On Friday the unrestricted free agency market will open but so will restricted agency. Restricted free agency is the forgotten about and ignored little brother of free agency. It is a rarely used tactic for some odd reason.
Teams would be smart to use more offer sheets. The idea that you don't want to have another general manager mad at you because of an offer sheet is dated and lame. The only focus should be to make your team better. The general managers that can't handle an offer sheet are probably also the ones that aren't on their way to building a Stanley Cup contender anyways.
Here is a look at the dollar amounts each team can use for an offer sheet based on the draft picks they currently have. This is courtesy of
General Fanager
For the first time in a while the Pittsburgh Penguins *could* send out an offer sheet at any dollar amount. They own all of their picks. This chart is useful because you can also use it to dispel any bogus rumors. For example, the Boston Bruins are "rumored" to be putting together a serious offer sheet for Jacob Trouba. You will notice they are only eligible to send an offer sheet less than $1,239,266 or $9,388,080 or greater. Even if you took the four first round picks as compensation away from the equation it still makes literally no sense to send that kind of offer to Jacob Trouba given what Seth Jones just signed for (Six years 32.6M 5.4AAV)
As you can see offer sheets at the high end of the table don't usually make sense. Years ago Nashville would have been wise to accept the four first round picks for Shea Weber instead of paying him 7.8M per year with yet another decade still left on the contract. Likewise the Buffalo Sabres could have changed the course of the NHL by taking Edmonton's four first round picks from them and not allowing them to have a chance at Taylor Hall or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins due to the Thomas Vanek offer sheet.
The middle range free agents are where you want to target. If the Penguins had cap space (they don't) to make an RFA offer I would be targeting a player like Mike Hoffman. Other teams should be looking at him.
Hoffman has been killing it at even-strength the past two years. He ranks seventh in both Goals per 60 (1.17) and Points per 60 (2.37) from 2014-16 at 5v5. It really seems like Ottawa doesn't know what they have with him. He will be 27 years old in the fall. Teams could do a lot worse with a first and third overall pick than acquiring a scoring winger like Hoffman.
Jaden Schwartz is another player that would be a smart target for teams to go after.
Those two players are very good. You could put together an offer that would make their current team struggle to retain their services while also not breaking the bank with draft picks.
A great defensive target for this offseason would be Hampus Lindholm.
For Lindholm you could feasibly enter the $5,632,847 to $7,510,464 range which would cost you a first, second, and third round pick. That would be a serious investment but getting a top pairing defenseman in this league is a serious investment. The Ducks have an internal cap and would have to scramble to make it happen. If they didn't figure it out then you would have just found yourself a hell of a player to play on your top pair who is only 22 years old.
It is tough to get value when sending an offer sheet to a high end player and sending a low offer will get matched almost every time. Stay in that middle area and you could do some damage. And most importantly don't worry about hurt feelings.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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