The 11 Best NHL Players Slated for Free Agency in 2024
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Let’s say you’re an NHL general manager.
Your plate was full from October through April with regular-season concerns, and, unless your name is Kelly McCrimmon and your office is in the Nevada desert, things didn’t work out quite as well as they could have.
Then came a trip to Nashville for the draft and by the time you’d returned home and unpacked a bag, it was time to officially start wheeling and dealing with the slew of players who became free agents as of midday Sunday.
But let’s face it. The pickings that are available in the 2023 UFA/RFA crop pale in comparison to the collection that’ll become available exactly 365 days from today.
So go ahead and set a reminder on your wannabe executive phone for June 30, 2024, and get your best “this is the city to play in” pitch ready for the 11 players whom the B/R hockey team has determined are the best currently slated to become free agents next July 1.
They’re presented here in alphabetical order and were selected based on past performances, future expectations and bona fide impacts they could make on the teams—current or new—they come to a deal with at this time next summer.
Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the comments.
Sebastian Aho
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Four years ago this week, Sebastian Aho was a wave maker.
Then 21, the Carolina Hurricanes center signed an offer sheet with the Montreal Canadiens that would pay him $42.27 million over five seasons if he wound up leaving his surroundings in Raleigh, N.C. for the hockey capital of Quebec.
At the time, it was just the ninth offer sheet to be assembled by an interested team and signed by the player it coveted since 2000. But only one player (Anaheim forward Dustin Penner) had actually changed teams in that time frame and Aho did not join him because the Hurricanes matched the offer within a week.
He’s been consistently productive in four seasons since, reaching 30 goals three times and scoring 24 in 56 games across the COVID-addled 2020-21 schedule. In fact, he’s 10th in the league in goals since becoming a full-time player in Carolina in 2016-17 and only seven players have filled the net more since the Hurricanes chose to match the Montreal offer.
GM Don Waddell has $34.6 million committed to eight players so far on the 2024-25 ledger and he’ll certainly be considering keeping a wad aside for Aho, who’ll be 26 later this month, is in his prime and likely to want something north of $9 million annually going forward.
Noel Hanifin
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Will the last one to leave Calgary please turn out the lights?
The Flames are making headlines for all the wrong reasons this offseason thanks to multiple reports that a number of players with a year to go before free agency have told management that they have no intention of remaining with the team for the long term.
American-born defenseman Noel Hanifin is among those players and has one season remaining on the six-year, $29.7 million deal he signed when he came over to the Flames.
Now 26, the 6’3″, 207-pounder has been an effective force in his time with Calgary, equaling a career-high with 10 goals and establishing a new watermark with 48 points across 81 games in 2021-22. The seven goals and 38 points he produced were good for second-best career outputs in each of those categories in 2022-23.
His size, age and skating ability will warrant attention from would-be suitors if he hits free agency next summer, but he’s just as likely to find at least a temporary new address in the meantime if new Flames GM Craig Conroy can’t convince him to stay.
Connor Hellebuyck
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Ladies and gentlemen, consider the ante upped.
Connor Hellebuyck is a Vezina-winning goalie from three seasons ago who remained among the NHL’s upper crust at the position in 2022-23, posting top-five numbers in wins (37, tied for third), save percentage (.920, tied for fourth) and shutouts (four, tied for fifth).
He’ll begin the final season of a six-year, $37 million deal in October but is already being mentioned in trade rumors because of an unclear situation in Winnipeg, like Calgary, given a number of core players approaching free agency and an absence of recent title contention.
The Jets traded forward Pierre-Luc Dubois and bought out ex-captain Blake Wheeler in the days leading up to July 1, leaving GM Kevin Cheveldayoff with some work to do as it relates to his stalwart goalie, who turned 30 in May and could probably command the money reserved for the highest of the league’s high-profile netminders.
Or at least close to it.
Montreal’s Carey Price and Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky, who have three Vezinas and a Hart Trophy between them, will have salary cap hits beyond $10 million for 2023-24. Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, with a Vezina and a Conn Smythe Trophy, is third at $9 million.
“A lot of teams (are) trying to lock up players as long as they can,” Cheveldayoff said. “Some players want to get locked up and some players don’t.”
Anze Kopitar
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Anze Kopitar makes our list as an emeritus selection.
