Preview/Prediction

New faces in (mostly) new places was the name of the game Wednesday as the NHL's annual free-agent frenzy provided a wild afternoon of big-money signings, second-guessing and intrigue.

Let's take a look at some of the biggest stories from Day 1 of free agency.

         

Devils Land the Biggest Prize...But Are They Ready to Contend?

The New Jersey Devils are no longer content with rebuilding. 

Which is convenient, because their fans have been fed up with it for a long time. A once-storied franchise has gone back into Mickey Mouse mode in recent years, and there hadn't been this much anger in northern New Jersey since Bobby Bacala was killed off from The Sopranos.

Wednesday marked the start of NHL free agency, and the Devils wasted no time in attempting a home run swing on their offseason, signing defenseman Dougie Hamilton to a seven-year, $63 million contract. 

This is not how the team has operated in recent years. Since this rebuild began in 2015, the plan was to create a sustainable winner, doing so by drafting and developing talent and filling in the gaps with veteran leaders on short-term deals.

Former general manager Ray Shero was fired suddenly in January 2020, and his longtime assistant, Tom Fitzgerald, took over. Fitzgerald reiterated this plan shortly after taking over last winter, saying he wanted to build around centers Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes, the top picks in the 2017 and 2019 drafts, and goalie Mackenzie Blackwood. 

"My plan, if I am to continue at this position, is to grow around Jack and Nico and that age frame, and have a group of kids around that same type of age group to grow together," Fitzgerald said after the 2020 trade deadline. "That's simple."

The philosophy has always been to avoid signing free agents to long-term deals that could possibly leave the club hamstrung in the later years of the contract. But they deviated from that plan with Hamilton.

Hamilton may not be around the same age as Hischier or Hughes. At 28, he's six years older than Hischier and eight older than Hughes. Before Hischier inked his seven-year extension in October 2019, the Devils hadn't handed out a contract of seven or more years since the disastrous Ilya Kovalchuk deal 11 years ago.

Their most notable free-agent acquisitions over the last five years were all veteran players on short-term contracts: Corey Crawford (two years) Wayne Simmonds (one year), Brian Boyle (two years), John Moore (three years) and Ben Lovejoy (two years). 

But the Devils deviated for good reason. Hamilton is a top-five defenseman in the NHL, and the team's biggest weakness has long been a lack of depth on the blue line. 

The Devils can now bury the largely ineffective P.K. Subban after Fitzgerald has remade the defense. In the last two weeks, the Devils have added two top-four defensemen in Ryan Graves and Hamilton, locked up Jonas Siegenthaler as a depth piece and added to that depth with Christian Jaros.

They cut ties with Will Butcher, trading him to the Buffalo Sabres. This was surprising given the club has invested time and resources into the 2017 Hobey Baker Award winner, but he wasn't working out in Lindy Ruff's system and the club appears to have prioritized salary-cap space in the future. 

The Devils still have a ton of salary-cap space to work with this season. They'll need to give raises to forwards Janne Kuokkanen and Yegor Sharangovich, both restricted free agents, but with CapFriendly projecting $22 million available, they have a lot to play with. 

The goaltending has been shored up with the signing of Jonathan Bernier to back up Blackwood, so now the question turns to the forwards because it's still unclear where New Jersey's offense is going to come from. Hamilton, an offensive defenseman, will create plenty of chances for the forwards, but the Devils don't have a single 20-goal scorer on the roster. 

Which brings me to my next question: Are the Devils skipping steps in this rebuild?

They tried to accelerate the rebuild in 2019-20 with Hughes, Subban, Nikita Gusev and a healthy Taylor Hall. The Devils ended up firing their head coach, John Hynes, trading Hall and parting ways with Shero before we even made it to the trade deadline. Gusev was waived in April.

Fitzgerald said he had hoped the Devils could become a playoff team in 2021, but between the divisional realignment, COVID-19 and Crawford's retirement, the team tumbled to the basement of the standings once again. 

This could be a good building year for some emerging young talent, but there will no doubt be pressure on the young forwards to score and win. 

But the Devils got a lot tougher with these recent moves, and Fitzgerald has done an excellent job of addressing the club's biggest needs. So temper your expectations when talking about the end of the rebuild. It might seem never-ending, but going from building to built takes time, money, draft picks and some bad seasons. 

Two years ago, fans wanted to say it was over. Don't get ahead of yourselves this year. 

   

Tony DeAngelo Wants Another Chance…Again

The Montreal Canadiens seemingly want to give players second chances. The Carolina Hurricanes are now giving mercurial defenseman Tony DeAngelo his fifth or sixth chance. 

