On Friday, the NHL unveiled its finalists for the 2025 Jim Gregory Award, which is awarded to the general manager of the year.

The names look familiar: Jim Nill of the Dallas Stars and Bill Zito of the Florida Panthers are both finalists for the third-straight year, and Nill won in 2023 and 2024. 

Kevin Cheveldayoff of the Winnipeg Jets is a second-time finalist after finishing second in the voting in 2018.

Now with a commanding 3-0 series lead over the Carolina Hurricanes, Zito’s Panthers are one win away from advancing to the Stanley Cup Final for the third-straight year. They’re following in the footsteps of their cross-state rivals, the Tampa Bay Lightning, who did the same from 2020-22.

Zito has earned three third-place finishes in the Jim Gregory voting in his five years at the helm in Florida. Now it’s time for a win.

While the members of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association love to vote for new coaches or coaches in new positions for the Jack Adams Award, the GM of the Year voters seem much more inclined to reward established names who have put in some time.

Zito was an exception, earning early acclaim in his first season as a GM, in 2021. 

And talk about a high degree of difficulty. He was hired in September of 2020, while the bubble playoffs were ongoing. He had to prepare for a virtual draft after playoffs had been cancelled across the hockey world, build his roster with a flat salary cap, then get his team through a slapdash 56-game season where travel restrictions changed divisional alignments and games were played in empty or near-empty arenas.

Right off the hop, Zito drafted Anton Lundell, signed Carter Verhaeghe as a bargain free agent and picked up Gustav Forsling on waivers. At the 2021 trade deadline, he dealt for Sam Bennett and Brandon Montour. 

The Panthers lost their first-round playoff series to the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games. But they already looked decidedly different, and voters took notice. 

Since then, Zito has successfully continued his bold roster reconstructions, won a championship, and is now looking for more.

His fourth appearance in five years in the Jim Gregory mix is unprecedented. The only other GM who has been named more since the award was introduced in 2010 is Nill. He’s now a five-time finalist, but is in his 12th year running the Stars.

In Jim Gregory voting, the award is supposed to go to “the League’s most outstanding general manager.” That could mean a lot of things. 

Because the voting panel is made up of GMs and other league executives as well as a select group of print and broadcast media, no one knows which criteria are favored. Final ballots aren’t made public — only a tally of the total points received by each GM. 

The timing is also unique. Voting is now done at the end of the second round of the playoffs, and that shows in the recent results. Over the last nine years, 22 of the 27 finalists have managed teams that won their second-round playoff series and reached the final four.

This year, Nill and Zito fit that qualification, but the exception is Cheveldayoff. His Jets fell just one win short, but the voters who supported him likely looked at Winnipeg’s achievement of winning its first-ever Presidents’ Trophy. 

In Cheveldayoff’s case, the support could also be recognizing his long tenure as the one-and-only GM of Jets 2.0, where he’s continuing to advance the organization as the years go on. 

Under his watch in the NHL’s smallest market recently, he has managed to retain high-profile free-agents-to-be, Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck and extend key players like Nino Niederreiter, Dylan DeMelo, Vladislav Namestnikov, Alex Iafallo and Neal Pionk.

When it was revealed in February that nearly half of the 111 players surveyed anonymously by The Athletic this year said that Winnipeg would be the No. 1 market on their no-trade lists, Jets players pushed back. 

“Obviously there are some things that are out of our control like the cold in winter and the taxes compared to other cities,” DeMelo said. “But for me, this is such a fun place to play and live. Our kids are growing up in the community, the team is great, the organization is top-class. You see obviously we’ve been able to retain key players, a lot of players.”

So Cheveldayoff is deserving of the attention he’s getting. But it’s not like his spot in the finals should have been a slam dunk.

The biggest complication around a Washington Capitals vote for GM of the Year was which executive to name. Ten-year GM Brian MacLellan surrendered his manager’s chair to Chris Patrick on July 8, 2024, just after the team traded for Pierre-Luc Dubois, Logan Thompson and Jakob Chychrun, and signed Matt Roy.

MacLellan also previously set the table for the team’s current success by hiring Spencer Carbery as coach and building out a prospect pool that could ably support Alex Ovechkin’s quest for the goal-scoring record as veterans like Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie stepped aside.

As the current GM, Patrick’s resume doesn’t have enough bullet points yet to earn him a nod.

Two other GMs who have made noteworthy moves this season were working together a year ago. Current struggles aside, first-time boss Eric Tulsky deserves respect for his work in Carolina. After the Hurricanes were expected to step back following the 2024 departures of Brady Skjei, Brett Pesce and Teuvo Teravainen, he re-tooled his lineup for regular-season success and two more playoff-round wins while also swinging for the fences — bringing in Mikko Rantanen and not being afraid to make a bold reset when that deal didn’t land the way he’d hoped. 

Tulsky’s old boss, Don Waddell, also did a remarkable job in his first season with his new team, the Columbus Blue Jackets. He strengthened his roster with character players like Sean Monahan, then navigated the tragic loss of Johnny Gaudreau while supporting his players and staff members with grace and compassion. Watching the Blue Jackets bond and work together was a clear sign that Waddell’s guidance had a positive impact that stretched beyond typical day-to-day duties.

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