NHL expansion fees have come a long way since the humble beginnings of the Ottawa Senators. When the Sens entered the league in the early '90s, the cost for an entire franchise was reported at the time as $50 million.

Today, Auston Matthews will make that over the next three and a half seasons.

Analyst John Shannon said this week he believes the NHL will soon become a 34-team league, with two more franchises added within the next five years. Sportico reported in late June that the new NHL expansion fee is expected to be a staggering $2 billion.

To put that in perspective, that’s 40 times more than the Senators paid in 1992. And it’s 1,000 times more than in 1967, when the modern NHL first expanded beyond the Original Six.

That 1967 expansion doubled the league’s size, adding six new teams: the California Seals, Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and St. Louis Blues. The entry fee? Just $2 million per team.

In 1970, the NHL welcomed the Buffalo Sabres and Vancouver Canucks, with their expansion fee jumping to $6 million each.

Two more teams joined in 1972–73: the New York Islanders and the Atlanta Flames. The fee stayed at $6 million, partly due to the NHL’s competition with the new rival league, the WHA. The Islanders, though, paid a little extra — $5 million — for stepping into Rangers territory.

In 1974–75, the Washington Capitals and Kansas City Scouts joined the league, again paying $6 million. The WHA was still around, and the NHL didn’t want to push its luck.

By 1979, the WHA stopped being a problem because, well, it stopped being a league. Four of its six remaining teams joined the NHL for $7.5 million each: the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and the original Winnipeg Jets.

The next true expansion wouldn’t happen until 1991–92, when the San Jose Sharks paid $45 million to join the league.

Enter our conquering heroes.

Five Ottawa Senators Who Wouldn't Look Out Of Place On The Ring of HonourThe Ottawa Senators' Ring of Honour was established to recognize players and team personnel who served the organization with distinction but don’t quite fit into the categories of team jersey retirement or the Hockey Hall of Fame.

A year later, the Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning got going. Ottawa’s expansion fee was $50 million (or $45 million depending on your source), which was money they didn’t have. Owner Bruce Firestone and his team smartly told the NHL everything it wanted to hear, then scrambled to raise the funds and build a rink after the fact.

The next season, the Florida Panthers and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim joined, each paying $50 million. The Nashville Predators joined in 1998–99, paying $80 million. The Atlanta Thrashers came next in 1999–2000, paying the same. Then came the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild in 2000–01, also at $80 million apiece.

The league growth then remained inactive for a long period, but they made up for lost time in 2016, suddenly charging Vegas $500 million. In 2018, Seattle was awarded the 32nd franchise, set to begin play in 2021–22. The expansion fee? $650 million.

So there it is — your super brief, somewhat random history of NHL expansion in the modern era.

As for the next expansion team, Shannon thinks Atlanta might get another shot, despite the previous failures of the Flames and Thrashers. Both teams eventually moved to Canada — the Flames to Calgary, and the Thrashers to Winnipeg. Shannon also suggests Houston or Phoenix as possible destinations.

Unless you're a fan in one of those potential markets, most NHL fans aren’t clamouring for more teams. Expansion waters down the product, and tracking 32 teams is already exhausting for those who even try. That’s part of why no major pro sports league in North America has yet to go beyond that number. But it's coming.

Now, as we look back to Ottawa’s entry into the league, it’s worth remembering that the franchise was awarded in 1990, just as John Ziegler’s time as commissioner was winding down. Ziegler left in 1992, and it’s more than fair to wonder: would Ottawa have ever made it onto Gary Bettman’s NHL expansion radar once he took over in 1993? 

There have been eight expansion teams during his tenure, with apparently two more on the way, and Canada hasn't been part of any of it.  And now, with the reported franchise fee going from $650 million to $2 billion (USD), how many owners would now be lining up to put a team in Ottawa for $2.7 billion Canadian?

We didn't realize it at the time, but if the league had rejected Ottawa in 1990, there probably wasn't going to be a "next time" to fall back on. The Sens got in just under the wire.

By Steve Warne
The Hockey News Ottawa

This article originally appeared on The Hockey News website: Next NHL Expansion Fee May Be 40 Times More Than The Ottawa Senators Paid

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Start Your Engines - Feb. 22 2022 - Vol. 75 Issue 11 - Matt Larkin

“WHOOOAAAAA,” BOOMED THE crowd at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on June 21, 2019. It sounded like a reaction to the slam-dunk competition at NBA all-star weekend. But fans were actually responding to a jaw-dropping draft pick.

