By Jessica Schieber, Co Editor-in-Chief
The NHL season started Oct. 7 for the 25-26 season.
I have already talked about the preseason, so I want to talk about things that have happened over the course of the offseason.
The New Jersey Devils signed Luke Hughes a contract that gives him nine million each year for seven years. Luke Hughes is a 22-year-old defenseman.
He has two brothers that also play in the NHL. One of his brothers plays for the New Jersey Devils with him.
He signed an eight-year contract for eight million a year. Jack is currently in year four of his contract.
The last brother plays for the Vancouver Canucks.
Mitch Marner was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights from the Toronto Maple Leaves.
Marner was a huge piece of the Leaves team, and the news of his trade came to a shock to a lot of the hockey community, almost as much as a trade that happened during the season.
The Boston Bruins traded their captain Brad Marchant to the Florida Panthers.
He was a big part of the Bruins team and the fact that they have traded such big players proves that everyone can be replaced.
The salary cap increased from $88 million to $95.5 million for this season.
Many teams let go of players to free up space in their salary caps or just because they weren’t fit for the team.
The New Jersey Devils let go of some players I have grown to really enjoy.
These players included Curtis Lazar, Erik Haula, Kurtis MacDermid and Nathan Bastian.
Another player I enjoyed watching play was playing for the Dallas Stars. He was traded to the Seattle Kraken this offseason.
Then there’s the marriages that took place.
Many players got married to their partners.
Some of the marriages that happened were the Heiskanens, the Lundkvists, the Hamiltons, and the Siegenthalers.
Some changes that have not been made for this season yet but will be for the next season are the introduction of mandatory neck guards, a salary cap for playoffs, and an expanded regular season.
The Stanley Cup winners, the Florida Panthers, got their rings.
On the rings they got the team’s rally cry “we apologize to no one” engraved on the interior.
They also had a rat engraved on the interior to honor the fan tradition of throwing rats on the ice after a victory.
The Panthers are back-to-back winners of the Cup.
The Panthers beat out the Oilers in the Stanley cup finals.
I personal wasn’t a fan of either team in the finals but I still watched the games because I really didn’t want to see the Oilers win the Stanley Cup.