Summer of discontent for RFAs now in the past
After a summer of discontent, the chips finally fell into place for NHL restricted free agents as training camps wound their way toward the start of the regular season.
While several agents said they felt there was a “lockout” for players in the Group II category during the summer, Winnipeg’s Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor along with Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen all agreed to deals of varying degrees in the days before the season started, which meant nobody missed any action when play started for real this week.
So what happened? Why did so many teams wait so long?
“In the end, I think teams acted in their own best interests,” said a high-profile agent.
“They didn’t want to get themselves in a situation last year like (Toronto general manager) Kyle Dubas had with William Nylander, where it went down to the final hours.”
Nylander didn’t sign until the deadline of Nov. 30 and the Leafs had to budge to sign him to a six-year contract with an average annual value of US$6.9 million per season. Everybody acted in their own best interests in that situation, and the same held true when it came to negotiating all the recent deals.
In the last month, Mitch Marner (Toronto), Brock Boeser (Vancouver), Matthew Tkachuk (Calgary), Charlie McAvoy (Boston), Zach Werenski (Columbus) and Ivan Provorov (Philadelphia) agreed to contracts to end their stalemates.
Ottawa RFA centre Colin White signed a six-year, US$28.75-million deal with the Senators because both sides were motivated to get a deal done without having a standoff. The Senators also took defenceman Thomas Chabot off the market long term with an eight-year, $64-million extension.
Perhaps one of the most interesting transactions was the two-year contract Laine signed with the Jets that will pay him an average of $6.75 million per season. He finished with 30 goals and 50 points in 2018-19 in 82 games with the Jets and took a bit of a gamble on himself with the structure of the deal.
But Laine has plenty of leverage in this situation because in two years, his qualifying offer will be $7.5 million and he’ll have the rights to arbitration. If he gets back to producing offensively the way he expects, then Laine’s decision to accept a bridge deal could pay off in a big way.
COACHING CAROUSEL
It will be interesting to keep an eye on the guys behind the bench during the season. There was no shortage of coaching changes in the off-season with Anaheim (Dallas Eakins), Buffalo (Ralph Krueger), Florida (Joel Quenneville), Edmonton (Dave Tippett), Ottawa (D.J. Smith), Los Angeles (Todd McLellan) and Philadelphia (Alain Vigneault) all finding new bench bosses. There’s a belief if the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t get off to a good start, Mike Babcock could feel plenty of heat, while Minnesota’s Bruce Boudreau is another one to watch. The Wild hired GM Bill Guerin late in the summer and he needs to see results.
RUMOURS DU JOUR
The Jets are waiting to see what happens with defenceman Dustin Byfuglien. With two years and $14 million left on his contract, Byfuglien, 34, is contemplating his future and there’s a strong possibility he will retire. The Jets had to do the paperwork to suspend him before their season opener, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t welcome him back with open arms. The belief is the Jets are treating this situation very carefully and they’re trying not to rush Byfuglien into making a decision, especially if he’s leaning toward retirement. Winnipeg wants to give Byfuglien as much time as he needs so the door isn’t completely closed on his return ... Bought out in the summer by the Los Angeles Kings, 34-year-old Dion Phaneuf’s NHL career could be over after 15 seasons. Phaneuf, who spent parts of his career with the Flames, Leafs, Senators and Kings, is an unrestricted free agent and hasn’t had much in the way of interest. It would be a tough ending for Phaneuf because he’s always been a heart-and-soul player. You’d like to see someone like him, one of the best professionals anybody has ever dealt with, go out on his own terms, but that’s not the way this business works. Perhaps a team will have an injury during the season and turn to Phaneuf for help, but that seems unlikely. If not, Phaneuf can take pride in the fact he had an outstanding career ... There was no shortage of speculation about the future of defenceman Rasmus Ristolainen with the Sabres during the summer, but any attempts to deal him didn’t work out. He has three years left with a cap hit of $5.4 million and perhaps he’ll have success with Krueger taking over from Phil Housley.
Enjoy the hockey season. bgarrioch@postmedia.com