The 2019 NHL draft attendees were justified in their mania. Moritz Seider wasn’t exactly an obscure nobody playing in the Turkish second division when the Detroit Red Wings picked him sixth overall, but every major prognosticator had ranked him outside the top 20. The pick was so “off the board” that Seider himself put his hands to his face when he heard his name called. He was that surprised.

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Making Seider the highest-drafted German defenseman in NHL history launched a new era in Hockeytown. The once powerful Red Wings’ engine had wheezed to a halt in 2016-17, ending a run of 25 consecutive playoff berths. That streak was the third-longest in NHL history. It had started as a source of pride for a franchise that captured four Stanley Cups between 1997 and 2008, but it gradually morphed into a rusty old anchor, dragging the team by its neck into deep, perennial mediocrity, with GM Ken Holland signing any decent veteran to a pricey long-term contract in hopes of keeping the streak alive. 

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By 2019, after three consecutive playoff misses, Holland stepped aside and proudly handed the keys to his friend, his former pupil and one of the top players in franchise history: Steve Yzerman.

Yzerman arrived from his GM job in Tampa ready to transform the Red Wings top to bottom, but doing so required patience. With so many bad contracts tethered to the team, he couldn’t make quick, wholesale changes, but he could let the boat sink to the ocean floor – by holding the team’s best young prospects off the NHL roster and letting a depleted Detroit squad bottom out for a couple seasons until he could throw some veterans overboard, buying out Justin Abdelkader and Frans Nielsen.

The tank job was epic enough to produce, in 2019-20, Yzerman’s first season as GM, the lowest points percentage by any NHL team since the expansion Atlanta Thrashers of 1999-2000.

But Yzerman’s initial brush stroke, before all that, was the first draft pick of his Wings tenure: Seider.

With that shocking selection, Yzerman sent the message he wasn’t confined to conventional thinking. Three years later, he has, in Seider, a future franchise pillar and Calder Trophy candidate. And Seider has company. Two of his teammates may wind up co-finalists for rookie of the year in the same season.

How did three freshman – Seider, right winger Lucas Raymond and goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic – become the new faces of a formerly floundering franchise seemingly overnight?

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In a recent interview following a paddle tournament, former New Jersey Devil Ilya Kovalchuk revealed that his official retirement announcement will “be official soon.”

Kovalchuk spoke with Russian news outlet Sports-Express on August 4, 2025, where he was asked about Bob Hartley’s return to the KHL and Spartak’s upcoming prospects.

The interview was pretty standard until Kovalchuk was asked about retirement.

When asked if an official retirement statement was coming and whether he still had the desire to play, Kovalchuk said:

“I think it will be official soon. I have said many times that I am not preparing for the season as seriously as before. I have more free time so I can play paddle.”

The winger’s career began in 2001 when he was selected first overall by the Atlanta Thrashers. He played there until 2009, when the New Jersey Devils acquired him.

On July 19, 2010, Kovalchuk signed one of the most significant contracts in NHL history, a 17-year, $102 million deal that shook the league. The NHL rejected the initial version, ruling it violated the salary cap structure. A revised 15-year, $100 million contract was eventually approved.

He played four seasons in Newark before shocking the hockey world by leaving the NHL to join SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL, walking away from 12 years and $77 million remaining on his deal with New Jersey.

12 Years Ago Today: Ilya Kovalchuk Announced His Retirement from the NHL On this day in 2013, New Jersey Devils right winger Ilya Kovalchuk announced his retirement from the NHL. At the time, Kovalchuk still had 12 years and $77 million remaining on his contract.

Kovalchuk un-retired from the NHL in 2018 and bounced around several teams to close out his career. In total, he played 926 NHL games and recorded 876 points (443 goals, 433 assists).

Had he fulfilled the original Devils contract, Kovalchuk would just now be reaching the end of that deal.

Instead, his career has taken a winding path, from the KHL to the NHL and now, seemingly, toward retirement. At the paddle tournament, he confirmed that the announcement is coming soon.

