Free agency winners and losers: Predators go all-in, Hurricanes strike out

02/07/2024

The port town may be peaceful and calm when the sailors are off at sea, but it’s a lot more lively and fun when they return ready to sip and spend.

The stagnant salary cap of the past few years forced something into the free agent market we hadn’t historically seen a lot of: Restraint. Where once general managers were pretty happy to toss out long-term deals like breadcrumbs to cawing seagulls, the pandemic foisted a prudence upon the open market that suddenly saw even some high-profile free agents opt for one-year deals in the hopes more significant money would be on offer when they came back 12 months later.

Well, good news hockey players and fans; the deluxe package is back on the menu.

Chris Tanev, a 34-year-old defenceman with hard kilometres on the odometer, got a deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs that takes him to 40. Chandler Stephenson, a 30-year-old centre whose only 20-goal season came two years ago (21), inked a seven-year deal with Seattle. Sean Monahan, a guy who had to settle for a one-year deal as a UFA with an extensive injury history last summer, has signed on with the Blue Jackets for the next half-decade.

Every situation is unique and every squad has its own (often reasonable) rationale for putting the contracts together, but the overall takeaway is free agency is fun again now that the cap is on the rise and GMs are peeling bills off the owner’s roll.

There’s a lot to sort through, so let’s dive right into identifying some winners and losers.

Winners

Nashville Predators

Remember 12 months ago, when we thought — with the shift to Barry Trotz from David Poile — the Preds might take a little step back and re-tool with some youth? Well, last summer they signed one of the best centres available on the open market in veteran Ryan O’Reilly and he’ll now be part of a forward group that includes two-time goal-scoring champ Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault, the 2023 post-season MVP.

Trotz also brought blue-liner Brady Skjei in on a seven-year deal and, oh by the way, locked up franchise goalie Juuse Saros with an eight-year extension.

Bravo, Barry.

While we’re here, let’s talk Tampa Bay because it feels like you could call the Bolts a winner or a loser depending on your perspective. Losing a franchise icon in Stamkos hurts and there’s no doubt the defence corps will be weakened by trading Mikhail Sergachev to Utah.

That said, Jake Guentzel was the premier forward available on the open market and he’s now signed to play in Tampa for seven years. Victor Hedman, who will certainly be the next captain of the squad, signed a four-year extension on the second day he was eligible to, so I guess it’s fair to say GM Julien BriseBois didn’t exactly alienate anybody from his core group by ostensibly letting Stamkos walk.

Ryan McDonagh and J.J. Moser will help Hedman piece together a passable blueline and Conor Geekie could make that swap with Utah look pretty good in two years. You don’t see 20-year-olds with his power forward profile getting moved much.

Take sentimentality out of this and it’s not hard to give BriseBois the benefit of the doubt here.

Washington Capitals

Call me crazy, but I kind of love what the Caps have done — including the deal for Pierre-Luc Dubois. The acquisition of Jakob Chychrun is a no-brainer for the low cost. Even if he only spends one year in D.C. before testing free agency himself next summer, it’s a win. If he stays on any kind of reasonable extension, it’s a home run.

Logan Thompson has been a quality goalie the past few years in Vegas and if he can stay healthy, there’s plenty of reason to believe he could follow the career trajectory of fellow southpaw and battery mate Charlie Lindgren and blossom in his late 20s.

Capable right-shot defencemen are always in high demand and Washington landed one, in former King Matt Roy, at a reasonable $5.75-million cap hit in free agency.

The Dubois trade is a major gamble. That said, it’s not a huge net gain on the cap for the next few years because it also allowed Washington to ship out the contract of 34-year-old goalie Darcy Kuemper. If Dubois can be 85 per cent of the player he’s shown at times in his career, it’s a major victory in Washington. Either way, a team that was quickly becoming relevant only for Alex Ovechkin’s goal chase is officially interesting again.

Boston Bruins

I’ll paraphrase an X post from Boston Globe writer Matt Porter and point out, it’s kind of like the Bruins added Patrice Bergeron Light and Zdeno Chara Light with the signings of centre Elias Lindholm and hulking defenceman Nikita Zadorov. That’s a good day. Ink Jeremy Swayman to an extension and go fishing.

