On today\u2019s agenda are questions about the Oilers and their goalies, the good ol\u2019 no-tax state debate, why teams have so much cap room, and pain in Toronto and Buffalo.<\/p>\n
(Note: Questions have been lightly edited for clarity and length.)<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the more painful reality for fans? The Leafs never making the Eastern Conference final or the Sabres not sniffing the playoffs \u2014 both until the 2030s at the soonest? Standing in the way of Toronto: a fierce division full of dynastic Florida teams and rising Canadian teams. Standing in the way of the Sabres: *gestures vaguely at Kevyn Adams and Terry Pegula* \u2014 Jeff G.<\/strong><\/p>\n The three longest Stanley Cup droughts in NHL history are all active right now, and the Leafs are (unsurprisingly) first at 57 years and counting. The Sabres and Canucks are right behind, having never won since entering the league in 1970 (54-year droughts).<\/p>\n So the current \u201cpainful reality\u201d has that historical pain as part of the backdrop.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t an easy question, but I\u2019m going to say Buffalo is in the more painful position right now. Isn\u2019t it better to have loved (a decent team) and lost (a lot of playoff series) than to have sat mired at the bottom due to incompetence year after year? There have been some good times and moments for Toronto, especially early on with their star core. They had some hope that things might turn their way.<\/p>\n And it still might. The Leafs had the fourth-best record in the league last season. Yes, they lost one of their Core Four players, and yes, they still have to deal with the Panthers in their division, but they\u2019re a million miles closer to a Cup right now than the Sabres. Maybe that falls apart in the years to come, as their roster ages out of contention, but the dream isn\u2019t dead.<\/p>\n But when a fan\u2019s primary goal for a season is for an owner and management team to move on, that\u2019s grim business. Buffalo does have some intriguing young pieces there, so maybe at some point they can get a new architect in there to retool around that talent.<\/p>\n Perhaps things even look brighter for them than for Toronto at some point. We\u2019re definitely not there yet, however.<\/p>\n Will the Oilers upgrade their current goalie duo of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard? (Bruce Bennett \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Do you see any legitimate goalie trade targets for Edmonton between now and the trade deadline? \u2014 Jonathan S.<\/strong><\/p>\n Have to be honest, I thought when I started researching this question there would be more options than there are.<\/p>\n It\u2019s pretty thin out there in NHL creases. A lot of teams are going with pretty inexperienced options in the backup role, so it\u2019s hard to see them moving a starter. And there really aren\u2019t a lot of teams with two veterans you could consider potential No. 1s, which would be what Edmonton would want in an upgrade over their current duo of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard.<\/p>\n The perfect option for the Oilers would be a team that had designs on having a better season, struggling out of the gate and starting to shed talent aggressively, the way the Bruins did last season. But who is that team?<\/p>\n Detroit, I guess, could move off of either John Gibson or Cam Talbot if they struggle, with top prospect Sebastian Cossa on the way. But it really feels like the Red Wings will be in a playoff race late in the season, with some of their young players taking the next step. The Islanders and Mammoth potentially have extra goalies, assuming improved health for Semyon Varlamov and Connor Ingram, but do either of them offer an upgrade to Edmonton? Vancouver has a lot of dough committed to their tandem, but they just signed them and gave both Thatcher Demko and Kevin Lankinen no-movement clauses. Then there\u2019s Anaheim with Petr Mrazek as the backup?<\/p>\n Pittsburgh and Columbus could trade their \u201cstarters\u201d (Tristan Jarry and Elvis Merzlikins), but given their massive struggles, you again wonder if there\u2019s any tangible improvement there.<\/p>\n We\u2019re really reaching to even contemplate some of these options for a team with designs on winning a championship, so it feels like it\u2019ll take something a bit unexpected for the Oilers to find what they\u2019re looking for in the crease, with either a team we think is going to be good falling out of the mix early on and getting creative, or Edmonton getting desperate enough that they offer up prime assets to pull a more valuable goalie out of a two-goalie tandem team such as Carolina, New Jersey, St. Louis, Toronto or Washington.<\/p>\n Otherwise, the Oilers may well be left crossing their fingers and going with Skinner and Pickard again in the postseason, which is a tough look in such a pivotal season.<\/p>\n How come the NFL, MLB and NBA never complain about no-tax states? \u2014 Dan N.<\/strong><\/p>\n A huge part of this comes down to winning, in my opinion. By my count, only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL and the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers in MLB have won titles in markets without state taxes in the past decade.<\/p>\n In contrast, the NHL has had five of its last six winners come from either Florida or Nevada, with three non-traditional markets (Tampa, Las Vegas and South Florida) dominating the league.<\/p>\n That\u2019s going to get people talking.<\/p>\n But the other thing is the NHL has (a) more high-profile teams in high-tax environments such as Canada, (b) a hard cap that has been held flat for half a decade and (c) margins on salaries that are far smaller overall. Hockey\u2019s stars aren\u2019t clearing $60 million-plus a season the way Dak Prescott and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are, so those extra percentage points matter, even if the talk of how much of a factor they are is often overblown<\/a>.<\/p>\n The NHL is unique, too, in that there isn\u2019t much movement of star players, with a lot of them simply opting to stay where they are, often at a discount from the open market. When the warm-weather teams are winning a lot, that creates the appearance that stars are flocking to those markets, when the reality is few of them actually landed there in free agency. (The Panthers, for example, are not a team built through July 1<\/a>, with Sergei Bobrovsky the only star acquired that way.)<\/p>\n Some of this is also created by the way NHL contracts are talked about in the media. With the cap so tight and so many decisions being made solely to make the dollars and cents work, all of a sudden every trade and every signing gets viewed through a player-agent lens via the media. And that\u2019s when you get into the minutiae of why a player signed here or there, including factors such as taxation.<\/p>\n That said, I\u2019ve had plenty of agents say the no-tax state factor is being talked about too much, as most of their clients really want to go to places they feel they can win. And I\u2019m sorry to say, but that hasn\u2019t really been the case for most of the Canadian teams or those in the New York metro or California over the past decade.<\/p>\n This ranking<\/a> might well have more to do with that than the tax factor, too.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a bit confused why, on the one hand, \u201ccap space is king!\u201d but on the other, some teams will trade for a \u201cdead contract.\u201d There\u2019s talk of Carey Price\u2019s contract being of interest to some teams; Shea Weber\u2019s deal is still \u201cactive\u201d and the Blackhawks have it, but other teams like Vegas, Tampa, Florida and the Leafs use LTIR to \u201cfit\u201d all of their contracts under the cap. I also believe that as the season progresses, you can \u201caccrue\u201d cap space, but only if you have cap space in the first place. What, in your opinion, makes more sense: trading for dead contracts or having cap space? \u2014 Chad F.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2220962964-scaled-e1756241111553.jpg\")
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