Speculation: 2025 RFA Class and offer sheets
- Thread starter JuJu Mobb
- Start date
Luke is a 10.2(c) RFA and isn't eligible for an offer sheet. Believe Knies is as well.
Teams can reacquire pick(s) like St. Louis did, but here's a quick list of which teams are missing 2026 1sts-3rds:
1st: Colorado-Vegas-Tampa-Toronto-Edmonton-Florida-Dallas
2nd: Colorado-Columbus-St. Louis-NY Islanders-Winnipeg-Toronto-NY Rangers-Buffalo-Ottawa-Minnesota
3rd: Colorado-Vancouver-Washington-Carolina-San Jose-Dallas
Teams can reacquire pick(s) like St. Louis did, but here's a quick list of which teams are missing 2026 1sts-3rds:
1st: Colorado-Vegas-Tampa-Toronto-Edmonton-Florida-Dallas
2nd: Colorado-Columbus-St. Louis-NY Islanders-Winnipeg-Toronto-NY Rangers-Buffalo-Ottawa-Minnesota
3rd: Colorado-Vancouver-Washington-Carolina-San Jose-Dallas
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Emperor Joe Thornton
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Will Cuylle seems like a good candidate, I'd be curious if NYR would match $4.58M or take the 2nd
leafsfan2point0
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leafsfan2point0
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barriers
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Luke Hughes Hockey Stats and Profile at hockeydb.com
Statistics of Luke Hughes, a hockey player from Manchester, NH born Sep 9 2003 who was active from 2019 to 2025.
www.hockeydb.com
Hughes 2 games in 22/23 don't count as a professional season
MMC
Global Moderator
Days like this I miss CapFriendly since they would designate 10.2(c) instead of just RFA like CapWages and PuckPedia.
That's the explanation from PuckPedia's page. Somebody with better understanding of the CBA can correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the games played threshold can be regular season and playoffs. Cale Makar played in 10 playoff games in 2019-20 and appears to have had offer sheet rights (he signed before free agency started July 2022).
Bruins' Cam Neely updates contract status of RFAs Charlie McAvoy, Brandon Carlo
The Boston Bruins still have two more important restricted free agents, defensemen Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo, left to sign before the 2019-20 season begins. A month has passed since NHL free agency started, and while the Bruins would love to sign these players before training camp, there...
www.nbcsportsboston.com
Whereas Charlie McAvoy only appeared in six playoff games after signing in 2017. He got to burn that season of his ELC but he didn't play enough to earn a year of experience. So he didn't have offer sheet rights when he was RFA in July 2019.
Knies played in 10 combined regular season and playoff games in 2023, so he might have earned that year of experience like Makar. Hughes played in 5 combined games for the Devils, so he'd definitely fall into the 10.2(c) category like McAvoy (and his older brother Quinn).
Edit:
Looks like PuckPedia does have a filtering method for 10.2(c) RFAs. They don't list Knies among those, so he may have hit the threshold.
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Just because of the success of Holloway and Broberg, it doesn't mean teams will do that this offseason. With the cap going up, almost every team would be able to match an offer sheet coming in. That said, you might see some offer sheets come in and be matched.
The reason the OSs for Broberg and Holloway (and Kotkaniemi going back before them) worked is because they were overpays for middle-tier guys who hadn't broken out yet. You have to thread the needle between it being enough of an overpayment to make the other team think and not giving away too many of your own picks by throwing like $10M at Knies.
Only Voronkov is maybe in that group out of the guys you've listed.
Only Voronkov is maybe in that group out of the guys you've listed.
Porter Stoutheart
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It's going to be tougher to find RFA targets with the Cap rising. A big part of pulling this off is to be able to leverage teams that CAN'T match due to their Cap situation. But only a very few teams project to be in really tight Cap situations in 2025-26. 
KrisLetAngry
MrJukeBoy
I believe there is a rule after 5 years it gets divided by 5. That would be a 11.55 AV for the Bruins requiring extra compensation.
Ledge And Dairy
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Maverick Bourque should be on this list since Dallas will have a hard time matching anything in the 2nd rounder range.
Five Alarm Fire
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It's going to be tougher to find RFA targets with the Cap rising. A big part of pulling this off is to be able to leverage teams that CAN'T match due to their Cap situation. But only a very few teams project to be in really tight Cap situations in 2025-26.
This is precisely why it won’t happen this summer.
McShogun99
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Sorry Blues fans but I'm waiting for 2026 so the Oilers can offer sheet Broberg and Holloway. Those two would look great on the Oilers.
Djp
Registered User
Peterka likely gets matched unless its the 2 1st+2+3 or 4 1sts
Quinn OTOH is s likely bribery max 3nd candidate.
