The 2023 unrestricted free agent class may be disappointing, especially with some high-profile names like Stanley Cup champions Ivan Barbashev and Adin Hill coming off the board in recent days. However, the market did get a bit of a boost in the last 24 hours thanks to a slew of buyouts and the qualifying offer deadline, which saw over 100 restricted free agents get released by their teams to unrestricted status tomorrow. With that being said, it’s time to take a look at some of the more intriguing targets now available for teams to sign.
Each player’s former team is listed in parentheses. You can find the full list of RFAs that went unqualified here.
D Ethan Bear (VAN)
The summer will likely end with Bear re-signing in Vancouver, but there’s nothing stopping him from heading elsewhere if a team comes calling. He could last a bit into the summer as he recovers from a shoulder injury sustained while playing at the IIHF Men’s World Championship, though.
After not really finding a role in the Carolina Hurricanes lineup, Bear had a very solid season with the Canucks, posting 16 points in 61 games and providing high-end two-way play for a team that desperately needed it. Add in the fact he’s a right shot and still only 26 years old, and he makes for a rather appealing target that would have landed on our top 50 unrestricted free agents list for 2023.
He’s likely to earn a two-to-three-year deal, probably slightly under his $2.2MM qualifying offer. If so, all signs point to it being one of the better value signings of a summer poised to see some overpayments out of need in a weak UFA class.
F Denis Gurianov (MTL)
Things have been downhill for the 2015 12th overall pick since he logged 20 goals in his rookie season, a feat he hasn’t matched since. After sliding back out of a consistent top-nine role with the Dallas Stars, he was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens at the deadline in exchange for Evgenii Dadonov, a move that may have paid dividends for both sides. Gurianov did show a bit of a resurgence with the Habs, scoring five goals and eight points in 23 games, looking more engaged than he did with the Stars. The Habs will likely attempt to get a deal done here, but he wasn’t worth the $2.9MM qualifying offer he was due.
This is not a case of analytics suggesting a breakout, though, in fact, it’s the opposite. There are red flags nearly everywhere in his profile, suggesting he’s a liability in isolation. There is still some obvious raw skill with Gurianov, though, and for a cheap cost, he could put up some higher point totals with picture-perfect chemistry. It remains to be seen whether he’ll ever find that.
D Caleb Jones (CHI)
The counting stats here aren’t the prettiest, but advanced metrics have long tabbed Jones as an effective player for his role. Last season, Jones’ -19 rating may not have been pretty, but he also logged nearly 20 minutes a night on a lottery team. In fact, Jones logged a career-high relative Corsi for percentage at even strength of 4.8%, and his 16 points in 73 games were a career-high.
He’ll never break the bank offensively from the blue line, nor should you expect him to, but he’s got an underrated ability to drive play and proved this season he can take on more serious minutes against tougher competition. Add in the fact he can play both the left and right side, and he should be quite a good value signing for a team looking to bolster their third pair (or potentially second).
At 26, though, Jones was nearing retirement age on a very youthful Chicago blueline, and they decided to cut ties to make room for more of their future talent. He shouldn’t cost much more than $2MM on a one-year offer.
F Daniel Sprong (SEA)
Sprong easily jumps out as the most tantalizing target here. Quickly overtaking Dale Weise for the “Dutch Gretzky” title (sorry, Canadiens fans), Sprong has grown into one of the most efficient per-minute scorers in the league. He’s notched at least 13 goals in four of the last five seasons, never averaging more than 13 minutes per game – in fact, he scored 21 goals (and 46 points) in just 66 games with the Kraken this year despite staying squarely in a fourth-line role, averaging 11:25 per game. He was 17th in the NHL in goals per 60 minutes this season among skaters with at least 25 games.
With that, he’s set himself up for more ice time and more money. He was eligible for arbitration and likely would’ve garnered a rich reward for his production – a number Seattle didn’t want to pay. That doesn’t mean another team won’t, although an underwhelming playoff performance may scare some teams off. For a fringe team looking to add a high-octane option to its top nine, though, look no further than the 26-year-old Sprong.
He could very well command above the $3MM mark on a short-term but multi-year deal, especially from a team slated toward the bottom of the league standings. He jumps out as an attractive option for teams like the Arizona Coyotes, who could bank on Sprong’s production maintaining (or even increasing) with a slight bump in minutes, parlaying it into a valuable trade at next year’s deadline. Signing him to a two- or three-year deal with cost certainty as the salary cap rises would only add to his trade value.
