Its been a week since the deadline and it is freezing out there! I probably feels really early to look ahead to the warmth of July 1st and UFA Day. Have you seen the list of UFAs this season? I can tell you this much...GMs aren't thinking it is too early. At least the ones worth a pound of salt.
This 2019 UFA List is THE BEST UFA list we have ever seen. We often see big UFA names after the deadline, that's true. The difference this season is we have big names who are NOT likely to re-sign to their current teams. We still have some of those, but not nearly as many....Those names are the names of pending UFAs who are vital to their current ream and have a history with their current teams...The Islanders players like Brock Nelson or Anders Lee for example...These are guys who we can be 99% sure they will be extended prior to July 1.
Other players on this list were either traded last week to a new team as a rental or have been open about their intentions to test the market...let's look at this list...It's incredible!
Almost Definitely going to Market:
1. Artemi Panarin
2. Erik Karlsson
3. Kevin Hayes
4. Matt Duchene
5. Mats Zuccarello
6. Wayne Simmonds
7. Sergei Bobrovsky
8.. Jake Gardiner
9. Derick Brassard
10. Gustav Nyquist
11. Jordan Eberle
12. Marcus Johansson
Possibly re-signing with current club:
1. Jeff Skinner
2. Ryan Dzingel
3. Joe Thornton
4. Semyon Varlamov
5. Robin Lehner
6. Mike Smith
7. Michal Raffl
8. Joe Pavelski
Probably Re-signing with current club:
1. Zdeno Chara
2. Anders Lee
3. Brock Nelson
4. Alex Edler
5. Peter Mrazek
6. Cam Talbot
And these are just the top 25! There are many more talented UFA's who will be out there. There is no doubt many of whom you will point out belong in the top 25. But never before have we had almost 20 top line UFA's out there, who at this point are quite possibly going to market. That is double the number of UFAs in what would be considered "a strong UFA year."
So what teams get what players?
That is the fun of my job! Tell me what you think.
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