The 2019 NHL Entry Draft finished up Saturday and we already have projections on the 2020 Entry Class.
Can we finish the Free Agency season before we start talking and hyping for the Entry Draft? Brian Jennings is finally getting some rest and is in no rush to start the next set of draft articles for Pro Hockey News. 
Free agency is just around the corner on 1 July and the list of unrestricted free agents is as quality laden as the Entry Draft was.
The Columbus Blue Jackets have the most to lose on the front end of the market with Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Ryan Dzingel all available as UFAs come next Monday.
There is concern, rightly so, in Columbus but general manager Jarmo Kekalainen is suggesting the Jackets can make up the difference in the market. The problem is, he has most of the talent at the exit door in Columbus.
“We’ve said all along that we assumed the risk and if they’re gone by July 1 we’re going to have lots of cap space and lots of different other opportunities to move forward and life goes on,” Kekalainen said on NHL.com. “That was part of the risk we were willing to take.
“We’ve thought this could happen so if it happens we’re not going to be shocked. We thought at the deadline that this could be the case and if it is the case we’ll just move forward and start building other ways to fill those holes.”
He will at least have a few more dollars to add the Blue Jackets’ cap space with the NHL and NHL Players Association agreeing on an $81.5 million salary cap.
“It doesn’t affect us, but I like it, it’s going to squeeze some teams some more,” Kekalainen said. “They’re going to have to solve their problems and maybe we can be a solution.”
Columbus will need to be in the market this coming Monday to avoid becoming irrelevant.
On the other hand, the Toronto Maple Leafs will need to stand on the side lines and post a GoFundMe page to find enough cash to make everyone happy.
This weekend, the Leafs jettisoned Patrick Marleau in an effort to free up cap space.
“No, the salary cap is going to constrain us big time on July 1,” Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas told NHL.com. “We’ll probably be looking for guys we can give a great opportunity to, like Tyler Ennis last year who came in and had a great season for us and guys of that nature, but we will not be in the big-game market at all, aside from coming to an agreement with our own guy, Mitch, and working towards that. We all know how important he is to us and to the community.”
Toronto has Mitchell Marner, Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen on the clock as restricted free agents and all are in line for big pay days. How the Maple Leafs accomplish that within the salary cap will take some magic.
Capfriendly.com lists the following UFAs with their cap hits.
Corey Perry $8,625,000
Jason Spezza $7,500,000
Sergei Bobrovsky $7,425,000
Dion Phaneuf $7,000,000
Matt Duchene $6,000,000
Joe Pavelski $6,000,000
Artemi Panarin $6,000,000
Semyon Varlamov $5,900,000
One interesting side note is the observation of the potential landing spots for some of these players. With only minor exceptions, the New York Rangers are cited for a likely team. In years past, this might have been cause for excitement among the BlueShirt faithful but, this era seems unlikely to see the Rangers make a play for some of the retreads in the list. Panarin is the most likely object of their desires but beyond the Blue Jackets’ gem, there are few that they should pursue.
The Rangers are in rebuild mode and if not for that philosophy they would not have assets to trade for defenseman Jacob Trouba from the Winnipeg Jets. Suddenly spending inordinate amounts of cash from the their $17 million in space would go against the “plan” and general manager John Davidson was not hired to blow everything up.
With Kaapo Kakko in the fold, the Rangers are not about to regress to old norms.
You must be logged in to post a comment.