There’s really not much out there that makes sense this year given where we’re at and what’s available. Barring a trade, I’d basically keep around the same for one more year, see what you get at the deadline and when that cap balloons next year with a much better free agent group and another good pick, that’s when we spend and compete.
True, but it all depends on what is actually available to us come July 1st.
If guys like, say, O'Reilly or Killorn are agreeable to a short-term deal with us for reasonable money, then I think you have to exert that option no matter what.
Players like O'Reilly and Killorn, although they wouldn't fit into our competing window per se (2025+), would help our young players grow more favorably by guiding them and instilling them with leadership and good habits to emulate.
Simply put, pros of that caliber would help our coaches to foster a stronger, better team mentality, the importance of which can't be overstated as far as developing a winning franchise goes.
But barring A+ veteran-presence players like those I already mentioned, or really good top-6 F/top-4 D players like Barbashev, Bertuzzi or Orlov if they make sense money and term-wise (which I don't think they would for us), I share your view on UFAs.
In that very plausible scenario where we fail to attract the top veterans or some premium UFAs for reasonable deals, we should either steer clear of the UFA class entirely, or only target some of the smaller fishes that won't require us to break the bank to get them.
That, and also perhaps look and see if we can't attract some more good players for Laval if needed depending on which players we'd like to see return and the wiggle room we'd have contracts-wise.