lottery tickets will hit.
Free Agents
There were not as many holes in the roster to fill this year, no cliques, no ingrates to shove out the door but we still had money to spend. Backup goalie Linus Ullmark's 7mil contract expired (after which he realized he never had to work again and promptly retired), Marcus Foligno contract expired and he went back to Minnesota, a few others left too on expiring contracts and we were left with no gaps in the roster but 11mil to spend to get to the salary floor.
And spend it we did.
First in was a tough bottom 3 center Shane Pinto, he got 3.5mil a year for 3 years to be our third line center. Next up was a strange one. After all the callups the Anchorage prospect cupboard was fairly bare, there was only one real prospect left. C Mattias Lofgren, a third round pick in 2025 he'd been 1.5 current/3.0 potential back then and after 2 years playing for Kamloops in the Canadian Western Hockey League he was now somehow ranked as 1.5/5.0. I was a bit doubtful that a 20 year old who hadnt improved from 1.5 in two years would ever hit 5.0 so I shopped him to see if anybody would give me a high pick for him. Instead Detroit, who are in a new rebuild phase, offered top RD Moritz Seider. 26 years old, 3.5 current 4.5 potential and earning $6.5million per year for 3 more years. Sounded too good to turn down, so I didn't turn it down. That along with an undrafted Ukrainian center called Nikita Zozulia for an entry level contract and Anchorage were safely above the salary floor for another year.
One bad move of the summer was that Brady Skjei was given a new 3 year contract for 6.5mil per year last year before it was obvious he was on a downward slide. it kicks in this summer. We also had some important players going into their last contract year, Henry Mews, Chris Thiboseau and Jordan Gavin all signed extensions, but Carl Grundstrom and Yauheni Aksiantsiuk both opted to test the market so they'll be gone next summer, if not before.
And the financial issues seem to have died down too, a playoff season really gets the fans back on board.
| Name | pos | Age | Nationality | Current | Potential | Years | Salary |
|---|
| Goalies | | | | | | | |
| Vitek Vanecek | G | 31 | CZE | 3.0 | 3.0 | 1 | 2,820 |
| Tristan Lennox | G | 24 | CAN | 2.0 | 3.0 | 2 | 950 |
| Matt Murray | G | 33 | CAN | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2 | 1,490 |
| Ryan Grout | G | 20 | CAN | 1.0 | 2.5 | 3 | 750 |
| Visa Vedenpaa | G | 22 | FIN | 1.0 | 2.0 | 1 | 750 |
| | | | | | | |
| Defensemen | | | | | | | |
| Brandon Montour | LD | 33 | CAN | 3.0 | 3.0 | 2 | 5,420 |
| Brady Skjei | LD | 33 | USA | 2.5 | 2.5 | 3 | 6,571 |
| Olen Zellweger | LD | 24 | CAN | 2.5 | 3.5 | 2 | 1,460 |
| Weston Knox | LD | 23 | USA | 2.5 | 3.5 | 1 | 750 |
| Adam Pelech | LD | 33 | CAN | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2 | 5,570 |
| | | | | | | |
| Henry Mews | RD | 21 | CAN | 4.0 | 4.5 | 1 | 834 |
| Moritz Seider | RD | 26 | GER | 3.5 | 4.5 | 3 | 6,590 |
| Topi Niemela | RD | 25 | FIN | 3.0 | 3.0 | 2 | 2,570 |
| Jordan Spence | RD | 26 | CAN | 2.5 | 3.0 | 1 | 2,190 |
| Erik Cernak | RD | 30 | SLO | 2.0 | 2.5 | 2 | 4,335 |
| | | | | | | |
| Forwards | | | | | | | |
| Jordan Gavin | C | 20 | CAN | 4.0 | 5.0 | 1 | 834 |
| Shane Pinto | C | 26 | USA | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3 | 3,410 |
| Oskar Vuollet | C | 21 | SWE | 3.0 | 3.5 | 2 | 925 |
| Alex Weiermair | C | 22 | USA | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2 | 878 |
| Hunter McKenzie | C | 20 | CAN | 3.0 | 3.0 | 2 | 834 |
| Nikita Zozulia | C | 22 | UKR | 3.0 | 3.5 | 2 | 878 |
| | | | | | | |
| Lucas Karmiris | LW | 20 | CAN | 3.0 | 3.5 | 2 | 834 |
| Yauheni Aksiantsiuk | LW | 26 | BLR | 2.5 | 2.5 | 1 | 1,659 |
| Carl Grundstrom | LW | 29 | SWE | 2.5 | 2.5 | 1 | 1,337 |
| Liam Watkins | LW | 23 | CAN | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2 | 878 |
| Liam O'Brien | LW | 31 | CAN | 2.0 | 2.0 | 1 | 1,883 |
| | | | | | | |
| Vasili Podkolzin | RW | 25 | RUS | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3 | 4,881 |
| Emil Hemming | RW | 21 | FIN | 3.5 | 4.0 | 2 | 834 |
| Arthur Kaliyev | RW | 26 | USA | 3.0 | 3.0 | 2 | 2,600 |
| Philipp Kurashev | RW | 27 | SWI | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2 | 1,965 |
| Chris Thibodeau | RW | 21 | CAN | 2.5 | 3.0 | 1 | 834 |