With the Awards handed out, the NSHL25 season has essentially come to a close. The league will work over the next little while to ensure End of Season income is correctly tallied and added to team bank accounts to completely close the door.

That being said, the first major order of business on the NSHL26 schedule is the NSHL Draft. The Draft Lottery has already been completed, with the Seattle Kraken holding the 1st overall pick (1.01) and technically / sort of "on the clock".

Assuming the league's Commissioner can get all the transition work complete without a hitch, GMs can expect the NSHL Draft to commence Tuesday-Wednesday this coming week.

With a few new faces joining the league recently, the NSHL Draft is held over multiple days (if not weeks *sigh*), with 4 hour draft windows for picks to be made between 9am - 9pm EST.

There are typically a lot of trades made during the Draft, as teams attempt to move up or down the order.

The Draft has typically occurred in Discord in recent years, however this year, the league will be piloting having GMs submit their picks via the new GM Portal. If the pilot goes as planned, a pick that's locked in via the GM Portal should automatically update the Draft Board and also notify the next GM that it's their turn to pick.

More details will be released when the process is finalized in the coming days.

Yes, re-location is upon us yet again and no, we're not just talking about the league's NSHL26 re-locations.

While the request to re-locate was filed as a New GM named Barron Daxter, it was quickly realized that the Winnipeg Jets' did not name a new GM and in fact were just re-locating, again.

What's perhaps most interesting is that the re-location application was filed almost immediately after the news broke that Manitoba was "doing away" with Daylight Savings Time.

"I am a big fan of Daylight Savings Time. If you can save an hour, you save an hour, this isn't something you just give up for no reason. Everyone has a clock, everyone has a calendar. By moving to Utah and being known as the Mammoth and no one will change the time on us or our wives."

With yet another league re-location, Utah will join the Pacific Division and push the Colorado Avalanche back to the Central.

The NSHL25 Awards were handed out on Saturday afternoon and the Columbus Blue Jackets walked away with three of the league's top honours following their President's Trophy winning season.

While it was St Louis' Kyle Connor who walked away with top honours as League MVP, the league was left buzzing after the Blue Jackets captured both the Vezina Trophy for the NSHL's top goaltender -as well as- the prestigious Roger Neilson Trophy for the General Manager of the Year.

Two new awards were handed out for the first time on Saturday, the CAVALRY Player of the Year which went to DAVID TOMASEK who played for Chicago's affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs. As well, in an interesting outcome (to say the least), Mighty Ducks' GM Bruce was awarded Moment of the Year for his alleged 'divorce' bit (??!!) which is likely something that's going to be talked about for years to come!

The league will continue to transition the site and league files as it wraps up NSHL25 and finalizes End of Season income for all teams over the next couple of days.

If all goes well, the NSHL26 Draft should commence in the week ahead!

Yes, hockey is back on the menu in Hartford as the St Louis Blues will be relocating there for NSHL26.

While technically located in Boston, Massachusetts his entire life (and please, don't hold that against him - yet), rookie GM Keith has always been a Whalers fan "in Bruins country!".

As many around the league will agree, the Whalers likely should've never left Hartford and it's always exciting to see that logo.

This isn't the first time Hartford has had an NSHL franchise, the Whalers existed for a single season in NSHL6 under then San Jose, now Detroit GM Eric.

Keith is a long time sim hockey GM, and currently a member of a few leagues and is excited to get going on helping grow the Whalers' franchise!

The Sharks are no longer. After a year in San Jose, the franchise is relocating across the country as they prepare for their 2nd season as an NSHL franchise.

With the change in location comes a change in leadership as the league confirmed the hiring of GM Daniel who will take over effective immediately.

Daniel joins the NSHL bringing a wealth of over 15 years of sim hockey experience. Daniel is a self-proclaimed real-life Edmonton Oilers and Star Wars fan, but don't hold either of those against him.

Unfortunately for the franchise, they lost the top pick in the Draft Lottery but still have 4th overall as well as all their NSHL26 picks to build on.

The Buffalo Sabres are returning to the league for the first time since NSHL16 when current Penguins' GM Jeff relocated his franchise to Pittsburgh.

The league welcomes Daniel to the NSHL and welcomes the Buffalo Sabres faithful back to the league!

The Vancouver Canucks are on the move after only a year since joining the league.

The league has agreed to bring on GM Nathan (Nate) to take on the Vancouver franchise and have agreed to let the franchise relocate to Washington, where Nate currently resides.

A rookie GM in the NSHL perhaps, but new Capitals' GM Nate is no stranger to sim hockey with over 20 years (!!) experience in both STHS and FHL hockey leagues. Sounds a familiar path?!

The Canucks turned Capitals lost out heavily in the Draft Lottery recently, falling 4 spots to 6th overall. Luckily, Washington has most of their picks in the NSHL26 Draft at their disposal to begin truly building the team.

Washington returns to the NSHL after a hiatus since NSHL19 where they played for only one season under current GM Darren as an expansion club.

Over the course of the next few days the league will be working towards finalizing the transition of all files and pages from NSHL25 to NSHL26.

As it stands, teams have been relocated, ratings have been updated, and unrestricted free agents have been removed from rosters.

Re-Rates

As occurs every year, skaters with 20 or more games played in the NSHL or MSHL (10 for goalies) received re-rates based on that league. In the rare occurrence where a player met the criteria in both leagues, they were re-rated in both leagues, and then received the average rating set from those two re-rates.

This is your annual reminder that a really good player likely did not increase in ratings because their various skill categories were already high, meaning that production was expected of them.

What's Left To Do

There are several tasks remaining like updating End of Season Income (once Awards land), transitioning over Hockey Nights, TC Points and Auction items to name a few.

All that said, this is a starting point rather than a destination. The off-season is here everyone - let's enjoy!

...and just in time for the NSHL26 Draft. Neat!

A new feature the league is introducing ahead of our new season is a weekly ranking of team prospects by trusted sources: The Hockey Writers, The Hockey News (Future Watch) and EliteProspects.

The Prospect Rankings will allow GMs to assign their preferred weighting to the rankings based on their preferred source and see where the top 150 prospects in the NSHL rank!

This should go without saying, but this feature is a just for fun reference point and has zero impact on a prospect's ranking or abilities.

Prospect Rankings can be found in the LEAGUE section of the website menu. Enjoy!