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UFA Season A Bust

July 12, 2016, 9:56 AM ET [8 Comments]
Paul McCann
Nashville Predators Blogger •Predators Radio Network • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Wow… 12 days into free agency and I think I can declare it a total bust.

Oh, for some players it was a financial boom, seven years for Milan Lucic, Kyle Okposo and Andrew Ladd with AAV’s of $6 million a year for Lucic and Okposo and $5,5 million for Ladd? These are solid players, but let’s face it… they hit the lottery. They should thank Steven Stamkos for that, by re-signing Tampa, the vaults got opened.

The dearth of high end talent didn’t stop some NHL GM’s from these silly contracts that they will be looking for Arizona to take about four years from now… and these contracts aren’t even that front loaded, paying out at $4 million a year in the final 3-4 years of each.

You wonder when this is going to get addressed. The open market is the open market, but some of these deals do have you scratching your head. But…

Then you look ahead to potential 2017 UFA’s, and you see a different situation developing. You have Jamie Benn, Ben Bishop, Brent Burns, Kevin Shattenkirk and Magnus Paajarvi that will lead the way, that will be a bonanza for NHL GM’s, assuming none of them are re-signed by their existing clubs. Then you have the older players like Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Ryan Miller, etc… that may be looking for one last contract… the dollars will be flying…

But this year still has some clean up left to do… there are some decent, potentially value pickups to be made, veterans like Radim Vrbata, Brandon Pirri, Nikita Nikitin, Jiri Hudler, maybe even Mike Richards just to name a few…

But a lot of the money available does appear to be spent… after teams finish their RFA signings, you will get a true idea of what is left out there for these last remaining UFA’s… and how many may have to go the tryout route to get signed.

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Random Notes

- The Predators Hockey School is going on this week at Ford Ice Center and there are quite a few Preds players, alumni and staff making appearances. Today features Dan Keczmer, Stu Grimson and Pete Weber… Wednesday, Thursday and Friday will feature Preds prospect Vladislav Kaminev helping out on ice.

- Arbitration dates are set for Calla Jarnkrok and Petter Granberg. Granberg on Aug. 3rd, Jarnkrok on the 4th.

- The ice is installed at Bridgestone Arena for public skates and use for Learn to Skate sessions, hockey games and more. The schedule should be released in the next few days… keep an eye on the Preds website for that.

- According to many reports, the Chicago Blackhawks are looking to replace their lost forward depth with youngsters from the farm. So far, five of the fourteen forwards they used in the playoffs are gone.

- Shane Doan is back for one more year with the Arizona Coyotes. He turns 40 in October and has spent his entire career with the Coyotes franchise.

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