NHL Superstars Who Could Leave Current Teams

A whole raft of franchise cornerstone players in the NHL have expressed frustrations with the direction of their teams. Some have been explicit with their frustrations while others make you read the tea leaves a little.

Player movement has not been that high in recent years. Only a handful of true superstar players have been traded or signed elsewhere in free agency. 

The two most notable exceptions in those categories are Quinn Hughes, who was traded from the Canucks to the Wild earlier this year, and Mitch Marner who was technically moved via sign-and-trade from the Maple Leafs to the Golden Knights. Both had good reasons to be unhappy with their previous teams, and both transactions led to pretty good outcomes for the players involved. 

Could this inspire some more movement in this offseason and next regular season for superstars in search of greener grass?

Here are a few NHL superstars who clearly have cause to want out of their current teams, and a look at how likely a departure is. 

1. Connor McDavid, C, Oilers

Obviously, the first name that comes to mind here on this list is the league’s preeminent talent, Connor McDavid. 

McDavid has gotten as close as anyone can get to the ultimate prizes in hockey and has fallen short in some brutal ways. 

In 2024, Edmonton fell in Game 7 of the Finals. The knife was twisted a little bit when McDavid received the Conn Smythe Trophy, which produced an awkward moment when McDavid refused to return to the ice to accept the award. 

Months after the 2024 Finals, a now-iconic video showed fans a glimpse inside the locker room following the Oilers’ 4-1 loss in Game 2. McDavid could be heard yelling at his teammates, saying, “Dig in, right f**king now.”

Things haven’t improved much in Edmonton since that clip. Yes, they made it back to the Finals the following year, but the series was less competitive. This year, McDavid’s Oilers fell in six games in the first round in an upset loss to the Ducks. 

Following this year’s loss, McDavid told reporters, “We were an average team all year. An average team with high expectations…you’re going to be disappointed.”

McDavid’s contract would have expired this season before he and the team reached an agreement on a team-friendly two-year, $25 million contract extension. Even at the time, it seemed like a two-year “prove to me you can build a Stanley Cup-winning team” contract. 

If offseason doesn’t see key needs addressed — chief among them a goaltending problem that has hurt the team since the 2024 playoffs — and if the team doesn’t get to the top of the standings next season, McDavid could be on the move as soon as 2027. If the Oilers sense that McDavid is unhappy and unwilling to re-sign past his current extension, it kind of becomes imperative for them to get a haul in return for him. 

McDavid will be 31 by the time his contract ends, but a generational superstar on a below-market contract will garner a motherload of a return regardless of age. 

That’s still a little bit in the future. Right now, Edmonton will have around $16 million in cap space and some movable players to fix the team. The Oilers have made moves to improve the team, oftentimes those moves haven’t paid off, but they’ve still been active in trying to improve the roster.

McDavid has reason to want out of Edmonton, but a trade demand or a refusal to re-sign probably won’t begin in earnest until at least next year’s trade deadline. 

2. Auston Matthews, C, Maple Leafs

On March 12, Toronto superstar Auston Matthews suffered a season-ending MCL tear after a knee-on-knee hit from Anaheim defenseman Radko Gudas. Despite winning the game 6-4, the Leafs, who had been teetering on a .500 record, were essentially eliminated from playoff contention that night. 

That Gudas hit became a perfect symbol for that Toronto team after none of Matthews’ teammates gave any kind of retribution to the defenseman who had just taken out their captain with a cheap shot. 

It was clear then, if it wasn’t clear already throughout the flop of the ‘Core Four’ era, that the Maple Leafs had a major culture problem. 

A ton has changed since that day. 

The team fired general manager Brad Treliving. Then made an instantly controversial hire of former Arizona GM John Chakya, someone who resigned amid controversy at his previous job and was humorously described as a “con artist” by Toronto Sun beat reporter Steve Simmons. A day after Chayka’s hiring, the team pulled off a miraculous feat at the draft lottery, moving up four spots and earning the right to draft a generational talent in forward prospect Gavin McKenna. 

The team then decided to fire head coach Craig Berube after only two years on the job. 

