Takeaways from two weeks of NHL free agency

Graphic by Mitchell Fox

BY ADAM FLOUJEH

The NHL free agent market in 2024 may not have been as loaded with talent as past or future years, but it certainly brought its own fireworks.

Over a billion dollars was dished out on July 1 and along with some trades to boot, the early part of the NHL’s signing season has had plenty of stories to follow. 

Let’s have a look at some of the most interesting themes from the first two weeks of NHL free agency. 

Nashville win free agency 

The winners of free agency were undoubtedly the Nashville Predators, who inked arguably the three biggest free agents available:

Steven Stamkos: Four-years $32 million - $8 million AAV 

Jonathan Marchessault: Five-years $27 million – $5.5 million AAV 

Brady Skjei: Seven-years $49 million - $7 million AAV

Stamkos and Marchessault join former Panthers head coach, Andrew Brunette, in Nashville, completing the trifecta of Florida castoffs.  

The pair of forwards potted 82 goals combined last season, providing more firepower for a Predators offence that already stood in the top 10 in that category last season. They each have vast playoff experience as well, with three Stanley Cups and 230 postseason games played between them.

While Skjei’s name has been lost in a lot of headlines, he serves as a replacement for Ryan McDonagh after the Predators traded the American defenceman back to Tampa Bay in May. 

The elephant in the room is the age factor. Many of Nashville’s core players aren’t exactly young.

Stamkos is 34.

Marchessault is 33.

Ryan O’Reilly is 33. 

Roman Josi is 34.

While Filip Forsberg and newly extended Juuse Saros are each 29 years old, the former four are all at ages where an athlete's play starts deteriorating significantly. 

All this to say, general manager Barry Trotz’s bold moves this offseason need to bring success and bring success fast.

The no-tax-state advantage 

Fun fact: Nashville, Florida and Tampa Bay are all teams that benefit from their respective states being income-tax-free. Other teams have this luxury as well but we’re spotlighting these three squads because of the contracts they’ve each signed the past week, and how that tax break helps them sign players at discounted rates.

We covered Nashville in the previous section of this piece, so let’s examine the Florida teams, where each franchise's biggest move of the offseason shows the non-tax advantage in spades. 

Tampa Bay gave the league a heart attack by acquiring the rights to and signing Jake Guentzel to a seven-year contract worth $63 million, working out to an average annual value (AAV) of only $9 million. The American winger was arguably the biggest free agent this summer after posting 30 goals and 77 points in 67 games between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Carolina Hurricanes in 2023-24. Seeing a winger who has scored 40 goals multiple times and been a proven playoff performer get less than 10 million against the cap is bonkers. 

What’s even more jaw-dropping is the Florida Panthers signing Canadian winger Sam Reinhart to an eight-year extension worth $69 million, a deal that carries an AAV of $8,624,000.

That’s less than $9 million per season for a pending UFA fresh off a 57-goal, 94-point campaign… enough said.

Vegas’ ruthless aggression spreads to other teams

 2023 saw the Vegas Golden Knights win their first Stanley Cup in the franchise’s young life. Their success was off the back of making cold-blooded decisions over player personnel and coaching staff. The goal was simple: win at all costs, and loyalty means nothing. Marc-Andre Fleury, Max Pacioretty, Pete DeBoer and most recently their Stanley Cup MVP Jonathan Marchessault are all examples of this.

In a copycat league, that trend continues to grow. 

The Rangers waiving Barclay Goodrow to get around his modified no-trade clause as well as reports of them trying to move team captain Jacob Trouba—who does not want to move as his wife is doing her medical residency in New York—are examples of a team throwing loyalty in the trash like a wet paper towel and focusing on winning. 

There’s no bigger example of this than what’s just happened in Tampa Bay.

For Predators fans, the Steven Stamkos signing was euphoric. For Lightning fans, however, it was an emotional gut punch.

Steven Stamkos will have his jersey retired by Tampa Bay one day, maybe even a statue. He holds countless Lightning records and honours. But none of that mattered to general manager Julien BriseBois when it came to extending the superstar.

After entering training camp without much to report in terms of contract talks with the Lightning, Stamkos was fairly clear he was not thrilled. By the end of the season, things were not much better.

Stamkos was offered an eight-year deal by the Lightning, but the dollar amount was well less than the Markham product desired. Tampa had a certain number in mind if their captain was to stay and BriseBois wasn’t going to bend because it went against what was best for the Tampa Bay Lightning's goal of being as competitive as possible. So the two sides never came to terms and Stamkos left with a bitter taste in his mouth.

This extends to another core member of Tampa Bay, Mikhail Sergachev…

Utah is washing off that Coyotes stench

Utah acquiring Sergachev has been the biggest surprise trade of the offseason so far—they moved top prospect Conor Geekie to do it—but it’s hard to see it as anything other than a serious step up. They brought in maybe the best defender they’ve ever had—one with Stanley Cup pedigree. If anything, it's a great first step for new owner Ryan Smith to show the NHL and the market that he’s serious about pro hockey in Utah. 

