NHL free agency is one month away, and here are my final predictions for all the upcoming contracts. I published a preliminary list back on Jan 1st, but a lot of hockey was left to be played. That list was compiled over the Christmas break, and there was a league-wide increase in goal scoring post-Christmas that was sustained over multiple months. Meaning; everyone's 2nd half stats are on steroids, well not everyone. There were still a few players who managed to fall short of expectation. It will be interesting to see how all this scoring inflation affects free agent prices. If way more players scored 80 PTS, then they can't all get paid what 80 PTS is supposed to be worth.
Rest assured, there
will be many free agents with a number in their head of what their stat line
should be worth, that teams won't be able to afford. The best players will get
paid first, then the remainder who can't get their desired price will be forced
to compromise. The UFA market should be reasonably efficient at adjusting for
the scoring boom, but where this could get contentious is the RFA market,
especially arbitration. There is a higher probability that there will be
arbitration awards that teams decline, turning the RFA into a UFA. One
adjustment that I made attempting to adjust for the goal boom was sorting my
comparable lists by percentile of league scoring rather than total points.
Hopefully that helps. Also, I did check the required qualifying offer for all
RFAs, and there's a few that the QO is higher than what the player should be
worth.
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