2026 NHL UFA All-Value team: The top potential bargain signings
Value is a relative term in a rising-cap world. With NHL revenues at an all-time high, the salary cap is climbing the stairs two at a time, from $88 million in 2024-25, to $95.5 million this past season, to $104 million in 2026-27 and $113.5 million in 2027-28.
A player making $5 million last season, then, is the equivalent of a player making $6.45 million the season after next.
When projecting the best bargains on the UFA market, we thus should keep in mind that their AAVs might not look clearance-rack great at first glance, but they might through the lens of what the players deliver relative to their new cap hits in the rising-cap world.
With that, I present Daily Faceoff’s fourth annual UFA All-Value team. It’s not that every player on this list will sign for a criminally-low AAV; it’s that I predict each will exceed the value of his next deal.
2025 UFA ALL-VALUE TEAM
Forward: Oliver Bjorkstrand (TB)
Bjorkstrand struggled to find his scoring touch in a diminished role after arriving in Tampa, with just 17 goals and 41 points in 98 games. But there may have been a chicken-and-egg situation in which he had low production with a reduced role, which kept his production down, which kept his role reduced, and so on. Bjorkstrand still landed in the league’s 85th percentile in primary assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 this past season. He should return to being a 45-50-point player easily if he lands on a mediocre team that plays him in its middle six. Bjorkstrand is still a talented playmaker.
Forward: Patrik Laine (MTL)
Laine played just five games this season due to an abdominal injury, which was brutal timing for his walk year. Laine needs a fresh start; he’s still young enough, and his shot is still deadly enough, that he could help someone as a power-play trigger man. Even the lesser vision of Laine leads all NHL players in power-play goals per 60 over the past three seasons, and he averages 4.73 more shots per 60 than the second-most prolific power-play shooter. If deployed as a specialist, he can still be extremely useful. To hammer the point home one more time: literally the best power-play scorer in hockey on a per-minute basis.
Forward: Mason Marchment (CBJ)
He functions best as a disruptive middle-sixer who can chip in offensively and get in opponents’ heads. That worked well when he was a cog in the Dallas Stars machine. Asked to do a bit more on a weaker Kraken team and playing the most minutes of his career, Marchment struggled, but he was fantastic as a Blue Jacket after the midseason trade, flirting with point-per-game production. It sure feels like Columbus would be wise to re-sign him. If not, another team should pounce, as Marchment has been an efficient 5-on-5 scorer relative to ice time for pretty much his whole career, averaging 52 points per 82 games with 15:21 average TOI across 370 games. He also rates above average on the offensive and defensive side of play driving.
Defense: Tony DeAngelo (NYI)
DeAngelo will never be confused with Jaccob Slavin. The whole “playing defense” thing isn’t for Tony D. But he moves the puck and produces points like few others at his position. Over the past three seasons, he sits in the 91st percentile for primary assists per 60 among defensemen at 5-on-5. If you want offense and don’t care about the rest, on or off the ice…DeAngelo will provide that singular thing, and being a one-dimensional player tends to keep his price down.
Defense: Brett Kulak (COL)
He’s not flashy, but he plays pretty mistake-free hockey as a bottom-pair guy who can occasionally elevate to a middle pair, too, and he has quite a bit of playoff experience. He also grades out as above-average in foot speed even in his early 30s. The Avs got 58.33 percent of the 5-on-5 scoring chances when Kulak and greybeard Brent Burns were on the ice together this postseason. Kulak might not win you many games – series-clinching overtime goal against Minnesota aside – but he’s a guy that doesn’t lose you games.
Goaltender: Stuart Skinner (PIT)
I’m shocking myself by selecting Skinner, a player I’ve been extremely hard on over the years, for this list. But context is everything. With the Pens, he had one month this season with a save percentage north of .900 – but he played on back-to-back runs to the Stanley Cup Final in Edmonton in the two seasons prior. At 27, he’s still young in goalie years and should catch on as a backup who, despite his extreme volatility, has undeniable upside when he’s on one of his heaters. Skinner as a definitive 1B has much different value than Skinner shoehorned into a starter’s role. And he actually saved 0.17 goals above expected per 60 this season; relative to difficulty of workload, Skinner’s 2025-26 performance rated the best of any 2026 UFA goalie, believe it or not.
UFA All-Value Second Team
F – Viktor Arvidsson
F – Colton Sissons
F – Mats Zuccarello
D – Nick Blankenburg
D – Vincent Desharnais
G – Connor Ingram
(Shoutout to The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn for opening my eyes on Desharnais, who has become more than just a big body; he makes my second team, but I can’t take credit for that idea).
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