There tends to be a select group of names added to the unrestricted free-agent list at the last gasp of the NHL league year, and this year was no different.
With the NHL calendar getting set to turn from last season to next on Monday at noon ET, a variety of NHL teams rushed to conduct some last-minute business on Sunday. It was a busy NHL news day that marked both the qualifying offer deadline and the final practical day of the NHL buyout window.
For those players whose contracts were bought out, or who were non-tendered, they’ll become unrestricted free agents, free to sell their services to the highest bidder and join the annual July 1 free-agent frenzy. These are the players that make up what’s commonly referred to as the NHL’s “secondary market.”
For the most part, secondary market players are flawed and are often coming off of seasons in which they underperformed. Generally speaking, players in this particular bucket will be available affordably for teams this summer, and will mostly be targeted by clubs looking to creatively fill out the bottom end of their lineup with upside bets for next season.
Still, one team’s trash can be another team’s treasure. The defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers are a fine example of this, not only because of how they’ve worked the waiver wire to find hidden gems like Gustav Forsling, but because their hockey operations department has generally made a habit of targeting non-tendered players and bought-out players to fill out their roster.
The Panthers have had some hits with this approach over the years (Alexander Wennberg, Anthony Duclair and Oliver Ekman-Larsson) and some misses too (Colin White), but it’s typically been an avenue for one of the savviest NHL management teams to add affordable value to their lineup.
This is why it’s worth our time to comb through the 15 best players who have shaken loose in the week before the market opens. Even if teams were generally more willing to extend qualifying offers this summer than they were during the flat-cap offseasons of the past few years, some surprising names have shaken loose before the market opens capable of helping various teams win games next season.
1. Jeff Skinner
The final three years of Jeff Skinner’s contract — which carried a $9 million annual average value — was bought out by the Buffalo Sabres this week.
Skinner has been a mainstay on the Sabres’ first line for the past few seasons, finding chemistry with Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch and producing at a solid clip. Coming off of a down campaign, it’s clear that Skinner is no longer a $9 million winger capable of driving top-line caliber impact. At a more modest price point, however, following his buyout, Skinner definitely has the skill level and offensive juice to be a useful contributor in the top six on a good team.
Undersized, but with one of the highest motors in the league, the Los Angeles Kings decided not to extend Blake Lizotte a qualifying offer ahead of the Sunday afternoon deadline. Now the useful 26-year-old forward will hit the unrestricted free-agent market for the first time in his career.
Lizotte is a perfectly reasonable bet as a low-end third-line center, or a high-end fourth-line center for the right team. He’s got some serious buzzsaw qualities and two-way value, and can help a team drive quality territorial outcomes in the bottom six.
Sam Steel was a terrific bargain find for the Stars last season. The speedy 26-year-old forward excelled as Dallas’ fourth-line center because of his pace, puck transportation and competitiveness. He drove strong two-way results and chipped in with nine goals and 24 points in 77 games, which is valuable production from a fourth-liner.
Steel produced at a 35-points per 82 games pace the year before in Minnesota, so there’s also the chance he has some low-end third-line upside.
Alex Nylander was traded midseason to the Blue Jackets and went on a tear down the stretch, scoring 11 goals and four assists in 23 games. Mostly though, he’s been a tweener bouncing between the NHL and AHL since being drafted No. 8 by Buffalo in 2016. At his best, he can be a creative, shifty scorer.
Columbus is stacked with middle-six wingers and emerging prospects, though, which made Nylander tough to fit in. Injuries allowed him to play with Johnny Gaudreau during the season-ending heater, an opportunity that wasn’t going to be available with a healthy lineup next season.
On a cheap deal, Nylander could be an intriguing bet to fill a complementary top-nine role next to skilled linemates.
Erik Brannstrom has become something of a tweener, which left him surplus to requirements from an Ottawa Senators perspective.
Brannstrom hasn’t developed the sort of high-end offensive toolkit that earns an undersized defender some rope at the NHL level, and he’s not gritty or defensively oriented enough to fit most teams’ ideal of a third-pair defender. For those teams that are willing to roll the dice on Brannstrom’s transitional impact and two-way intelligence, however, he’s done really well against tertiary competition in an unstructured environment in Ottawa over the past few years. On the right team and in the right situation, Brannstrom may have more to give than we’ve seen from him to this point in his career.
Nate Schmidt could be a perfect fit for a club seeking a veteran third-pair puck mover.
At almost 33 years old, Schmidt’s skating isn’t as electric as it was in his prime but he’s still got enough wheels and puck skills to contribute on the breakout. He’s versatile (can play both the left and right side) and is well-liked in NHL locker rooms because of his infectious, high-energy personality.
The Jets controlled 55.6 percent of expected goals and outscored opponents 31-23 during Schmidt’s five-on-five minutes.
