5 NHL teams that have gotten better this offseason ft. Detroit Red Wings

The NHL off-season is a time for teams to draft potential future stars while also signing free agents to strengthen their roster.

Often times in free agency, we see the best teams get worse as they can't afford to keep their star players. However, the teams that missed the playoffs and that are young have plenty of cap space to improve their roster.

With most of the big moves out of the way, let's take a look at five NHL teams that improved this off-season.

#1, Carolina Hurricanes

The Carolina Hurricanes were already one of the best teams in the NHL and they had a great off-season.

The Hurricanes were armed with plenty of cap space and saw Max Pacioretty, Shayne Gostisbehre, and Calvin de Haan leave, and none outside of Gostisbehre made much of an impact.

To replace those players, Carolina went out and signed Michael Bunting, Dmitry Orlov, and Tony DeAngelo. All three are upgrades and now the Hurricanes look like the team to beat the in the East.

#2, Edmonton Oilers

The Edmonton Oilers had a quiet off-season as they got rid of Klim Kostin and Kailer Yamamoto in a salary dump while they saw Nick Bjugstad leave in free agency.

However, the lone addition the Oilers made was signing Connor Brown. This is a good signing as Brown is a great offensive player who had a lot of chemistry with Connor McDavid in junior hockey.

Although it wasn't a very active off-season, the Oilers did improve their already great roster.

#3, New Jersey Devils

New Jersey Devils had a great NHL off-season

The New Jersey Devils, like the Carolina Hurricanes, were already a Stanley Cup contender and have only improved their team this off-season.

The Devils had one of the more active off-seasons as they lost Damon Severson, Ryan Graves, Miles Wood, Tomas Tatar, Yegor Sharangovich, and Mackenzie Blackwood. Outside of Severson and Wood, none played a huge role for the Devils last season.

However, New Jersey was able to bring back both Tomas Hertl and Jesper Bratt and added Tyler Toffoli to their already stacked offense, and traded for Colin Miller to add to their defense core.

Although New Jersey lost more than they gained, overall the roster needed to lose some players anyways and they have improved.

#4, Dallas Stars

The Dallas Stars had a solid NHL off-season that did see them lose Max Domi, Luke Glendening, and Colin Miller. However, Domi was a trade deadline acquisition, Glendening was a fourth-liner and Miller was a healthy scratch on defense.

With that, Dallas was able to replace Domi by signing Matt Duchene and they also added Craig Smith to replace Glendening. Duchene is an upgrade over Domi and Smith is an upgrade over Glendening so this is a great off-season from Dallas.

#5, Detroit Red Wings

The Detroit Red Wings have been a rebuilding team for a few years but it appears that is no longer the case.

The Red Wings traded for Alex DeBrincat to add a legitimate goal scorer to their roster and also added J.T. Compher, Daniel Sprong, Christian Fischer, and Klim Kostin up front. They added Shayne Gostisbehere and Justin Holl on defense and brought in James Reimer to be the backup goalie.

Outside of losing Dominik Kubalik in the trade to get DeBrincat, the Red Wings didn't lose much of anything and they probably had the best off-season in the NHL.