Forward Nikolaj Ehlers was the last big fish on the National Hockey League’s free agent market. In the end, he waited until two days after the market opened to decide on his new destination: the Carolina Hurricanes,

One of the problems with Ehlers is that he hasn’t been a consistent playoff performer, which makes some sense given his size and that he’s a bit of a perimeter rush threat. To his credit, Ehlers was much stronger during the 2025 playoffs, but it’ll take a lot more than that to prove his doubters wrong.