Similar to players like Vasily Koshechkin, who held farewell matches when ending their careers, Kovalchuk was asked how he envisioned saying goodbye to the game. He admitted he wasn’t quite sure:

“I have said many times that I don’t yet have a clear idea of how it should look, so when I have some thoughts, I will definitely do something interesting.”

After signing the NHL’s largest contract at the time, abruptly leaving the Devils, and returning to the league years later, it finally sounds like the end of a whirlwind career for Ilya Kovalchuk.

Photo Credit: © Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images

NHL.com ranked their top forwards under 25 entering this season, and it came as no surprise that Devils’ Jack Hughes landed second on the list.

Hughes is entering his seventh year with the Devils after being selected first overall in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft.

He’s been a staple for New Jersey both on and off the ice. At just 24 years old, Hughes has scored at least 26 goals in each of the past four seasons, though injuries have kept him from showcasing his full potential.

Hughes also happens to have one of the best, if not the best, contracts in the NHL. He’s entering year four of an eight-year, $64 million deal, with an average annual value of $8 million.

Jack Hughes Ranked No. 1 NHL Contract by The AthleticDom Luszczyszyn, NHL analyst for The Athletic (a New York Times publication), recently ranked the best contracts across the NHL. From Leon Draisaitl’s eight-year, $14 million AAV deal (ranked 6th) to Brandon Hagel’s seven-year, $6.5 million AAV contract (ranked 2nd), some of the league’s biggest stars made the list.

Given his performance, skill, and the overall value he brings to the team, this deal is a steal for New Jersey.

The only player ranked ahead of Hughes? Tim Stützle of the Ottawa Senators. Stützle is a year younger, but his impact in Ottawa mirrors what Hughes has done in New Jersey.

Stützle helped lead the Senators to their first Stanley Cup Playoffs appearance since 2017 and paced the team with 79 points in 82 games last season. He’s hit the 70-point mark in each of the last three seasons, which secured him the No. 1 spot in the rankings.

Right behind him is New Jersey’s very own.

Hughes has dealt with two major injuries in his career, the first in 2021 and again last season, when a shoulder injury required season-ending surgery.

Still, Hughes remains a centerpiece of the Devils’ lineup.

In 368 NHL games, he has tallied 141 goals and 210 assists. Before last season’s injury, he posted 70 points in just 62 games.

His impact on the Devils is immeasurable. He’s grown into the face of the franchise.

It’s no surprise that the slick Devils forward is ranked second on the list of best forwards under 25. Injured or not, he’s proven just how valuable he is.

In 2022-23, when fully healthy, Hughes recorded 99 points in 78 games. He’s one of only 11 NHL players to average at least 1.10 points per game over the last four seasons, despite the injuries.

The Devils made the right choice with their 2019 first-overall pick. And if Hughes can stay healthy, don’t be surprised if he claims the top spot soon.

Photo Credit: © Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images

The Carolina Hurricanes may have finished with one of the best regular-season records and advanced all the way to the Eastern Conference Final this past season, but they went through a lot as a team.

In January, the Hurricanes completed a blockbuster trade acquiring superstar Mikko Rantanen from the Colorado Avalanche in a deal that included Martin Necas. 

Rantanen played in just 13 games in Carolina before it became clear that he was not willing to sign a contract extension with the Hurricanes, which resulted in the team trading him to the Dallas Stars ahead of the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline. 

While Carolina received young emerging forward Logan Stankoven in the trade with Dallas, losing both Necas and Rantanen had a big impact on the Hurricanes. 

The Hurricanes ultimately lost to the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Final, something goalie Pyotr Kochetkov partly feels is due to the loss of Necas and Rantanen. 

“Florida had a deeper bench, a stronger lineup,” Kochetkov said. “They managed the salary cap really well, while we lost some players. Yes, we added Stanky [Logan Stankoven], and I’m confident he’s going to be a big player—he already showed it in the playoffs. But we lost [Mikko] Rantanen and [Martin] Necas—it would be foolish to ignore that, because they’re key players, team leaders. Even though Rantanen didn’t become a leader with us, you saw yourself what he did in Dallas. 