7. Ryan Suter
Age is catching up to 39-year-old Ryan Suter but he can still provide value, especially if it’s in more of a sheltered role.
A defensive defenseman with penalty-killing value and sound defensive instincts, Suter played a prominent role on the Stars’ blue line averaging nearly 19 minutes per game and absorbing middle-of-the-road matchups. He held up just fine, with Dallas outshooting, outchancing and outscoring opponents during his minutes.
Suter would fit well on a team’s third pair as the steady, stay-at-home presence that allows a puck-moving partner to roam.
Injuries have stunted Adam Boqvist’s development. Drafted No. 8 in 2018 and traded from Chicago in the Seth Jones trade, Boqvist has only played 133 games over the last three seasons. Boqvist is offensively gifted and can quarterback a second-unit power play (scored 24 points in 46 games in 2022-23) but he struggles to defend and is undersized. The Blue Jackets bought him out because they had too many right-shot defenders and his $2.6 million cap hit was too high.
Boqvist will turn 24 in August, so he’s still young enough to be an interesting reclamation project.
Life moves fast.
The Dallas Stars acquired Nils Lundkvist, a former New York Rangers first-round pick, for a first-round pick just 18 months ago. Now, after 119 heavily sheltered games with the Stars, Lundkvist is set to hit the open market.
There are still flaws in Lundkvist’s overall defensive game, flaws that showed even in the lockdown environment he played in under Pete DeBoer in Dallas, but he’s still a mobile, athletic and offensively gifted 23-year-old right-handed defender. Given the potential rarity of that profile and his precocious age, Lundkvist should interest any number of teams as a low-cost upside bet on the open market.
10. Cam Atkinson
Cam Atkinson missed the entirety of the 2022-23 season due to a herniated disc in his neck. On his return to action with the Philadelphia Flyers this past season, Atkinson’s point totals dropped from 50 in 2021-22 to just 28.
That drop in production and the structure of his deal made a buyout a no-brainer decision for Flyers management, but Atkinson is still a smart, scrappy power-play weapon. Perhaps — as we saw with Ekman-Larsson last offseason — Atkinson can bounce back and provide value in a depth role after a fully healthy summer and additional time to heal.
Jacob Bryson blossomed in a depth blue-line role for the Sabres this year. He wasn’t worth his $1.9 million qualifying offer, but can be a legitimately useful No.7/8 defender. He’s undersized at 5-foot-9 but makes up for it with strong skating and puck-moving. Most importantly, he cleaned up his defensive play this season.
Bryson’s deployment was quite sheltered in his 36 games, but Buffalo limited shots and chances well and surrendered just 1.71 goals against per game during his five-on-five minutes.
Jake Bean had a quality first season with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2021-22, but his form regressed in the latter stages of the Jarmo Kekäläinen era in Ohio.
The 26-year-old is unlikely at this juncture to develop into a first power-play unit weapon or a top-four puck mover, but his skill level is high, he’s big enough to be more than just an offensive specialist and he’s versatile enough to play on both the right and left side ably. That should at least make him an intriguing depth add for teams in free agency.
Kailer Yamamoto underwhelmed as a fourth-liner in Seattle, but the right winger has a previous track record of middle-six success in Edmonton. The pint-sized 5-foot-8 right winger scored 113 points in 218 games for the Oilers from the 2019-20 to 2022-23 seasons.
It’s unlikely he’ll reach that production level again because a large chunk of those minutes were spent on Leon Draisaitl’s line, but Yamamoto has the speed and energy to provide useful depth at an extremely affordable price.
When he’s on, Noah Gregor can be a handy fourth-line winger and can also play center in a pinch. He can fly up and down the ice because of his speed, create havoc on the forecheck and log secondary PK minutes. But like many depth forwards, there are also long periods where he’s largely invisible. Gregor made an excellent first impression with the Maple Leafs but faded down the stretch and only produced one goal and four assists in his final 35 games.
Gregor makes sense for a team that needs extra competition for a fourth-line wing role, but don’t expect much more than that.
It just hasn’t happened for Filip Zadina at the NHL level.
Still just 24 years old, Zadina appears to be running out of runway to cement himself as an everyday caliber top-nine forward on a good team.
Zadina struggled with the Detroit Red Wings team that drafted him at No. 6 in 2018, and didn’t really make a dent or even earn a significant role on a moribund San Jose Sharks team last season.
Perhaps a winning environment would serve Zadina well, and one hopes that he can find the right organization to help him reach his once immense potential now that he’s a free agent. Zadina is skilled and athletic and wouldn’t be the first “failed” top-10 pick to reinvent himself as a useful depth player, but he’ll need to be far more consistent in his work rate to bring about that outcome.
(Top photos of Blake Lizotte and Jeff Skinner: Rob Curtis / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images and Bill Wippert / NHLI via Getty Images)