The 35-year-old Slovakian has done it all in 17 seasons as a full-time NHLer, winning two Selke trophies, two Lady Byng trophies and two Stanley Cups while scoring each of his 393 goals in a Los Angeles Kings sweater.
So, though he’ll finish a contract this season that’s paying him $80 million across eight years, there’s little to no reason to believe he’ll choose to finish his career elsewhere.
For sentimental reasons, sure.
But also because he’s still a productive member—as illustrated by 28 goals and 74 points last season—of a team whose competitive needle seems to be pointed in the correct direction as it pertains to contention for another Cup.
That said, the Kings already have more than $54 million allotted for 10 players signed for 2024-25, so stay tuned to see how/if GM Rob Blake makes the money work with his former on-ice teammate.
“I’ve said before, there’s no secret, that I want to stay here and be a one-franchise player.” Kopitar said. “We’ll see how that goes.”
Elias Lindholm
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To tell the tale of Elias Lindholm, consult the aforementioned Noel Hanifin context.
Like his American-born teammate, Lindholm, a 28-year-old Swede, seems iffy at best with the idea of remaining with the Flames beyond the end of a six-year, $29.1 million deal he signed after arriving in a trade, alongside Hanifin, from Carolina in 2018.
A playmaking center with creativity, vision and a 200-foot game, Lindholm was picked fifth overall by the Hurricanes at the 2013 draft and has played 10 seasons in the league—five with Calgary—including a career-high 42-goal output in 2021-22, after which he finished second in Selke Trophy voting.
His 38 assists were tops on the team in 2022-23 and his 64 points were second, and he’s projected by Evolving-Hockey.com to command better than $8 million per season beginning in 2024-25. The Flames have five players already signed to deals making $5 million or better in that season, including a team-high $10.5 million for Jonathan Huberdeau.
Makes for a tough transition for new GM Craig Conroy, who took over this spring.
“This is the job I wanted,” Conroy told the Calgary Sun. “Would it have been nice to dip your toe in? Yeah, but that’s what it is. That’s pro hockey, and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
Auston Matthews
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And now, we’ve reached the bank-breaking portion of the program.
Auston Matthews’ cap hit of better than $11.4 million is already fourth in the league behind the likes of Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid and Artemi Panarin, and that was from a deal he signed in February 2019, midway through his third season in the NHL.
The contract runs out after the 2023-24 season and all Matthews has done in four full seasons since is win two Rocket Richard trophies for leading the league in goals, alongside a Ted Lindsay Award and a Hart Trophy he copped after a career-best 106 points in 2021-22.
No NHL player has scored more than the 299 goals Matthews has netted since 2016 and only one Toronto teammate, Mitchell Marner, has more points (554-542) since that rookie season, and that’s with Marner having played 26 more games over the same stretch.
The Toronto Star suggests a four-year deal worth more than $12 million annually is the most likely scenario for Matthews and the Maple Leafs, allowing the Arizona-born player, now 25, another shot at free agency when he’s 30 years old.
Welcome to the job, Brad Treliving.
“That’s priority No. 1,” the new GM told ESPN. “We’re prepared to get after it. I’m excited to get a chance to meet with him and thrilled to work with him.”
William Nylander
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And speaking of big deals in Toronto, here’s William Nylander.
The 27-year-old winger is another member of the Maple Leafs’ core-four players, three of whom—Matthews, John Tavares and Mitchell Marner—are already making eight figures annually, compared to the Calgary-born Nylander’s $6.96 million.
The 6′, 204-pounder played 22 games in 2015-16 but arrived full-time during Matthews’ rookie season of 2016-17 and has outscored all Toronto players other than Matthews since then. He had career-bests of 40 goals and 47 assists in 2022-23 and had 10 points in 11 playoff games on the way to the team’s first second-round appearance of his career.
But, given that Tavares and Marner are already signed, no established goalie is under contract for 2024-25 and Matthews is certainly going to command big money if he stays in town, there’s only so much cash to go around for a guy like Nylander.
Nearly $41 million is allocated to 11 players for that season, and even though the salary cap is expected to climb by a few million, it’s no lock that No. 88 stays in the hockey hotbed.
“It’s about getting better,” Treliving told ESPN.
“Being different doesn’t necessarily make you better. This can’t be about the core four. It’s about the Toronto Maple Leafs [and] the 23 players we have in this organization.”
Sam Reinhart
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Sam Reinhart is a known commodity to the hardcore hockey set.