“You could say he carried the team to the second round when they beat Colorado in Game 7. I think we lacked depth, and maybe a bit of that gritty play and the kind of guys who thrive in that kind of hockey,”

That’s all in the past now though, as the Hurricanes believe in Stankoven’s potential, so much so that they gave him an eight-year, $48 million contract extension this summer. 

The Hurricanes Reportedly Have Been ‘Keeping Tabs’ On Mason McTavishThe Carolina Hurricanes have had an eventful offseason, but they may not be done just yet. 

Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky went out and made big moves this offseason to bolster the roster, including signing Nikolaj Ehlers and trading for K’Andre Miller. 

Despite the whole Rantanen fiasco, the Hurricanes still are Stanley Cup contenders and have gotten even better over the summer. 

Now, we’ll have to see if the Hurricanes are ready to face their demons and power their way through the Eastern Conference en route to the Stanley Cup Final in June.

The Edmonton Oilers are waiting for Connor McDavid to decide what he wants to do in regards to a contract extension. The superstar has one year remaining on his current deal at $12.5 million, but speculation is everywhere about the kind of extension he'll sign. 

Even if the Oilers get what they want, which is an eight-year extension that locks McDavid in as the salary cap rises, the organization should give their captain an internal window to win. 

McDavid will dictate the terms of his extension and the Oilers will gladly oblige. If he wants two years, Edmonton will sign that extension. If he wants four, they'll do that too. If McDavid has no desire to leave his buddy Leon Draisaitl, and chooses to lock in long-term, the Oilers will say 'Thank you, how much would you like?'

That doesn't mean Edmonton should give McDavid carte blanche to control the narrative in Edmonton when it comes to winning and losing, roster construction, or trade conversations. 

Would Trading McDavid Be The End of the Oilers?

During a recent interview on the Empty Netters Podcast, former NHL defenseman James Wisniewski said, “Do you think Edmonton’s going to have a duplicate Wayne Gretzky? Let’s talk about this. I think it’s going to happen.”

Co-host of the show, Dan Powers added, “Edmonton would cease to exist.”

Oilers Full 2025-26 Regular Season ScheduleEDMONTON – Public service announcement time.

That's some serious hyperbole there, even if a McDavid trade were to hit the city nearly as hard as the fan base was emotionally stung by the Gretzky trade. Still, at some point, one has to ask, 'When is enough, enough?'

The Oilers Should Consider a McDavid Trade In Year Four

If McDavid signs a long-term deal, the Oilers should be open to the idea that trading McDavid might be the correct play. As hard as it would be to watch another generational talent move on, McDavid's job isn't just to be the best player in the world. The Oilers need him to lead them to another Stanley Cup. If he can't do that in the next four seasons, it will be time to try something else. 

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Granted, McDavid may ultimately beat the Oilers to the punch if the organization doesn't win it all. But, if he decides to end his NHL career in Edmonton, the Oilers can't get complacent. Playing with Draisaitl is all well and good, but like the "Core Four" in Toronto, if it doesn't work, there has be change and the Oilers can't be afraid to make it. 

McDavid is the best player in the NHL. There is undeniable faith he and the Oilers will get over the hump and win the Stanley Cup while he's in his prime. However, his trade value won't remain outrageously high forever. If the Oilers need to move on and get a Gretzky-like return, that won't happen in the fifth or sixth year of McDavid's extension. 

There should be an understanding by both sides, regardless of the length of his contract extension, that winning is of the utmost importance. If it doesn't happen, a sit-down about his future should take place. 

The hope in Edmonton is that it never comes to that. At the same time, GM Stan Bowman and the organization need to be pragmatic about their expectations.

The biggest contract in the NHL has to come with some responsibility. In other words, the Oilers should say, 'We'll give you want you want, for however long you want. But, you've got four years to lead us to a Cup. If that doesn't happen, let's both agree that we'll talk about your future and the direction of this team.'

What Is The Risk In Having This Conversation With McDavid?

Do the Oilers have the stones to tell McDavid that his new extension comes with strings attached? It seems risky to do so, given that he could wait if he doesn't like what's said and bolt as an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2025-26 season. At the same time, McDavid seems to be the kind of player who is already putting that pressure on his shoulders. 

He said at the end of the season, “If I feel that there’s a good window to win here over and over again, then signing is no problem.” What he didn't mention was that he's arguably the biggest factor in the Oilers' ability to win. Yes, the team around him needs to be championship material. However, regardless of who is on the roster, everyone follows his lead. 