Utah also made a deal with the New Jersey Devils to bring in John Marino and signed veteran defender Ian Cole, bolstering the blue line significantly.

Going into the draft, the Utah Hockey Club had no defenders signed for next season. A few weeks later, that same defence core now projects to be:

Mikhail Sergachev – Sean Durzi

Juuso Valimaki – John Marino 

Ian Cole – Michael Kesselring

Now, this isn’t to say Utah is going to storm up the standings from 77 points to the playoffs, but the collective cap hit of that defence group is $25.4 million. Utah is doing something the Coyotes never did— spending money! Along with a new arena deal that appears to be keeping both the Jazz and Hockey Club in Utah, the once Arizona Coyotes franchise and its fans are seeing a commitment that previous owner Alex Meruelo never provided.  

Who knows if they’re done yet, either.

Washington is…still mid?

 Additions:

-Via signing: Matt Roy – six-years, $36.5 million = $5.75 million AAV

-Via trade: Andrew Mangipane, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Logan Thompson and Jakob Chychrun 

Right up there with Nashville as one of the more active teams once July 1 came along, the big question is whether the Capitals are all that much better. 

According to CapFriendly, Washington has the highest projected cap hit of any NHL team at $101,306,667 committed for the 2024-25 season. $9.2 million of that is Nicklas Backstrom’s contract, which is essentially LTIR space, but they are undoubtedly using all the money they can to keep their contention window open. 

With the additions they’ve made, the Caps look…better?

With Alex Ovechkin chasing the all-time goals record, Washington can’t commit to a full rebuild. But it's not like they were all that competitive in 2023-24.

Finishing as the second wildcard team in the east and getting swept by the Rangers says two things about the Capitals:

1 - Washington aren’t bad enough to get into a prime draft position 

2 - They aren’t strong enough to threaten any top team in the playoffs 

With an aging core, the Caps can’t afford to move young players like Ivan Miroshnichenko to improve their team, so their only real paths forward were free agency and trade.

Enter Dubois, Chychrun and much more.

With this new-look roster, would they have been swept by the New York Rangers?

No.

Would they have won?

Also no. Though maybe it goes five or six games…

Nevertheless, They’ve definitely improved at every position. Let’s break it down. 

Washington will be the fourth team to try and solve the Dubois puzzle box after his dramatic exits from Columbus and Winnipeg and a failed experiment in Los Angeles. If they’re successful, it helps strengthen their centre core tremendously. We all know the skillset the 2016 third overall pick possesses, but the effort level continues to be a question. 

Looking at their other forward move, Mangiapane will bolster their middle-six scoring. He is a safe bet for 15 goals and 40 points. 

Maybe the savviest trade for any team this offseason has been Washington acquiring Jakob Chychrun from the Ottawa Senators for a 2026 third-round pick and Nick Jensen (yes that’s all Ottawa got). The Florida product never fit in Ottawa (just like Alex Debrincat, funny that) and Caps president of hockey operations Brian MacLellan took advantage, getting a certified top-four defender for pennies on the dollar. 

Also on the blue line, the Matt Roy contract may seem pricey at first, but the going rate for right-handed defenders helps justify the large AAV. Roy has been one of Los Angeles’ most consistent players on the backend for years now and his play at both ends of the ice will surely take pressure off a 34-year-old John Carlson.

Finally, adding Logan Thompson to be Charlie Lindgren’s partner between the pipes—after Darcy Kuemper was moved for Dubois—gives the Capitals one of the best-valued goalie tandems in hockey at a combined $1,866,667 cap hit. 

Washington undoubtedly improved their roster, but we’ll have to wait until October to see if it's enough to turn heads. 

Goodbye CapFriendly 

 I speak for countless hockey fans when I say this: thank you so much to the CapFriendly team for everything they’ve given us over the years.

In case you missed it, the Washington Capitals and CapFriendly reached an agreement for the 2018 Stanley Cup Champions to purchase the site in June. Some may remember when the Vegas Golden Knights bought General Fanager in 2017 and hired founder Tom Poraszka. Vegas’ cap gymnastics are famous amongst hockey fans, and the evidence is there to prove how effective the move was. It helped Vegas capture a championship in 2023 with a salary cap that while never guilty of cap circumvention, was more contorted than a clown makes a balloon animal. 

As a writer, I can say every NHL piece I’ve ever written has included information CapFriendly had available to the public. I can also recall walking into lecture halls and seeing multiple screens of students having CapFriendly up instead of paying attention to their class (I am guilty of that myself on more than one occasion). 

The Greek myth of the titan Atlas being forced to carry the world on his shoulders is the equivalent of how much heavy lifting CapFriendly did in providing contract information to NHL fans across the world. 

Thank you CapFriendly for everything and I hope everyone has PuckPedia bookmarked on their internet browsers.

All salary information per Cap Friendly and PuckPedia <3 <3 <3