DeAngelo, a talented 25-year-old who was suspended three times in major-junior hockey, twice for yelling at officials and once for a slur directed at a teammate. 

He had "attitude issues" with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He was suspended for physically assaulting a referee with the Arizona Coyotes. He was disciplined by the New York Rangers for his social media posts, which included tweets about COVID-19 being a hoax and the 2020 presidential election being rigged, and he was benched after the first game of the season for yelling at the officials and slamming the door of the penalty box shut, which incurred an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Two weeks later the Rangers placed DeAngelo on waivers after a fight with a teammate. The Rangers bought out the remaining years of his contract last weekend. 

Now, he has a one-year deal for $1 million with the Hurricanes. He says he's learned from his mistakes. He says hockey is for everyone and will prove he's worth another chance. 

"We did our research on who this person is, beyond the perception of him," Carolina general manager Don Waddell said in his Zoom press conference. "There's no doubt that he has made mistakes. We acknowledged that and, more importantly, he recognizes that he's made mistakes and he knows he's got to continue to work and grow as a person."

That sounded familiar, so I looked it up: Former Rangers general manager Jeff Gorton said nearly the same thing about DeAngelo after he cut him. 

"We did a lot of research, talked to a lot of people about Tony prior to acquiring him," Gorton said in a press conference with former team president John Davidson after cutting DeAngelo. "Everything went into it when we did that. We did our homework. We felt comfortable."

The Hurricanes can bury him if it doesn't work out. And maybe it will, but the optics are bad with fans already trying to cancel season tickets. 

     

Tampa Bay Extends Point

The Tampa Bay Lightning extending top-line center Brayden Point, signing him to an eight-year, $76 million deal. The contract kicks in during the 2022-23 season. 

The 25-year-old has been a prolific center during his five years in the league with scored 139 goals and 310 points. He led all postseason scorers with 14 goals en route to the Lightning's second straight Stanley Cup.

Tampa Bay had to dismantle much of the Cup-winning core because of cap issues. The team was $18 million over the cap during the postseason. The breakup started last week with Barclay Goodrow going to the Rangers in a trade and Yanni Gourde acquired by the Seattle Kraken in the expansion draft. Wednesday, free agents Blake Coleman joined the Calgary Flames and David Savard went to the team the Lightning beat in the Final, the Canadiens. 

     

King Phillip

The Los Angeles Kings won two Stanley Cups in three years between 2012 and 2014 with significant depth up the middle, and they appear to be going in that direction again with the signing of Phillip Danault. The former Hab is one of the better two-way centers in the league who may not always put up a ton of points, but he's an adept playmaker and a strong defender. This move should take some defensive responsibility off Anze Kopitar. 

Danault signed a six-year contract with a $5.5 million average annual value. The Kings also added veteran defenseman Alexander Edler to a one-year deal. These moves signal Los Angeles' intent to ramp up their rebuild and take a big step forward in the coming season. 

     

What's Next?

Jack Eichel is still a Buffalo Sabre. General manager Kevyn Adams has been unable to find a trade partner for the injured center, despite some rumors that he might join the Rangers. The Kings no longer need him after signing Danault. The Rangers appear to be loading up on gritty depth players. 

For now, nothing seems to be cooking with Eichel. 

By the time you read this, a new press release will likely have been issued. A new board of regents meeting will have been called. A president of a university will vehemently bemoan the actions of others, threaten legal recourse and pretend all is well even though, for many, all is not well.

Yes, realignment is once again back in our lives. And yes, the impact on the sport of college football will be far more significant than two programs changing conference affiliations.

This has a chance to be the shakeup many assumed we were getting more than a decade ago—a tipping point for teams searching for long-term stability and conferences doing whatever possible to strategically grow and avoid consolidation.

Here's what we know. Texas and Oklahoma have told the Big 12 that they will not be renewing their grants of media rights that are set to expire in 2025. We assume, based off recent reports, that this exit will be followed by a move to the SEC.

Translation: The end of the Big 12 could be near.  

Whether that exit occurs in 2025 or not is a fascinating piece of the storyline to follow moving forward, and let it be known the lawyers on all sides will have plenty to say about that. But the speculation that had mounted over the past week about a departure to the SEC—starting with a report by Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle that originally broke the news—took on a new reality in the joint statement released on Monday. 

While the move to the SEC hasn't been officially confirmed, the dots are being connected in real time. For a conference that already has so much going for it, especially in football, adding two massive brands with a long history of tradition and accolades is victory. Well, except if you're Texas A&M.