The Oilers go as McDavid goes. If he can't lead this team to where it needs to go in a reasonable amount of time, both sides can't be afraid to have that difficult conversation. 

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Dylan Garand is knocking on the door, and it’s hard for the New York Rangers to ignore. 

The 2020 fourth-round pick has steadily improved each year and is now the premier goalie for the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League. 

This past season was Garand’s best as a professional. He recorded a 20-10-9 record, .913 save percentage, and 2.73 goals against average while also representing the Atlantic Division at the AHL All-Star Game during the 2024-25 season.

While the Rangers have Igor Shesterkin, who will likely be the team’s starter for the next decade, Garand has potential to be a legitimate NHL goalie, and there’s certainly a role waiting for him with the Rangers. 

The Rangers signed Jonathan Quick to a one-year contract extension, so he’ll be the backup goalie barring anything unforeseen. 

However, Quick is 39 years old, and he’s not a long-term solution at the backup position, which opens the door for Garand in the future. 

If the 23-year-old goalie continues on his current trajectory in terms of development, he should have no problem securing a roster spot with the Blueshirts sooner rather than later. 

Rangers' 2018 First-Round Pick Makes Return To NHL With Canucks In Hopes Of Reviving Career The Vancouver Canucks have signed former New York Rangers forward Vitali Kravtsov to a one-year, two-way contract.

Garand made clear that he’s already prepared to take on a regular NHL role. 

“I haven't gotten any opportunity in the NHL yet, but obviously I’m ready whenever my opportunity does come,” Garand said.

Regardless of whether he has to play in the American Hockey League this upcoming season, the future seems to be bright for Garand.

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Return Of The Jets - Aug. 1 2011 - 2011-12 Yearbook - Tim Campbell

It’s a tale of two cities – one a seller in 1995 and the other a buyer in 2011.

They are both Winnipeg.

The announcement of the NHL’s return to the Manitoba capital, giving Canada a seventh franchise for the 2011-12 season, came 5,510 dark days after the Winnipeg Jets were punted from the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1996. The hit to civic pride and to community confidence was no small thing when the team, sold to American businessmen Richard Burke and Steven Gluckstern, packed up and moved to Phoenix 15 years ago.

The second-guessers still have a field day with it, but that outcome was unavoidable despite the groundswell of everyman support in the critical hours that preceded the lame-duck season of 1995-96. Kids and families broke open their piggybanks. Good ol’ Manitoba socials collected up the coins and bills. An estimated 35,000 fans rallied one day at The Forks. Pass-the-hat schemes of all sorts came up with an excess of $10 million to save the team. But the ominous forces were much larger and more powerful than that.

Player salary escalation had begun in the early ’90s. A U.S. dollar then cost more than $1.35 Canadian. The 1950s-era Winnipeg Arena was an outdated facility with no bona fide luxury boxes or revenue upside. Plus, the city-owned rink was run by an organization of bureaucratic middlemen who only served to split revenue and impede any solution.

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Under a now-infamous 1991 agreement, city and provincial politicians agreed to cover the team’s losses in return for time to study building a new arena. (The 1991 cost of that arena would have been less than $70 million.) While they kicked the problem down the road, losses soared to near $20 million per season by 1996 and there was simply no public or political will to stomach it any longer.

When two local bids to buy the team fell through – a new building was promised too late by politicians and projected short-term losses were oppressive – there was no Winnipeg entity or individual who stepped up to own the Jets and the team’s largest private partner, Barry Shenkarow, was left with no other option but to sell to outsiders for $64 million.

The genesis of the May 31, 2011 purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers by True North Sports & Entertainment partners Mark Chipman and David Thomson came only three years or so after Phoenix welcomed the Coyotes.

Chipman, one of the dozen or so Winnipeg young-turk businessmen who tried in vain to save the Jets, had acquired the International League’s Minnesota Moose and moved them to Winnipeg to help fill the hockey hole left by the Jets.

After three years of running the Manitoba Moose, Chipman met with then provincial premier and now Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. Gary Doer to probe a course for a much-needed new arena. It took two more years of haggling and rounding up partners and a plan – all of it well below radar – before Chipman rolled out the vision and the deal for what would become the MTS Centre, a $133-million sports and entertainment facility.