Is all that change enough to convince Matthews that Toronto is a place he can stay and contend for a championship?

Since Matthews joined the Maple Leafs in 2016, Toronto has compiled 440 regular-season wins and has made the playoffs every year except for the 2025-26 season. Despite being a playoff participant every year, Matthews has never advanced past the second round and has lost in the first round seven times. 

These numbers have earned Matthews a reputation as a playoff shrinker, a guy who can’t win you a big game. This is true, but even if he shrinks a little in the playoffs, the only reason Toronto gets to the postseason in the first place is because of Matthews. 

Current intel suggests that the Maple Leafs have labeled Matthews as their only untouchable player heading into the offseason. Matthews’ current 4-year, $53 million deal expires in 2028, but is the 28-year-old content with staying on board if the team retools around a new timeline with McKenna on the way? 

Then there are the cultural issues with continuing to play in Toronto. 

The media and fanbase are by far the most intense, relentless, and downright toxic in the league. Matthews’ teammate, Marner, was practically marched to the airport by a mob of Leafs fans with pitchforks and torches after last year’s playoff exit. 

Matthews, a California native, may also have been further alienated from the market due to this year’s Olympics and anger from Canadians, for both sports and political reasons, over Team USA’s gold medal win. Remember that some Leafs fans booed Matthews upon his return from the winter games. 

Like McDavid before him, this looks like another situation that could come to a head this next regular season. With McKenna likely on the way, both Matthews and Toronto will want to see what it looks like with the two forwards playing together. If the Maple Leafs falter again in the regular season or if Chayka guts the veteran core in the offseason, Matthews will almost certainly be on his way out. 

3. Brady Tkachuk, LW, Senators

The most likely player to be in another uniform before next season is Ottawa’s Brady Tkachuk. Tkachuk has everything the players above him have: a lack of real playoff success and a cultural mismatch with his market. 

What he’s missing is that Matthews and McDavid are unquestionable superstars and beloved players. 

Tkachuk is a great player, maybe a top 25 player in the league, and he’s certainly liked by Team USA fans for him and his brother Matthew’s international hockey antics, but he’s not necessarily beloved. 

All of that makes Tkachuk a very likely candidate to be moving on from the Senators this offseason. 

Tkachuk has spent all eight years of his NHL career in Ottawa after being drafted with the fourth overall pick in 2018 from Boston University. Since then, Tkachuk has been an All-Star four times and has had three thirty-goal seasons. 

Tkachuk got his first taste of playoff action last year in an eventual six-game series loss to Toronto. Tkachuk had four goals and three assists in six games played. 

The Senators returned to the playoffs this season, where they were swept by the Hurricanes. Tkachuk put up a goose egg in the series, with zero goals and zero points. He also earned a -4 plus/minus rating. 

That put a fitting button on a season full of animosity between Ottawa fans and their 26-year-old captain. Tkachuk ended up bearing the brunt of the controversy surrounding Team USA’s gold medal win more than any other American player. Probably because of his presence in a Canadian market and his friendliness toward an American president, who is, to put it kindly, not very well liked by Canadians. 

Following the Olympics, Tkachuk, being hounded by local media, said that a trade request was “not even something that’s crossed [his] mind.”

“I’ve given absolutely everything I have as an Ottawa Senator,” Tkachuk also said. 

He ended up in controversy once again at the end of the season after his father, former NHLer Keith Tkachuk, made comments that seemed to mock Senators goalie Linus Ullmark, who had missed time during the year due to mental health problems. In a subsequent episode, his father also criticized Ottawa head coach Travis Green for Brady’s playing time in a game against Tampa. 

All sides have brushed aside concern about all of those comments, but there’s just a lot of smoke and a lot of controversy with Tkachuk and the Senators. Tkachuk continues to say he wants to stay in Ottawa, saying he was “fully committed” to the city and that trade talks were becoming a “distraction.”

It’s not like the Senators are exactly lighting the world on fire with Tkachuk on the roster, and with continued conflict and strife between him, the fanbase, and the team, why should they keep him?