Winners and Losers From the 1st Day of 2023 NHL Free Agency

The funny thing about free agency is that you never really know what to expect.

After all, we've all spent the better part of the offseason playing the role of a general manager in our own minds. We've convinced ourselves we know what the best and worst signings would be.

We then see how things play out and we're left either in awe or disgust about what's gone down. It's great!

But the best part of free agency is the snap judgments and bold declarations. You know what we're talking about...it's the winners and losers of Day 1.

When the Nashville Predators traded Ryan Johansen to Colorado for future considerations and then bought out Matt Duchene from the final three years of his contract, we were all wondering how they'd manage the offseason with the sudden move to rebuild their roster.

As it turns out, new Preds GM Barry Trotz had quite the attack plan in place.

The Predators were one of the day's more surprising teams. They changed their forward group by signing Ryan O'Reilly to a four-year, $18 million contract and Gustav Nyquist on a two-year, $6.37 million deal. They also extended Cody Glass with a two-year, $5 million deal. They also added defenseman Luke Schenn with a three-year, $8.25 million deal.

The Predators are going to be in roughly a similar situation as they were last season, meaning they'll need good health and good luck to have a shot at making the playoffs. They'll have a healthy Filip Forsberg join this group and they'll still have Juuse Saros minding the net after he single-handedly got Nashville back into the playoff race in the second half this past year.

It's a rebuild, but it's one being done somewhat on the fly. Adding O'Reilly and Nyquist gives them a veteran presence up front to join up-and-coming forwards Philip Tomasino, Joakim Kemell and Luke Evangelista. Schenn provides another veteran leader to go with Roman Josi, Tyson Barrie and Ryan McDonagh.

It's a solid and hard-working setup they've got in Nashville, But what more would you expect from a hockey mind like Trotz? If new coach Andrew Brunette can do some of what he did with Florida two years ago, the Preds are going to be a headache for everyone.

When Kyle Dubas took over as president of hockey operations for the Pittsburgh Penguins he knew (and we all knew) he was going to have a lot of roster issues to get a handle on.

The Penguins are a team with aging superstars and one without a lot of salary-cap space to work with. They had injury problems wreak havoc on them last season, particularly in goal, and serious issues with depth. It's a lot for any GM or president of hockey ops to get a handle on.

That's what made the Penguins re-signing Tristan Jarry to a five-year, $26.875 million contract ($5.375 million cap hit) and defenseman Ryan Graves to a six-year, $27 million deal ($4.5 million cap hit) so odd.

Jarry's injury issues the past two seasons are fresh in everyone's mind and that likely led to them also adding Alex Nedeljkovic on a one-year, $1.5 million deal to compete with Casey DeSmith for the backup job. Having goalie insurance is necessary these days as having three is almost mandatory at this point, but the Penguins have gone through this a lot lately where their full complement of goalies have gotten time in Pittsburgh.

Adding Graves to the blue-line corps is a solid addition. While with the New Jersey Devils last season, Graves paired with former Penguins defenseman John Marino which helped Marino to have a great season with 18 points in 64 games, just a year after Pittsburgh traded him for Ty Smith. Awkward.

Pairing Graves up with either Jeff Petry or Kris Letang should provide Pittsburgh a bit of a lift. But a six-year deal for the 28-year-old seemed to come out of the blue. There was absolutely demand out there for him, but demand to the point of going to six years is enough to pause for a moment.

Pittsburgh did help deepen their forward group by signing Lars Eller, Noel Acciari and Matt Nieto and those contracts were kept to a max of two years. That much is good business, but the long-term deals for Graves and especially Jarry highlight how few options there were on the market for upgrades.

It seems like we're always lauding the work of the Carolina Hurricanes and it's not because we're super fans. It's just that they keep making smart, sensible signings that allow them to keep the machine roaring.

Carolina signed the top defenseman on the market, Dmitry Orlov, to a two-year, $15.5 million contract. It's a juicy deal at a high AAV of $7.75 million, but it's also for just two years and it allows Orlov to cash in one more time come summer 2025. Adding Orlov to a blue-line corps that already has Brent Burns, Brett Pesce, Jaccob Slavin and Brady Skjei makes them imminently more formidable and dangerous offensively.

Carolina also added pesky scoring forward Michael Bunting to a three-year, $13.5 million contract. Bunting gives them a scoring presence around the net and someone that can make opponents lose their cool. It's one thing to be good, it's another to be good and annoying.