F Sam Steel (MIN)
Steel is the only unqualified RFA who can say they were a number-one center last year. However, it was by necessity – with the Minnesota Wild needing Joel Eriksson Ek to round out their top-six on their second line, it was an in-and-out swap all year between Steel and Ryan Hartman between their pair of star wings in Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello. Steel did have a career-high 10 goals and 28 points in 65 games, but you’d expect more for someone who spent over 350 minutes with Kaprizov and Zuccarello this season – especially from a former first-round pick.
That being said, you could do worse for a third-line center. Steel isn’t a liability defensively, and while he may not be able to translate his offensive acumen to the scoresheet in the NHL, he won’t take points away from those around him and can survive as a complementary player.
Still, with uninspiring production in Minnesota, he wasn’t a candidate to stick around, as the team needs every dollar available to them to stay in playoff contention. He’s flashed the least upside at the NHL level of any of the five players listed, although he does carry some certainty in terms of his defensive impacts and offensive production that others here don’t offer.
Other targets to watch: F Nathan Bastian (NJD), G Mackenzie Blackwood (SJS), F Max Comtois (ANA), F Morgan Geekie (SEA), F Tyson Jost (BUF), F Klim Kostin (DET), F Denis Malgin (COL), F Michael McLeod (NJD), F Jesse Puljujarvi (CAR)
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Now that the Hawks are disposing of all Bowman’s horrible Defenseman draft picks. Jokiharu, Boqvist, Beaudin, Mitchell and so on. But they bulked up the Forward positions in the draft, They still seem poised to go with the same lame Veteran Defensemen that were terrible last year. Seth Jones, Murphy, Zaitsev, Tinordi and I assumed Caleb Jones. Hopefully this means there are some trades coming as the only young D-men the Hawks have that are close to ready are Vlasic and maybe Korchinski and Allan. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. Then so far this is insanity. I hope it gets better in the next couple of days.
Sprong and Comtois are intriguing, You can have the rest.
(Calling out the Devils, but some form of this question is relevant to all teams, in general.) How far apart in arb money could the Devils and the three non-QO’d RFAs be? If this was the MLB, McLeod, Bastian and Boq would have all be picked up and they would have hammered out a number or gone to arbitration. How much did the Devils truly save?
It’s slightly more complicated than that. Bastian and Boqvist are infinitely replaceable so the question is more of “why pay 1.5 each when you can replace for $1m or less” so saving $1m in cap space there I guess. As for McLeod, he’s worth more but replaceable for $2m or more that he might get. That plus a rape case hanging over his head. So total perhaps between $1 to 2m saving over 3 players. It doesn’t sound much when you think of an extra $2m player but when you compare a $5m player to a $7m player… well, the margins are where cap wizards shine.
Non-Tendered- Not to mention in Baseball the Luxury Tax is like 230 million as to where the Hard Cap in hockey is 83 million. In hockey you need to keep 23 guys under 83 million. In baseball, for 26 players, Even if you go over the tax by a few bucks it’s basically meaningless in penalties. That’s why the Cro-Magnon Hockey Cap is a joke. Keeping a Championship caliber team together with an annual cap increase of a stinking 1 million is proving harder and harder. It’s a joke.
MLB arbitration works in a very different, and better, way. It’s specifically designed to get the two parties to come to agreement. It’s too much to get into here. But if anyone is into game theory, or negotiation tactics It’s pretty cool and simple.
These are all very thoughtful and informative replies. Thanks. You’d figure with a username like Non-tendered I’d know all the answers. I agree that McLeod would be the most challenging part to replace, though I do like Bastian’s size and toughness. And I figured the open investigation had something to do with this strategy. What I’m hearing is this it’s a reasonable risk and that the Devils likely didn’t just steer themselves into a Mets and Justin Turner situation. (For the baseball fans out there.)
It’s also not a guarantee that the non-tendered players won’t eventually return. Some teams use the non-tender strategically in an effort to eliminate the potential for arbitration. I expect at least one of New Jersey’s notable three non-tenders (Bastian, McLeod, and Boqvist) will wind up coming back on a deal that’s worth more than their qualifying offer but less than what they were likely to get had they gone to an arbitration hearing.
I agree Brian, in fact I think that’s probably the plan with all 3.