WAITING OUT IN THE COLD
CAP SITUATION MEANS SKILLED FREE AGENTS, INCLUDING CAGGIULA AND KOEKKOEK, CAN’T FIND WORK
Seven weeks after NHL free agency opened, the market is still crowded with quality players looking for jobs — the reality created by flattening the salary cap but not allowing teams to shed players through compliance buyouts.
To be fair, most of the upper-tier unrestricted free agents were snapped up long ago. Game-changing top-six forwards and top-four defensemen are still valuable enough that teams found ways to fit them in. Forward Mike Hoffman, most recently with the Panthers, is the exception, but he reportedly has been weighing a number of competitive offers.
But for bottom-six forwards, third-pair defensemen and other depth players— even clearly NHL-caliber ones — it has proven difficult to convince general managers to meet their, say, $2 million salary demands when AHL players already under contract and making less than $1 million could be used to fill those spots instead.
As a result, tons of players who carried significant value less than a year ago are now patiently trying to find a home.
Among them are ex-Blackhawks Drake Caggiula and Slater Koekkoek, whom the Hawks let walk not because of poor play but to open up spots for newly committed, younger prospects. Caggiula, despite scoring only 15 points in 40 games last season, is a well-rounded wing who can capably play up and down the lineup. Koekkoek’s second half in 2019-20 was perhaps the most consistent stretch of his career. But so far, they remain unemployed.
Caggiula is one of 13 unrestricted freeagent forwards who scored 15 ormore points last season but still is unsigned. The others are Hoffman (59), Anthony Duclair (40), Carl Soderberg (35), Derick Brassard (32), Mikael Granlund (30), Andreas Athanasiou (26),
Ilya Kovalchuk (26), Erik Haula (24), Conor Sheary (23), Corey Perry (21), Brian Boyle (15) and Riley Sheahan (15).
The list of unrestricted free-agent defensemen without a team isn’t quite as remarkable, but Koekkoek is nonetheless joined by Sami Vatanen, Travis Hamonic, Ben Hutton, Madison Bowey, Michael Del Zotto and familiar face Jan Rutta. Longtime Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara, 43, is also technically an unrestricted free agent, but that’s reportedly because he hasn’t decided yet whether he’ll return.
A few of those guys might sign contracts over the next few weeks, but many more will have to grind their way onto rosters via training-camp tryouts — whenever camps finally happen— or sign with Russian KHL teams.
Furthermore, 25 restricted free agents also haven’t signed, including centers Dylan Strome (Hawks), Mathew Barzal (Islanders), Pierre-Luc Dubois (Blue Jackets) and Anthony Cirelli (Lightning) and defensemen Ethan Bear (Oilers) and Vince Dunn (Blues).
There likely will be more movement among restricted free agents once the owners and the players’ association hammer out an agreement on a salary deferral rate.