Three levels of government contributed just more than $40 million to the downtown project and have long since recouped their investment via taxation on materials, labor and events. The 15,015-seat arena opened in the fall of 2004 and has been a money-maker and top-ranked venue ever since.

Chipman’s deal-making had another important phase, also key to the return-of-the-NHL-story.

In early 2001, behind-the-scenes negotiations to merge the American League and IHL reached a fever and it was during that process that Chipman first engaged NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. Chipman worked regularly but subtly on that line of communication. He was careful not to make any mistakes with the MTS Centre’s construction that would preclude him from an NHL shot.

The arena’s early success and True North’s and Chipman’s style of measured business practice earned an invitation from the NHL’s executive committee to make the case for Winnipeg in January of 2007, along with Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas and Seattle. True North’s eye on the NHL went from wishful to practical after the NHL’s 2005 collective bargaining agreement with the NHL Players’ Association, one that featured a salary cap system. Combined with a far healthier Canadian dollar, the organization turned its energy to homework and preparation, a strategy that paid off when the Coyotes went into bankruptcy in 2009.

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Winnipeg’s legitimacy as a market was revealed in a Bettman affidavit in the Coyotes case and when that team was on the precipice of relocation in the spring of 2010, Chipman and True North quietly served as Bettman’s backup plan and leverage.

Engaging that process without so much as a press conference, True North earned the NHL’s trust, familiarized itself with franchise deal-making and learned much about converting the hunger for big-league hockey in its own market.

When the Thrashers’ owners could find no local buyer in early 2011, Winnipeg’s True North was more than ready. So were the city’s fans, who gobbled up 13,000 season tickets and 8,000 spots on a waiting list in less than 72 hours. There’s also a wait list for the arena’s 55 suites.

Euphoria always subsides, however, and it’s the long run that will validate the NHL’s first relocation in 14 years.

Game tickets are virtually all sold for the first three seasons and most are for five, so the final piece to the puzzle will be the depth of corporate support in Winnipeg. It has been questioned far and wide, but True North president and CEO and Jim Ludlow believes it’s a too-easy, lazy criticism of a city that’s in far better shape than 15 years ago.

Ludlow cited major changes in Winnipeg in the past seven years, about the span that has seen a stable-yet-vigorous economy stimulate a doubling in long-stagnant real estate prices. “We’ve concentrated on understanding both the macro issues of the NHL and the micro issues of Winnipeg,” Ludlow said. “We’ve spent a lot of time looking at those. Irrespective of what some non-Winnipeg-based experts might speculate, our local experience tells us to be cautiously optimistic and reasonably confident that the community is going to support NHL hockey.

“Our ticket commitments are long-term; our suite commitments are long-term and our corporate sponsorships are long-term. This is no plunge. It’s a well-executed, well-trained-for and calculated move. We’re not jumping off the dock, holding our breath and closing our eyes.”

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It’s hard to believe that Sidney Crosby has been with the Pittsburgh Penguins for 20 years. It feels like yesterday when the Penguins drafted him first overall in the 2005 NHL Draft. 

He came into the league tabbed as the “next one” with sky-high expectations, and not only has he met them, but he has exceeded them tenfold. He’s one of the five greatest players to ever play in the NHL and is coming off an age-37 season where he finished with 33 goals and 91 points in 80 games. 

It was his third-straight season with 90+ points despite being in his mid-to-late thirties. He has accomplished everything at the NHL and international level, from a World Junior Gold in 2005 to three Stanley Cups and everything in between, including two Olympic Gold Medals, a World Cup title, a World Championship Gold Medal, a 4 Nations Face-Off title, two Conn Smythes, two Rocket Richard Trophies, and two Hart Trophies. 

In honor of today being his 38th birthday, let’s remember some of his finest Penguins’ moments to date. 

“The Goal” in Game 4 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final 

It’s always a blast starting with this memory because of how crucial the goal was. Going into this game, the 2009 Stanley Cup Final against the Detroit Red Wings had started just like the 2008 one. The Red Wings won the first two at home before the Penguins struck back in Game 3. The Penguins were trying to make sure history didn’t repeat itself in Game 4 since the Red Wings won Game 4 the year prior to go up 3-1 in the series. 

