3 NHL teams to look out for in 2025 free agency ft. Toronto Maple Leafs

NHL free agency is set to begin on July 1, and there will be several top players available.

The offseason is also a good time for teams to make trades, so here are three teams to look out for this offseason.

3 NHL teams to look out for in 2025 free agency

#1, Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs will be the talk of the NHL offseason.

Toronto had another early playoff exit and now has Mitch Marner and John Tavares as pending free agents and Matthew Knies as an RFA. Marner is the top free agent available, and if he leaves, how Toronto looks to replace him will be something to watch.

Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving also said the team needed to make a DNA change.

“There’s some DNA that has to change in our team,” Treliving said. “If you keep getting to the same result, there’s some DNA that needs to change. That’s on me going forward. We’ve now started the planning, and it’s early, for putting a team together for 2025-26.”

The Maple Leafs enter the offseason with just over $25.7 million in cap space.

#2, Detroit Red Wings

The Detroit Red Wings have missed the playoffs in nine straight years so the Red Wings are looking to end that.

Detroit will look to be active in free agency to bolster the team, and Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman made it clear that they were interested in a prominent free agent.

“We’re in a different stage than we were maybe five years ago in that we have a good young nucleus of players. And if we can add to that with a prominent free agent, we’d certainly entertain that,” Yzerman said, via the team website.

Detroit enters the offseason with just over $21.3 million in cap space.

#3, San Jose Sharks

The San Jose Sharks are a rebuilding team, but have some good core pieces and could look to compete soon.

The Sharks enter the offseason with the league’s most amount of cap space with just over $41.76 million. San Jose can be aggressive and pursue the top players to make them competitive next season.

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alt=”Cole Shelton” height=”72″ width=”72″>

Cole is an NHL, NFL and College Sports reporter at Sportskeeda with over 7 years of experience writing for publications like CBC, USA Today, SMG, BJPENN, Sherdog and SB Nation.

An NHL fan his whole life, Cole played rep hockey in Canada from age 5 until 17 and grew up rooting for Martin St. Louis and the Tampa Bay Lightning. His all-time favorite players are Vincent Lecavalier and Steven Stamkos, while Jon Cooper is his favorite coach of all time.

Cole attended Sheridan College and received his journalism degree in 2019. After decades of watching and reporting, he considers his knowledge of sports as his primary strength. He ensures that the same story has been reported by at least two reputed reporters before creating it.

Cole enjoys playing golf and spending time with friends and family when not reporting breaking stories. His favorite sports moment is from the 2010 Olympics, when Sidney Crosby scored the golden goal in overtime to beat Team USA for the gold medal.

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Edited by Cole Shelton