Sure, cracks about the Longhorns' record over the past 10 years and Oklahoma's playoff woes will be regurgitated, but this is a good business decision for a conference that knows what good business looks like.

For Texas and Oklahoma, this is great business. It can be difficult to see beyond the competitive impact and the long-term ramifications of both programs having beefed up schedules in the future, although the positive impact on finances along with recruiting could be extraordinary.

The marriage is easy and convenient for all parties. The breakup is messy. And the fallout is potentially considerable. What happens next as a result of these two moves could and likely will reshape the future of collegiate athletics.

The Big 12, of course, will actively try to avoid a public panic. As the news of its likely soon-to-be former programs circulated on Monday, the conference responded with a statement of its own.

"Although our eight members are disappointed with the decisions of these two institutions, we recognize that intercollegiate athletics is experiencing rapid change and will most likely look much different in 2025 than it does currently," Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. "The Big 12 Conference will continue to support our member institutions' efforts to graduate student-athletes, and compete for Big 12 and NCAA championships."

Translation: If you're a Big 12 school, you should be panicking.

The impact of this decision on the Big 12 is seismic. With the inevitable departure of the conference's two flagship programs, the impact from a financial and reputational sense could ultimately be catastrophic.

It is possible and perhaps even likely, according to CBS Sports, that the Big 12 could see a massive reduction in its television deal moving forward as a result of lost membership—a kind of financial plunder that could send the remaining members of the conference into disarray.

In many ways, this panic should feel familiar. The last time realignment surfaced in the summer of 2010, we nearly reached this breaking point. Oklahoma and Texas were once again the fixture of the discussions, and the Pac-12 nearly became the Pac-16.

While the Sooners and Longhorns ultimately stayed put—and the Longhorn Network was birthed—we still saw plenty of movement. Colorado moved to the Pac-12. Nebraska moved to the Big Ten. Utah joined a Power Five conference. And the Big 12 was reshaped when Missouri and Texas A&M exited, only to be replaced by West Virginia and TCU.

And that's not all. The threat of change started a sequence of events. It created a rush—the same raw emotions and concern flowing through the country right now.

It was an earthquake, but it wasn't the earthquake. That moment could be coming.

And if it does, this is no longer simply a Big 12 discussion. The Big Ten, Pac-12, ACC, AAC, Mountain West and others could be active.

Let's fall down the rabbit hole, shall we?

Does the Big 12 replace Texas and Oklahoma with Houston and Cincinnati? It seems like a viable backup plan given the desperation. You replenish one Texas team with another and add a program that has been plenty competitive in football.

Oh, this doesn't square things up. No move or moves can do that. But in trying to survive, this could at least help negate some loss. And maybe the Big 12 doesn't stop at two.

Does the Big Ten pick off two teams it likes in the Big 12? Iowa State and Kansas make plenty of sense, at least from the outside.

Or maybe the conference, sensing a much larger shift, targets Pac-12 schools as a way to increase an already mobile footprint. All options should be on the table, including doing nothing, for a conference that is plenty stable. 

Does the Pac-12 finally become the Pac-16? It tried 10 years ago. How about now? While the conference has had its own struggles in recent years, it could ultimately add new markets by grabbing teams like Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, TCU and others. 

On the topic of expansion, the American Athletic Conference along with the Mountain West will certainly explore to do the same. The scraps to some could be desirable for others.  

Or how about Notre Dame? The Irish, coming off a temporary stay in the ACC, will always be a coveted piece. In fact, few would be more coveted. Could this be a moment that propels the Irish to the Big Ten or the ACC? Or will they simply stay the course as (largely) an independent program and steer clear of the madness? 

And finally, are we sure the SEC is truly done? Amid the buffet of possibilities that have circulated in my text messages over the past five days is the hypothesis that Oklahoma and Texas might not be the only programs the conference has discussed.

If that is the case, the magnitude of potential shakeups grows even larger. For those who enjoy chaos of the highest level, this is perhaps the stash where the largest amount of realignment dynamite is housed. 

For all the possibilities, one thing is clear. Texas and Oklahoma are not the end. They are likely the beginning. And the one thing that generates activity more than anything in college athletics is money.

For many, that money is being threatened. For others, there is the possibility for even more. These two mindsets intersect at a place of great discomfort for the sport—a series of outcomes in which all parties simply look out for the betterment of themselves.

Whether this is good for the long-term health of college football will be determined. At the moment, the priorities have shifted for those involved. 

This is about survival and television contracts and access to the playoff. Plain and simple. The stakes are enormous, the decisions and reactions are no longer simply about business, and the likely outcomes could alter everything.

Buckle up.