At noon on Friday, NHL teams can begin signing free agents. This will be the first free agency period under the new collective-bargaining agreement and its diminished salary cap, but if you think that means GMs all of a sudden are going to start behaving rationally, nu-uh. Get ready for some overly long terms and capacious paychecks for players of middling ability. Because it’s summertime, and that’s when we all make decisions we later regret– NHL teams not exempt.
Teams and players have actually been talking since like Wednesday, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re looking at a pretty active afternoon. We’ll be RTing legit news sources from @russianmachine, but you can also follow along here, where I’ll keep a running tally of who goes where– especially anyone of interest to the DC universe.
P.S. Matt Hendricks is gon’ get paid.
And with that, we conclude this open thread. No action by DC whatsoever, and that is totally fine. McPhee has all summer to make moves, and he’s wise not to overpay like Glendale or self-immolate like Toronto. The team has very specific needs, and this market may not offer good solutions right now. We don’t want Washington to make moves just to look like they’re busy. It’s a long way to October.
Have a good weekend everybody! We’ll have a lot more coverage coming.
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