Thankfully, the Penguins got what they wanted after Jordan Staal tied the game with a beautiful shorthanded goal before Crosby scored what would be the game-winner, sending Mellon Arena into a frenzy. They were two of the most important goals of that series, and if they didn’t happen, the Penguins wouldn’t have won the Stanley Cup. The way that Evgeni Malkin was able to still get the pass across to Crosby after being denied the first time was spectacular. Crosby finished the sequence off before being mobbed by both Malkin and Kris Letang. 

This was the moment when many Penguins fans felt that this year could be different and that the Penguins could win this series. In the end, they were right when they beat the Red Wings in seven games. 

Crosby’s OT winner against Tampa Bay, 2016

The Penguins needed a hero in Game 2 of the 2016 Eastern Conference Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning and found one in Crosby. He hadn’t scored a playoff overtime goal yet, but that changed when he rifled a puck past Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy less than a minute into overtime. The goal won the Penguins the game and sent the series back to Tampa tied at one game apiece.

The Penguins eventually won that series in seven games before beating the San Jose Sharks in six games to win their second Stanley Cup of the Crosby era and fourth in franchise history.  

Sliding goal against Tampa

Let’s go back to January 7, 2007. It was Crosby’s second season in the league, and ultimately started what would be a streak of 16 straight seasons in the playoffs. Before that, Crosby scored an outstanding goal while sliding on the ice. Former Penguin Mark Recchi delivered a gorgeous cross-ice feed for Crosby, who somehow scored at the back corner of the net while sliding. 

It’s a goal that sometimes gets forgotten about when you look at Crosby’s career.

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2013 Islander Magic 

Crosby has torched the New York Islanders throughout his illustrious career, so it’s no surprise that one of his finest goals came against them in the early 2010s. He was fresh off a return from a broken jaw and was facing the Islanders in the first round of the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The series was tied at two games all after four games before the Penguins crushed the Islanders in Game 5 before winning the series in Game 6. 

During Game 5, Crosby scored a vintage goal, going through two Islanders defensemen before ripping the puck blocker side past goaltender Evgeni Nabokov. Yes, the Penguins eventually lost to the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference Final, but this run still produced an unbelievable moment for Crosby.

Jason Spezza gets walked. 

Crosby put current Penguins assistant general manager and former Ottawa Senator Jason Spezza into a blender during Game 2 of the Penguins-Senators first-round series in the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs. He worked Spezza below the net multiple times before sending the puck back to the point for Kris Letang’s game-winning goal. 

The goal tied the series, which the Penguins eventually won in six games. 

Crosby will try to have some more iconic moments this year for his 21st NHL season. 

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Featured Image Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

Red Wings head back to Traverse City for pre-season action this September

The Detroit Red Wings are once again heading north for training camp, returning to Centre ICE Arena in Traverse City from September 18–20 to kick off preparations for the 2025-26 NHL season.

The Red Wings have made Traverse City their annual training camp destination since 1997, establishing a long-standing tradition that connects the team with Northern Michigan hockey fans.

The team will take the ice for the first time on Thursday, Sept. 18, with daily practices and scrimmages continuing through Saturday, Sept. 20. Players, prospects, and tryouts will be split into multiple squads during camp, offering fans a chance to catch early glimpses of the upcoming season’s roster.

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Red Wings Returning to Grand Rapids for Red & White GameNew Red Wings Face Off in Intrasquad Match at Van Andel Arena for First Time Since 2011

Following the three-day camp, the Red Wings will travel to Grand Rapids for the annual Red & White Game on Sunday, Sept. 21 at Van Andel Arena, home of their AHL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins. The team will then return to Detroit to open their preseason schedule at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday, Sept. 23, facing off against the Chicago Blackhawks.

A full training camp schedule and roster will be released at a later date with tickets going on sale August 13th. The general ticket pricing works out to be $20 for admission on Thursday or Friday with the ticket price increasing to $30 on Saturday. Limited edition 2025 Training Camp merchandise will be available at the arena’s upper-level store. 

Red Wings Tabbed As Landing Spot For Ducks RFA Mason McTavish The Detroit Red Wings have made numerous additions to their lineup in the offseason through both free agency and trade, though none of the moves could accurately be described as a major "splash" acquisition. 

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