How is Edmonton leading here by a massive margin? Barrie was a great deal, Bear trade was good, Hyman got 2 years too much term but the AAV was fine, and Ceci got 1 million too much. Not good by any means but probably not even bottom 5.
The Rangers and Philly both easily had worse off seasons- especially Philly who mortgaged a metric ton of futures to slightly upgrade their defense.
Rangers handed out multiple brutal contracts to bottom 6/bottom pairing guys.
Toronto didn’t change squat when they were one of the only rosters that needed to make a drastic move.
Seattle gave a massive deal to Grubauer who almost assuredly won’t live up to that contract.