Buyer Beware: Which UFAs might get too much money and term this summer?
While championship-contending teams are usually built through the draft and smart trades, they’re sometimes destroyed in free agency. After spending the entire season nickel and diming every move to stay under the salary cap, free agency gives teams financial breathing room for the first time in a year – and without fail, they usually get trigger happy and spend it all in one go. Teams get into bidding wars over specific players and drive up their prices to the point that any value they gain from the player itself is lost in how much it cost them.
This season will be no different. If anything, the only difference is we may see teams spend like never before. With a free agency crop with limited options for high-end players and certain positions like center and right defense, all coming in the first year of a drastically rising salary cap, we’ve never been more in the dark as to what kind of contracts will be handed out. We’ll either see a drastic shift in the market, or we’ll just see a bunch of horrible contracts handed out again.
As we prepare for July, let’s scour the upcoming unrestricted free agent market and predict which players teams should probably avoid giving too much money and term on their next deal. It won’t be universal (sometimes players take discounts re-signing with their current teams or their boyhood teams), but if a player is looking for the highest bidder, that team will likely regret it.
Sam Bennett
Beware: Buying at his absolute highest
Bennett is a tough cookie to evaluate here. On one hand, he’s coming off a career-high regular season with 51 points in 76 games, an even better playoffs with 15 goals and 22 points in 23 games on route to a Conn Smythe Trophy win, and he even made the cut for Team Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off. That’s one hell of a resume, and he has certainly added to his value on the open market (and you know his agent Darren Ferris will drive that price up as much as he can). General managers will also be drooling over how well Bennett’s style of play is built for the playoffs.
But on the other hand, what he’d done previously in his career indicates this is the peak of his career. There’s a strong chance that you’ll be paying him for what he did this past season and he’ll never reach that height again, especially as he enters the back half of his career. He’s the type of player who often gets too much money and too much term, and for every time that paying up does work out (Zach Hyman, Tom Wilson), there are countless examples of it not (Bryan Bickell, Justin Abdelkader, Milan Lucic, Troy Brouwer, Andrew Ladd, Ondrej Palat, need I go on). Bennett’s archetype of player often thrives on championship-winning teams because they’re getting underpaid for the value that they bring. The second they’re getting paid adequately or overpaid, they lose what makes them special.
Ultimately, it depends on what happens with Bennett. All signs point to him re-signing with the Florida Panthers, and if that number comes in the range of a $7-8 million AAV, that’s at least swallowable in the rising cap era, even if it does eliminate what makes Bennett so valuable for Florida. But if he hits the market and ends up in the range of $9-10 million, then that will likely be a big mistake for the paying team. At that point, you’re better off looking in the bargain bin for the next Sam Bennett, which is generally what the best teams do.
Brock Boeser
Beware: Passenger who may get paid like a play-driver
Boeser may be the perfect example of a good player who shouldn’t be one of the top options among this summer’s UFA crop. By all means, he is a skilled player who has a knack for putting the puck in the net. Over the course of his career, he’s scored at a pace of 30 goals per 82 games, and he even has a 40-goal season under his belt. In fact, scoring goals is probably Boeser’s only elite talent, as he otherwise struggles to drive play and defend.
The problem is that, after Mitch Marner and Nikolaj Ehlers, the market is quite scarce for scoring wingers, and once teams lose out on those two, Boeser will be whom they talk to next, and they’ll probably be willing to pay a premium price to get somebody of that caliber on their team. Boeser just isn’t the kind of player you pay $8+ million for, at least not yet, but he’s hitting the market at the perfect time – for him.
If you’re a team that needs someone to score goals and can put him in a role that will hide the rest of his deficiencies, maybe he’s worth a try, but there are a lot of teams who will probably pay him to be a play-driver when he’s spent a lot of his career as a passenger.
Aaron Ekblad
Beware: The Cup tax
Ekblad is the second player from the defending Cup champs in Florida to crack this list, and he won’t be the last – for good reason. Now, these players won the Stanley Cup (again) for a reason, having the skillset to play their roles perfectly, and for Ekblad, he was a top option on their blueline. He may have looked slow at times, but he also moves the puck well. Oh, and he shoots right. That also draws a lot of eyes on the market.
But needing a new contract after winning the Stanley Cup often comes with a “tax” to go along with it. No, not the lack of taxes in Florida. It’s that extra boost to their upcoming AAV that comes from winning the Cup and hitting the market, with other teams fighting tooth and nail to get the table scraps of the winner in a copycat league. It sees them get more money, and often times it’s too much.
Much like Bennett, if Ekblad re-signs with the Panthers, you can probably throw this concern out the window. The players will likely come in at numbers below their expected value, either due to the lack of state taxes in Florida or because they want to take a discount to help the team build another winner around them. In the end, it will be a combination of both. But if Ekblad hits the market, you’ll probably be paying a premium for a player solely because of those Stanley Cup rings.
