While the USA celebrated its independence this weekend, the NHL kicked off its free agency period. What we saw Saturday afternoon, and throughout the holiday weekend was a slew of moves that NHL teams hope put them in a better position to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup next season. Here are the major takeaways from the first weekend.
The Hurricanes Got Better Defensively
All the talk around the Hurricanes right now has to do with the status of Vladimir Tarasenko. There were reports that he signed a contract with Carolina. However, he has recently fired his agent. It’s a topic that deserves its own post. However whether Tarasenko signs or not, the Hurricanes are still one of the early winners of the offseason. This is due to how this team improved defensively
Early Saturday afternoon the Hurricanes signed defenseman Dmitry Orlov to a two-year deal with an average annual value of $7.75 million. Orlov was considered by many to be the best free agent in this year’s class. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if you’ve watched Orlov play. Orlov is good on both ends of the pucks. He had a career-high in both points and assists last season. His defensive stats were pretty good, with the team’s offensive being down 12 percent when he was on the ice. He will pair very nicely on the top pair with Brett Burns.
It’s not just Orlov who will improve this team. They also signed Michael Bunting to a three-year deal with an average annual value of $4.5 million. Bunting adds grit to the bottom six of the Hurricanes’ forward core and will make the Hurricanes a lot harder to play against. These two add to an already impressive Hurricanes roster. They should be favorites to make another deep playoff run.
Bruins Lose More Than Expected
Even before free agency started the Bruins were expected to lose some key pieces. They had eight unrestricted free agents with not enough space to resign them all. Now there was some hope that they might be able to bring back some of their free agents. Especially considering they dumped Taylor Hall’s salary in a trade with the Blackhawks. However, that has not been the case so far. The Bruins have lost seven of their eight major free agents. The only free agent still on the market is Patrice Bergeron, and he’s debating retirement.
Now the Bruins did try to replace the pieces they lost. They signed James van Riemsdyk, Milan Lucic, and Patrick Brown. Sure these are well-known players, but it’s not going to do enough to replace what they lost. Riemsdyk and Lucic are entering the end of their career and Brown doesn’t have anything that makes you look twice. This team got a lot older and slower very fast.
The Bruins roster is going to look extremely different next season. This makes the loss in the first round to the Panthers so much worse Last year was their last true shot with that core. They may never have a roster that good ever again. Sure they might make the playoffs next season, but it won’t be a repeat of the dominant season they had last year. It probably won’t come anywhere near that
Short-Term Deals Rule Free Agency
The biggest surprise of the weekend is the amount of short-term contracts big-name free agents were getting. There were lots of one to two-year deals being given out, to guys you wouldn’t expect to get them. Now of course there were long-term deals handed out to guys like J.T. Compher, Ryan Graves, and Alex Killorn who all got four years or more on their contract. However, those were the only big-name unrestricted free agents that got long-term deals.
We ended up seeing players who should have gotten long-term contracts, only ended up getting one or two-year deals. Jason Zucker got a one-year deal. Orlov got a two-year deal. Matt Duchene got a one-year deal. The list goes on and on. All these guys were expected to be getting at least a three to four-year deal. Instead short-term deals with high average annual value.
Now the reason why there were so many short-term deals during this free agency period is because of the salary cap. Despite rumors of the cap making a major jump this offseason, the cap only went up $1 million. Instead of the potential $4 to 5 million. Now the thought process is eventually the cap is going to jump. The league has made too much money for the cap not to make a major jump. It’s also projected that within the next three years, the cap will increase $10 to 12 million. Meaning this massive jump has to happen in the next two years. So these players are taking a short-term deal in order to make more money next free agency period when teams have more flexibility.
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