Jeff Skinner

Speaking of X, we’ll borrow from another corner of the sports media world — The Press Box podcast — and say it was an overworked X joke to immediately post “Jeff Skinner will finally make the playoffs” when he signed in Edmonton.

What a great fit for the bought-out player and team. The Oilers had a nice day overall, too, hanging on to deadline pickup Adam Henrique for two more years.

The rebuilding Sharks and Hawks

Losing a lot in service of a proper rebuild is a painful process, so kudos to the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks for applying a bit of a balm in the form of capable veterans. Tyler Toffoli, Alexander Wennberg and Barclay Goodrow have joined the fold in Northern California, while Chicago really leaned into improving by inking forwards Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teravainen, veteran D-men Alec Martinez and T.J. Brodie and a goalie, in Laurent Brossoit, who has a .915 save percentage in 72 games over the past three seasons and may be ready for a true net share with Petr Mrazek. The longest of any of the new contracts signed by Chicago is Bertuzzi’s four years, meaning GM Kyle Davidson did little to mess with the club’s long-term cap situation.

New Jersey Devils

The Devils opened the off-season by trading relatively little for goalie Jacob Markstrom and kept it chugging by signing blue-liners Brett Pesce for the second pair and big Brenden Dillion for the third. This team is much stronger from top to bottom and only needs to avoid the catastrophic injury luck it had last year to be in line for a huge bounce-back season.

Seattle Kraken

Seattle might not win the award for most shrewd signings but give ownership credit for opening the vault to address areas of need. Stephenson is a versatile player who can support youngsters Matty Beniers and Shane Wright. When Berkly Catton, the eighth-overall pick in the draft on Friday, is ready to join the big leagues, maybe Stephenson will swap out to the wing.

The other seven-year deal handed out by the Kraken was to right-shooting defenceman Brandon Montour, who probably opened another bottle of Champagne just as the Panthers Cup party was dying down. On a team starved for talent, Montour is a great addition. The 30-year-old is in phenomenal shape and the Kraken are likely to feed him monster minutes.

Losers

Winnipeg Jets

The marriage with Sean Monahan was perfect and felt poised to continue. Now that Monahan has departed for Columbus, there’s a sizable hole down the middle for the Jets. Laurent Brossoit was probably always going to be priced out of their range, but his departure still breaks up one of the best tandems in the league (though, between newcomers Eric Comrie and Kaapo Kahkonen, Connor Hellebuyck should still be supported). There also seemed like a path to Brenden Dillon returning and his exit leaves some questions on the blue.

Winnipeg can still address areas of need with potential trade chips Rutger McGroarty and Nik Ehlers. It’s just impossible to say the Jets are better today than they were before the start of free agency.

Carolina Hurricanes

Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei leave the blue line, and Sean Walker and Shane Gostisbehere come in. That’s not an abject disaster, but it’s a downgrade, no doubt.

The best two goalies available via trade — Jacob Markstrom and Linus Ullmark — have been moved to teams that aren’t Carolina and deadline pickup Jake Guenztel, after seeming like he might stick in Raleigh long-term, plays for another Eastern Conference playoff squad in Tampa Bay.

The Canes still have a card to play in RFA Martin Necas. Right now, though, a small step back seems inevitable.

Los Angeles Kings

Every free-spending summer there’s usually one deal where you see a dollar figure and think, “That’s a nice deal” until you realize you’re looking at the annual cap hit, not the total dollars. For me, that was Joel Edmundson’s $15.2-million, four-year deal which carries a hit of $3.8 million. I get big, mean blue-liners are back in style — did they ever really go out? — I’ll admit I was surprised to learn the 2019 Cup champion with St. Louis is still just 31 years old and I guess L.A. was bidding against someone. Still, I had to look twice to wrap my brain around those figures.

Kings management can claim the off-season is a victory simply by dumping Pierre-Luc Dubois, but they’re now committing serious dollars to Darcy Kuemper for three years and his age and injury history are such that there’s no way to declare the team’s crease concerns over.

L.A. figures to be in a wild card playoff battle next year and other teams in that mix — Nashville, Utah, Seattle — all got appreciably better.

That’s just not the case for the Kings.