Mikael Granlund
Beware: Buying high, market scarcity, passenger who may get paid like a play-driver
While Granlund won’t get quite the pay day of the names mentioned thus far, there are still a lot of question marks surrounding him and what kind of commitment teams should be giving with him. It’s easy to forget now, but there’s a reason why his $5 million cap hit was dumped to the San Jose Sharks two years ago as part of the Erik Karlsson trade. Granlund wasn’t worth the cap hit at the time, and unless he continues to produce 60+ points, that will be the case again for teams paying up for him.
Beyond the production, Granlund doesn’t contribute enough to be worth a high cap hit or lengthy term, particularly with regards to his defensive game, as his 0.195 regularized adjusted plus-minus of expected goals per 60 minutes is the eighth worst among forwards with 1000 minutes of ice time in the last two seasons. Yes, you can’t just ignore his production in that span, but he’s been inconsistent throughout his career, and his contract will likely be big enough to make it a gamble. Add in that he’s now 33, and there’s even more risk there.
And of course, there’s the fact that Granlund plays center. The market for centers is slim pickings this summer, particularly in the free agent market, meaning that it won’t take long for him to be the best option for most teams and start a bidding war. That will only drive up his contract even more and make it even worse. If he gets a cap hit similar to his previous deal, that could be bearable with the rising cap, but adding anything more to it could be a big regret down the road.
Ryan Lindgren
Beware: Getting fooled by the minutes
On the surface, Lindgren is an attractive option on the blueline for teams that are looking to improve there. He’s held down a top-four role for the past five seasons, two of those coming in campaigns that saw the New York Rangers make trips to the Eastern Conference Final. In theory, he’d give a team some experience, as well as a minute-munching defenseman who can hold his own.
The problem is that he hasn’t held his own in those minutes recently. It started out fine for the first few seasons in that role with the Rangers, albeit largely because he played alongside Adam Fox, but the past two seasons, Lindgren’s play has not really dictated the ice time he gets. His defensive game took a step back in 2023-24 with a -1.6 defensive goals above replacement, and then his offensive game went down with it last season, with a -3.7 total GAR. There’s a reason why when the Rangers were looking to change things on their blueline, Lindgren was one of the players they had no problem moving on from.
There’s a danger in believing that when a player gets a lot of ice time, it means they’re effective in those minutes. Ice time is dictated by one person: the head coach. Using that as an evaluation tool puts you at the whim of every error and blind spot that coaches make, and that’s been the case with Lindgren these past two seasons. Even after he was dealt to the Colorado Avalanche, he still struggled just the same with a -1.5 GAR compared to a -2.1 GAR with the Rangers. His contract will probably be the cheapest out of any player mentioned here, but it could still constitute an unnecessary payment when far more effective players can be had for much less.
Brad Marchand
Beware: The Cup tax, overvaluing his play in sheltered minutes, term
I’ve already gone into the Cup tax, and how that will likely inflate the contracts that Bennett and Ekblad get if they hit the market, and it’s no different for Marchand. If anything, there should be more concern for a player like Marchand, because while his play did earn him second place in Conn Smythe voting, teams will be mistaken if they think they can sign him, plug him into their top six, and get the same results.
Marchand was so good in the playoffs compared to his time with the Boston Bruins this season because he played in a sheltered role and could terrorize other teams’ bottom six units. Throw him back in the top six, and he’s probably closer to the player that had 47 points in 61 games with Boston. That’s still a great player, but maybe not worth the money that he may get if you expect the same performance in the playoffs, especially at 37.
Which brings us to the other concern with Marchand: term. He’s at the point of his career where a bidding war won’t be won by the highest AAV, but by the team that adds an extra year or two to that contract. Think back to 2017 when the Toronto Maple Leafs signed Patrick Marleau. The Leafs got the deal done because they gave Marleau a third year when others wouldn’t, and yet that third year gave Toronto enough salary cap headaches as they were re-signing their core that they had to move a first-round pick to get rid of that contract. An extra year may not seem like much, but at Marchand’s age, it increases the risk of Marchand’s game significantly declining during the course of the contract.
Ivan Provorov
Beware: Getting fooled by the minutes
Everything I said about Lindgren and the concern about getting caught up in his minute totals while ignoring his actual performance in that role applies tenfold to Provorov. If anything, Provorov is the poster child for overrated minute-munching defensemen. He’s made a career out of playing in a top pair role while not doing much with it.
Since entering the league in 2016-17, he’s 125th in offensive GAR and 109th in defensive GAR. Those are the makings of a fringe top four defenseman at best, not one who should be played on a top pairing and paid as such. He’s largely benefitted from playing for teams that haven’t had many better options ahead of him to fill those roles with the Philadelphia Flyers and the Columbus Blue Jackets. There’s a reason why he’s made the playoffs just twice in his career: teams that require him in that role just aren’t good enough to be competitive.
As of right now, three defensemen are projected to make more than $7 million on the UFA market this year according to AFP Analytics: Vladislav Gavrikov, Ekblad, and Provorov. Gavrikov has the elite defensive ability to justify that kind of a contract, as does Ekblad with his puck-moving ability. Provorov does not bring something like that to the table, just a lot of minutes on the ice. Teams would be smart to look elsewhere for top-four defensemen if they want those minutes to be used more effectively.
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