But until his Florida Panthers made their unlikely run to the Stanley Cup Final this spring, he might not have been so familiar to those outside Buffalo and metropolitan Miami.
The Sabres made the 27-year-old center the second overall pick in the 2014 draft and he was a full-timer in Western New York for six seasons, averaging nearly 25 goals per 82 games before he was dealt to Florida for Devon Levi and a first-round draft pick.
He’d signed a one-year, $5.2 million contract with Buffalo before that final season with the Sabres and inked a three-year, $19.5 million deal within weeks of arriving to the Panthers, and it’s that deal that’ll wind up after the 2023-24 season.
Reinhart has 64 goals and 149 points in two regular years with his new team and he tied for second with eight goals in 21 postseason games for Florida.
But seeing how the Panthers already have $37 million reserved for just four players—Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Aaron Ekblad and Sergei Bobrovsky—it may be difficult for GM Bill Zito to accommodate Reinhart and a deal perhaps worth $8 million annually, alongside the other 12 players on track for free agency.
If a would-be 2024 free agent is traded before next summer, he’s among the favorites.
Mark Scheifele
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Like Hanifin and Lindholm in Calgary, so go Hellebuyck and Mark Scheifele in Winnipeg.
Now 30, Scheifele was selected seventh overall by the Jets in 2011 and has been an certifiably effective player—producing goals (271), assists (373) and points (644) totals that are tops since 2013-14 among players still on the roster.
But it hasn’t translated to overall success for the team, which has won just three playoff series in that time frame and was most recently bounced in just five games by eventual Stanley Cup champion Vegas in the first round of the 2022-23 tournament.
Former captain Blake Wheeler and high-profile forward Pierre-Luc Dubois are already gone from last year’s team via buyout and trade, respectively, and it’s unclear what GM Kevin Cheveldayoff has in mind when it comes to the remaining 10 players who’ll be eligible for either restricted or unrestricted free agency come next summer.
Scheifele had a career-high 42 goals last season, so he’s certainly on track to get paid whether it’s in Winnipeg or elsewhere, and no less an authority than the Winnipeg Sun suggested the franchise “poster boy” could be on the move via trade rather than Cheveldayoff risking he’ll walk away for nothing next summer.
Steven Stamkos
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And like Kopitar before him, it seems unlikely Steven Stamkos plays anywhere other than where is—Tampa Bay—come the 2024-25 season.
The seemingly ageless center posted yet another fine season for the Lightning in 2022-23, reaching 30 goals for the eighth time in 15 NHL seasons since the team made him the first overall pick in the 2008 draft.
He’s won two goal-scoring titles and two Stanley Cups during his stay on Florida’s Gulf Coast and is the franchise’s all-time leader in goals (515) and points (1,056) as he heads into the final season of an eight-year deal paying him $8.5 million apiece.
Stamkos was eligible for free agency in the summer of 2016 and was widely expected to go back to play for his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs, but instead inked the $68 million deal.
And considering the championships and climbs up the all-time ladder have occurred since that choice was made, it’s hard to fathom he’d choose 2024 as a time to leave.
“In my eyes,” he told NHL.com’s Chris Krenn, “this is the only jersey I ever want to wear in my career.”
Teuvo Teräväinen
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Financially speaking, Teuvo Teräväinen’s timing hasn’t been so good.
The 28-year-old Finn had his effectiveness limited by injuries in 2022-23 and wound up with just 12 goals and 37 points in 68 games, his lowest totals across a full season since 2015-16.
He had just one goal in six playoff games with the Carolina Hurricanes while dealing with a broken hand and will begin the final year of a five-year, $27 million contract in October. He signed that deal in January 2019, three years after the Hurricanes had acquired the former first-round pick (18th overall, 2012) from the Chicago Blackhawks.
When healthy, the 5’11”, 191-pound winger has been an effective two-way player who logs crucial minutes on the penalty kill, and the Hurricanes have the league’s second-best penalty killing success rate (83.8 percent) since his arrival as a full-timer in 2016-17.
As mentioned with teammate Aho, Carolina GM Don Waddell has 11 would-be free agents to consider in addition to Aho and Teravainen, so the speculation around the team’s HQ is that the latter may have played his last game there.
Toward that end, columnist Luke DeCock of the News & Observer wrote in a season wrap-up Waddell may “decide this offseason is the time to move Teravainen if they think they’re unlikely to re-sign him.”
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