We’re through the first 24 hours of free agency and the Atlantic Division is already beginning to take shape for next season. In case you missed it, the Toronto Maple Leafs signed Michael Pezzetta to a two-year deal worth $788,000 per season, then added a number of depth pieces including Travis Boyd and Benoit-Olivier Groulx, while re-signing Dakota Mermis.

It was a somewhat uneventful day, while Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving outlined that he’s still in search of a top-six forward. Toronto also traded for Matias Maccelli, sending a conditional third-round pick to the Utah Mammoth in exchange for the left-handed playmaker, or to steal a line from Nick Alberga, the left-handed Mitch Marner.

Here’s how the Atlantic Division fared on Day 1, with a brief forecast into what 2025-26 could look like.

It was believe to be unthinkable that the Panthers could retain Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad and Brad Marchand, but winning trumps all and general manager Bill Zito put on a masterclass to get all three players to re-sign. Daily Faceoff gave the Panthers top marks and we would give them an A++ grade. The two-time defending champions are returning the same roster that won the Cup and while they couldn’t re-sign Nate Schmidt, who joined Utah on a three-year pact, it instantly signed Jeff Petry on a minimum contract plus bonuses. There’s a winning formula here and the Panthers indicated that if you come to Sunrise, you will get rewarded handsomely. As for Marchand and Ekblad, they voluntarily took less money than what was expected of them relative to market projections and will run it back for the next six years.

Florida now has Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell, Gustav Forsling, Seth Jones, Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand under contract through the 2029-30 seasons. It has not only extended its championship window for another five years, it will be the prohibitive favourite for the rest of the decade, barring a seismic change.

Patience is a virtue, and the Maple Leafs are quietly going about their pursuits in free agency, while looking for another top-six forward to join the fold. Michael Pezzetta did not record a point in 25 games last season with the Montreal Canadiens, but in a limited sample, his defensive metrics were terrific. Toronto added AHL forward Vinni Lettieri to a one-year contract, among other depth signings. Daily Faceoff listed the Maple Leafs’ haul as ‘incomplete’ and that’s true, as the Summer of Brad rages on.

It appears that the Maple Leafs will be doing most of their work through trades, as Maccelli represents a clever low-risk, high-upside bet on a dynamic playmaker coming off a rough 2024-25 campaign, and Nicolas Roy can be immediately slotted in as Toronto’s No. 3 centre — Scott Laughton may have to move to the wing or operate as the No. 4 centre, after being acquired for a first-round pick at the deadline.

This is still a very good Maple Leafs roster, with two excellent goaltenders and a forward corps led by Auston Matthews and William Nylander. They’re still at least a tier or two away from the Panthers, and that may not change this summer, but they’re ahead of the rest of the division. The gap is thinning, with a few young, rising powers impatiently waiting to topple the balance of the Atlantic.

This could be considered generous but with Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Brandon Hagel, Anthony Cirelli, Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh and Andrei Vasilevskiy still in the mix, it’s premature to discount the Lightning as a real power. It was an underwhelming Day 1 for the Lightning though, as Pontus Holmberg joins the team on a two-year deal worth $1.55 million annually, while re-signing fourth-line Gage Goncalves.

Status quo isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a team that boasts a Hall of Fame core, but they will desperately need to avoid the upstart Panthers in a first-round matchup again to maximize the tail end of a former dynasty.

Montreal is going to be arguably the most fun team in the NHL to watch next season, with an ascending core group. Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes went to work immediately, trading Logan Mailloux to the St. Louis Blues for forward Zachary Bolduc, who caught fire during the second half of the season. And with Lane Hutson looking ready to scorch the league with his all-world playmaking from the blue line, Montreal pushed some of its chips in, trading two first-round picks in exchange for Noah Dobson, then signed the defenceman to an eight-year extension worth $9.5 million per season.

Sammy Blais joins the Canadiens on a digestible one-year, $775,000 contract, while Kaapo Kahonen provides the Canadiens with some more goaltending depth. Don’t look now, but after last year’s first-round exit, the Canadiens are going to push the Leafs, Lightning and Ottawa Senators for one of the top two spots in the division.

It was a relatively quiet day for the Senators, re-signing forward Nick Cousins and goaltender Leevi Meralainen at reasonable rates. Claude Giroux is coming back on a team-friendly deal worth $2 million, while Fabian Zetterlund, Lassi Thomson and Tyler Kleven all found extensions at market rates before July 1 started. A quiet day in the Nation’s capital isn’t a bad thing for a Senators team that received their first taste of playoff action. Ottawa is expected to be better next year and could push for a top spot in the division as its core enters its prime.

It’s been a swift demise for the Boston Bruins over the past year. Marchand signed with the Panthers on a team-friendly deal after the Bruins couldn’t find a way to keep their captain as a one-team legend. OK, so perhaps that’s unfair, that’s in the past! Boston did really well at the draft, getting two excellent prospects in James Hagens and William Moore. We’re hard pressed to find any Eastern Conference team that had a worse start to free agency than the Bruins!

Michael Eyssimont and Sean Kuraly both signed two-year deals that are manageable in a vacuum, but still keep the Bruins firmly among the NHL’s middle class. In one of the worst signings of the day, Tanner Jeannot inked a five-year deal worth $3.4 million per season. Wouldn’t all of this money make more sense going to Marchand last year? Boston is stuck between a closed contention window and an attempt to tank for McKenna. They’re firmly stuck in the middle, the worst place you can possibly be in during the salary cap era.

Inactivity isn’t always a bad thing, but the Red Wings seem to lack real urgency in trying to move up through the Atlantic Division. Patrick Kane is coming back on a three-year deal, while he’ll be joined by 2007 NHL Draft mate James van Riemsdyk. That’s fine by itself, but the Red Wings aren’t anywhere close to the teams in the above tiers, and Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Moritz Seider must be annoyed by the team’s idle positioning. Detroit is going hemorrhage goals once again, and finishing the puck out of its net is going to grow tiresome in a division that saw five teams enter the playoffs in 2024-25.

Weaponized incompetence is the name of the game for the Sabres. They seemingly outbid themselves on Ryan McLeod’s four-year extension worth $5 million annually, and more to the point, they seem to be dangling Bowen Byram on the trade market. Byram is a 24-year-old left-handed defenceman who skates like the wind, has won a Cup, posted great conventional and analytical numbers last season and is the type of player every GM in the league craves. Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams said they’d match any offer sheet for Byram, but why even let get to that point in the first place?

Buffalo added goaltender Alex Lyon and forward Justin Danforth, who will join the team’s bottom-six forward corps. This all comes after a somewhat underwhelming return for JJ Peterka, as Josh Doan and Michael Kesselring are now in the mix. It’s baffling that the Sabres remain in a perpetual rebuild, they should be better than the sum of their parts, but they’re firmly on Gavin McKenna watch.