When you get to August there aren't a ton of free agents left on the market worth entertaining but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be looking. There are still deals to be had which can help teams out. The defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins signed Matt Cullen in early August last year and he turned out to be a great depth piece in their run to the title.
Who are the best of the rest?
Jiri Hudler
For me he is above and beyond the best player left in this free agent class. In 2014-15 he notched 76 points and while his point total dropped to 46 last year that was due more to his ice time being cut from around 18 minutes to about 15 and a half minutes. His points per 60 at even-strength was still an impressive 2.10. Only 40 forwards (min 750 minutes) hit the 2.0 mark last year. Hudler placed 25th ahead of such players as Alex Ovechkin, Tyler Seguin, Max Pacioretty, Joe Pavelski, Artemi Panarin, and Brad Marchand. Somebody has the opportunity to land a quality scoring winger this late in free agency.
James Wisniewski
This one carries a little bit of risk considering he blew his knee out in his first game with the Carolina Hurricanes last year, but it is one of those low risk signings that teams with depth problems should be thinking about. You could do a lot worse than taking a one year flier on somebody like this
How many teams can confidently say they have six defensemen they feel strong with? I can't imagine many. Given the market for right handed defensemen who can contribute offense you'd think Wisniewski will find work before the year begins.
Jhonas Enroth
Every year there are more and more backup goalies who are given a chance to play and do a good job with their opportunity. It isn't all of them but there are enough examples to make it worthwhile to sign a player like Enroth who shares some similarities with some of the other postiive examples. In recent memory goaltenders like Martin Jones, Thomas Greiss, Devan Dubnyk, and Petr Mrazek come to mind. The risk with moving forward with these types of goalies are their sample sizes. They usually aren't large so blind trust in their positive numbers could potentially be misleading. However, that usually keeps the cost way down and makes it worth the risk in the first place.
Since 2011-12 here are the numbers for some of these goaltender examples
Enroth may be lowest on the EVSV% front but it is still above average and a team that is looking for a competent backup should at the very least be looking in Enroth's direction. He is another example of a guy who can give you league average on the cheap. Other notable goalies who are between .923-.927 during this time frame are Sergei Bobrovsky (.927), Jonathan Quick (.927), Pekka Rinne (.926), Jaro Halak (.925), James Reimer (.925), Marc-Andre Fleury (.924), Semyon Varlamov (.924), Antii Niemi (.924), and Ryan Miller (.923).
It's late in the free agency game but the players above seem like worthy targets to take a risk on.
Thanks for reading!
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