The Teams That Outgrew Their June Ranking
NHL offseason winners and losers in 2026 include teams like Toronto that improved their standing significantly from mid-June to July 2.
Power rankings published in mid-June are a wager on rosters that do not exist yet. The 2026 offseason made that point louder than most. NHL teams committed more than $862 million in salary to 102 players on the first day of free agency alone, and by the time the dust settled a handful of clubs looked nothing like the version that got ranked.
Toronto is the extreme case
ESPN’s panel had the Maple Leafs 24th on June 14, up four spots from their previous edition mostly because they had won the draft lottery. Two and a half weeks later they were on nearly every winners list published.
New general manager John Chayka gutted and rebuilt the roster. Toronto brought in Sergei Bobrovsky on a three-year deal, signed Darren Raddysh away from Tampa Bay through an eight-year sign-and-trade, acquired Emil Andrae on defence, and added Nick Paul, Jack Roslovic, Colton Sissons, Teddy Blueger and Brandon Duhaime up front. They also drafted Gavin McKenna first overall. Chayka’s own summary to the Associated Press was blunt: “We did a lot of buying and selling…it all lined up for us.”
Daily Faceoff’s Matt Larkin listed Toronto among his free agency winners and called the makeover justified. The AP put the Leafs in the same column. Neither is claiming Toronto is now a contender. Both are saying 24th no longer describes the team that was ranked.
The Rangers moved without moving up
New York sat 29th on ESPN’s June board. By July 2 the AP had them as an offseason winner, crediting Chris Drury with acquiring Sean Durzi and Marcus Pettersson in separate trades and signing Pavel Dorofeyev, while sending Vincent Trocheck to Utah. The reasoning is narrow and specific: the blue line got better, which eases the load on Adam Fox, Vladislav Gavrikov and Igor Shesterkin.
The market has not bought it. The Rangers were still priced at +8000 on the 2027 Stanley Cup board in late July. Improving a defence corps and becoming a threat are different things, and this is a good example of the gap between transaction-grading and ranking.
Where the graders disagree
San Jose is the cleanest split of the summer. The AP called the Sharks a winner, pointing to the Darnell Nurse trade, the Mason Marchment and Jacob Trouba signings and a first-round pick spent on Ivar Stenberg, and framing it as veteran help that could push a young team toward the playoffs. Larkin called the same moves a loss, arguing San Jose overpaid declining defencemen at $8.25 million for Trouba and gave up Shakir Mukhamadullin for the privilege.
Both readings are defensible and they lead to opposite ranking placements. That disagreement is worth more than either verdict, because it shows what an August ranking is actually measuring.
Philadelphia is the inverse problem. The Flyers spent just under $90 million, more than any other club on day one, and the AP still filed them under losers for whiffing on the defencemen they wanted. Nurse went to San Jose, John Carlson signed in Tampa Bay, and Bowen Byram took Chicago’s $75 million offer at $12.5 million a year to become the highest-paid defenceman in the league.
The one to watch
Detroit landed on the losers list at both outlets, with Viktor Arvidsson and Keegan Kolesar as the headline additions and captain Dylan Larkin reportedly seeking a trade. The Red Wings have not made the playoffs since 2016. If Larkin moves before camp, at least two teams get re-ranked, and theScore already flagged Minnesota as the club that would climb if it landed him.
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