It's not just that they signed someone from outside to join them, they also brought back the players that helped them to be one of the best teams in the NHL. They re-signed Jesper Fast (2 years, $4.8 million) and brought back goalies Antti Raanta (1 year, $1.5 million) and Frederik Andersen (2 years, $6.8 million). When you factor in the four-year, $11.6 million extension they gave to Jordan Staal ahead of free agency, the Hurricanes are almost totally running it back. And why not? Their luck ran out against Florida in the Eastern Conference Final and maybe luck will be on their side next season.

The Hurricanes are good because they make smart decisions at all times and their work on Day 1 of free agency is further proof.

It's not any time of the NHL season without wondering about the Toronto Maple Leafs and this time it's their fans that are wondering about them the hardest.

The Leafs were relatively quiet on Day 1 and if they were any other team than the one that resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada their signings might fly under the radar. Instead, new GM Brad Treliving adding tough guy Ryan Reaves on a three-year, $4.05 million contract and puck-moving defenseman John Klingberg with a one-year, $4.15 million deal has fans in a stir.

The Leafs' addition of Reaves gives them a physical and intimidating presence as well as a player who can soak up the media attention others may not want in The Six. Reaves keeps a team loose and that's needed in Toronto, but the Leafs play high-octane hockey and that's not exactly what Reaves' game fits.

Klingberg as a puck mover with the Leafs' system makes sense on paper, but it opens up the question about who he'll pair with and where he'll figure into their power play. After all, with Morgan Rielly in place, they don't necessarily need a lot more.

Those two signings along with the re-signing of forward David Kämpf to a four-year, $9.6 million extension haven't provided the wow factor sometimes needed in Toronto, but they also haven't provided any clear answers as to how they'll be able to help them go deeper in the postseason.

For most of Day 1, things were all quiet on Long Island. Most of that is thanks to GM Lou Lamoriello never sharing any kind of information with the outside world, but when the late afternoon hit, the Isles announced four signings, all extensions, the largest of which belonged to star goalie Ilya Sorokin.

The Isles gave Sorokin an eight-year, $66 million extension and given how he's performed since he's arrived in the NHL, he's worth every penny. Yes, the Islanders don't exactly play a gung-ho brand of hockey and they generally do what they can to make the goalie's life easier, but Sorokin has been beyond brilliant.

In three seasons, Sorokin is 70-46-18 with a .924 save percentage including 16 shutouts and a 2.34 goals-against average. That he hasn't won a Vezina the past two seasons is no fault of his own thanks to brilliant seasons from Igor Shesterkin two years ago and Linus Ullmark this past season. He's going to win at least one and it's just a matter of when it happens.

Making things easier on Sorokin is the presence of veteran backup Semyon Varlamov. That much was noticed and appreciated by the Isles and they brought him back with a four-year, $11 million extension.

The Islanders are winners just based on Sorokin's deal. Paying your top player top dollar is the way it goes. Their other extensions are a bit more divisive, but given the context of how they operate, they make sense.

The Islanders also gave monster forward Pierre Engvall a seven-year, $21 million extension and extended defenseman Scott Mayfield on a seven-year, $24.5 million deal. Full transparency here, we were going to make one of the "losers" multi-year deals but the Islanders almost single-handedly ruined that plan. Thanks, Lou.

The Islanders aren't usually ones to shake things up in a big way and they certainly didn't do that within their own locker room. No new faces (yet) and they made sure to take care of those who have helped them to be one of the hardest teams to handle in the league.

There have been certain days during the hockey season - heck every sports season - where keeping up with the news of the day made accessing Twitter an absolute necessity.

The start of NHL free agency is definitely one of them. Whether it's Elliotte Friedman, Pierre LeBrun, Darren Dreger, Chris Johnston, or your favorite beat writers among the many insiders breaking and analyzing the signings of the day, hitting refresh and scrolling while chirping and snarking became part of the fun of it all.

That all changed this year thanks to Twitter owner Elon Musk...not paying his bills? Making the site more obnoxious to use? Not knowing how anything works? All of the above? Take your pick, but the phrase "rate limit exceeded" became more common for everyone as the day wore on and it wore out most everyone's patience with the social media site.

It made what's usually an intense and exciting day for discourse and chop-busting a total dud and signaled that the site might not work the way it used to for good, thus making live-watching sports or movies or TV shows or award programs that much less entertaining.

There's something to be said for the community that grows together online and all embrace a common interest and anything that makes it that much more difficult to enjoy it is a massive disappointment.

If that's turned into a commodity to be purchased to be able to take part in it, it's not going to be the same in any way and very well may cease to exist until the next live microblogging platform takes over.