Thanks to the Edmonton Oilers’ Game 6 win over the Florida Panthers on Friday night, the NHL will have a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final on Monday.
It will not only decide the winner of this year’s Stanley Cup, it will also kick off one of the most hectic weeks in the history of the league where pretty much every major event is going to be jammed in.
It all starts with Game 7 on Monday. Any Game 7 for a championship is already tremendous theatre, but this one is elevated to an even higher level given the drama of this series as the Panthers have let a 3-0 series lead slip away to send the series back to Florida.
The Panthers are either going to win their first Stanley Cup, or the Oilers are going to become just the second team to ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit in the Stanley Cup Final (and first since the 1942 Stanley Cup Final) and just the fifth NHL team ever.
Just 48 hours after that game, the NHL’s buyout window officially opens and will allow teams to buy out unwanted contracts to help kick off the offseason. That could open the floodgates for roster moves in advance of the draft and free agency.
On Thursday the focus shifts to Las Vegas where the NHL Awards ceremony will take place.
The week continues on Friday and Saturday at Sphere in Las Vegas where the NHL Draft will take place. Macklin Celebrini is expected to be the No. 1 overall pick to the San Jose Sharks, while draft weekend typically is one of the most active times of the year for trades.
On July 1, the offseason reaches its boiling point when the free agency signing period officially begins.
Steven Stamkos (Tampa Bay), Jake Guentzel (Carolina) and Sam Reinhart (Florida) are the top three players available, and most of the top players will sign with new teams within the first 48 hours of the signing period.
All of that sets the stage for an insanely active week in the NHL with a championship being handed out, awards being handed out, and pretty much all of the major roster moves for the offseason.
The NHL offseason is usually pretty condensed and moves quickly, but there is usually at least a couple of weeks between the Stanley Cup Final and the start of the draft and free agency. This year’s Stanley Cup Final, however, is going way later than normal and has resulted in an even more condensed schedule.
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