Happy Canada Day, friends. Today is the beginning, sort of, of free agency. To sign available players, NHL teams are about to spend obscene sums of money that are still somehow suspiciously low when compared to the other big-four sports.
Washington general manager Brian MacLellan articulated the team’s needs simply: a third-line right wing. The team is reportedly about to sign F Richard Panik to a four-year deal worth around $2.5 million annually. The team appears to have been priced out in the race to sign F Brett Connolly, who has been linked to Florida for around $3.5 million.
Although no deals could be finalized until noon on Monday, there was a ton of buzz on Sunday night, which Ian recapped and I’ll summarize here:
F Artemi Panarin to NYI, likely- G Sergei Bobrovsky to FLA for 7 years x $10 million, likely
- F Matt Duchene to NSH for 7 years x $8 million, likely
- F Corey Perry to DAL for 1 year x $1.5 million, likely
- F Mats Zuccarello to MIN for 5 years x $6 million
- D Luke Schenn to TBL for 1 year x $700k, likely
- G Mike Smith to EDM, likely
- G Calvin Pickard to DET, likely
- Rumored: G Semyon Varlamov to NYI
There were also trades. Anaheim traded F Nicolas Deslauriers to Montreal for a pick, and Florida traded G James Reimer to Carolina for G Scott Darling and a pick, and Montreal traded F Andrew Shaw to Chicago for picks. Toronto completed a multi-player trade with Ottawa, swapping D Nikita Zaitsev for D Cody Ceci and others.
One acronym you may see today is AAV, average annual value. That’s basically the player’s salary per season, and therefore their cap hit. A resource we’d recommend for today’s activity is Evolving Wild’s contract projections, which take informed guesses at the term and salaries of contracts for free agents. Before we begin, please keep in mind the mantra for free-agency spending:
And now, let’s do it.
Updates
- F Jason Spezza is expected to sign with TOR
- D Nikita Zaitsev, F Connor Brown and D Michael Carcone have been traded from TOR to OTT in exchange for D Codi Ceci, D Ben Harpur, F Aaron Luchuk and a third-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft
- F Jimmy Vesey has been traded from NYR to BUF in exchange for a third-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft
- F Ryan Hartman is expected to sign with MIN
- D Jordie Benn is expected to sign with VAN
- G Keith Kinkaid is expected to sign with MON
- F Noel Acciari is expected to sign with FLA for 3 years x $1.67 million
- F Joonas Donskoi is expected to sign with COL for 3 years x $3.5 million
- G Cam Talbot is expected to sign with CAL for 1 year x $2.75 million
- F Brandon Tanev is expected to sign with PIT for 6 years x $3.5 million
- F Garnet Hathaway has reportedly signed with WSH for 1 years x $1.5 million
- D Ryan Murray has signed an two-year extension with CBJ
- F Artemi Panarin to NYR for 7 years x $11.6 million.
- F Valtteri Filppula to DET for 2 years.
- D Tyler Myers to VAN for 5 years x $6 million.
- F Brett Connolly to FLA for 4 years x $3.5 million.
- G Sergei Bobrovsky to FLA for 7 years x $10 million.
- F Tyler Graovac to VAN for 2 years.
- F Richard Panik to WSH for 4 years x $2.75 million.
- C Andy Andreoff (two-year, one-way contract), F Kurtis Gabriel (one-year, two-way contract), and D Nate Prosser (two-year, two-way contract) to PHI.
- F Alex Chiasson extends with EDM for 2 years x $2.15 million.
- F Riley Barber to MTL (two-way deal) for one year.
- F Colin Wilson extends with COL for 1 year x $2.6 million.
- F Pierre-Edouard Bellemare to COL for 2 years x $1.8 million.
- G Cam Talbot to CGY for 1 year x $1.75 million.
- F Tyler Ennis to OTT for 1 year x $ million.
- F Nathan Walker to STL for two years on a two-way deal.
- F Wayne Simmonds to NJD for 1 year x $5 million.
- D Anton Stralman to FLA for 3 years x $5.5 million.
- F Anders Lee extends with NYI for 7 years x $7 million.
That’s about it for now! We’ll run new stories for further developments.