Buffalo has McLeod , peterka, Byran, Quinn as RFA. Other RFAs are under $1.5M.
Based on my estimates they have about $19M in space to sign those 4. If byram gets 6, Mcleod 4 peterka 7, then gave only 2 left for quinn. Quinn can sign 4M+ with another team and it only costs a 2nd.
If sabres make a trade st thr draft they likely nerd yo be more money leaving than coming back using estimates on contrsct Amy's like I posted.
Djp
Registered User
No..not with it bring just %4M and teans havr RFAs snd UFAd to sign. Since these players know it's going up they want somethihing fair.It's going to be tougher to find RFA targets with the Cap rising. A big part of pulling this off is to be able to leverage teams that CAN'T match due to their Cap situation. But only a very few teams project to be in really tight Cap situations in 2025-26.
If I'm the Canucks I'd get my third back from the flames and offer mactavish 9.5x7
Anaheim has something of an internal cap and might not want to go that big for a possible 2c but he's what the Canucks need
Anaheim has something of an internal cap and might not want to go that big for a possible 2c but he's what the Canucks need
Porter Stoutheart
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I think all the projections already take into account the RFA/UFAs to sign. And what do you mean by "%4M"? The Cap is going from $88M to $95.5M, which is 8.5%. And more in the two years after.
All the current RFA and UFA players will indeed be getting paid correspondingly more than would have been the case before. But even still, there aren't a ton of teams that are really "in trouble"... unless they go crazy on the UFA market before dealing with their RFA situations. Which perhaps a few might.
People have talked about Dallas potentially being up against a Cap wall, hence an RFA like Mavrik Bourque potentially being a target. How many others can you find? K'Andre Miller and Nicolas Hague have been mentioned, although those aren't exactly "dire" situations for the Rangers and Vegas to manage. I think NHL GMs pre-plan to allocate funds for RFAs they want to keep BEFORE they go on a spending spree on July 1st, so I doubt (m)any will back themselves into a corner?
Just a reminder, offer sheets over five years in length have the compensation calculated differently (total amount divided by 5).
So a hypothetical 9.5 x 7 (66.5 mil) offer sheet would get calculated as 13.3 mil (66.5 / 5) and (probably) require four first rounders as compensation.
The players listed in the OP differ from Holloway in that they have already had success in the NHL. That makes them far more expensive to acquire, both in picks lost and the AAV needed to attract them to sign in the first place. It's one thing to overpay Holloway, quite another to overpay L Hughes/Rossi/Peterka/Knies, and lose a bunch of draft picks on top, as opposed to a 3rd rounder.
There are very few RFA's that match what Holloway was one year ago - a low cost gamble with high potential upside. The ones mentioned above are all high cost, especially for teams who have 1sts higher up in 2026.
There are very few RFA's that match what Holloway was one year ago - a low cost gamble with high potential upside. The ones mentioned above are all high cost, especially for teams who have 1sts higher up in 2026.
leafsfan2point0
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Thank you for the info!
Days like this I miss CapFriendly since they would designate 10.2(c) instead of just RFA like CapWages and PuckPedia.
That's the explanation from PuckPedia's page. Somebody with better understanding of the CBA can correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the games played threshold can be regular season and playoffs. Cale Makar played in 10 playoff games in 2019-20 and appears to have had offer sheet rights (he signed before free agency started July 2022).
Bruins' Cam Neely updates contract status of RFAs Charlie McAvoy, Brandon Carlo
The Boston Bruins still have two more important restricted free agents, defensemen Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo, left to sign before the 2019-20 season begins. A month has passed since NHL free agency started, and while the Bruins would love to sign these players before training camp, there...
Whereas Charlie McAvoy only appeared in six playoff games after signing in 2017. He got to burn that season of his ELC but he didn't play enough to earn a year of experience. So he didn't have offer sheet rights when he was RFA in July 2019.
Knies played in 10 combined regular season and playoff games in 2023, so he might have earned that year of experience like Makar. Hughes played in 5 combined games for the Devils, so he'd definitely fall into the 10.2(c) category like McAvoy (and his older brother Quinn).
Edit:
View attachment 1005449
Looks like PuckPedia does have a filtering method for 10.2(c) RFAs. They don't list Knies among those, so he may have hit the threshold.
Ahh okay well 9.5x6 would be in at 11.4 and 60k under the 4x1st compensation. But that would be an aggressive move I'd like to see them make. Getting even a low end top 6c will cost a first anyways so might as well swing for upside and youth.
I might have missed the memo, but I didn't think next year's compensation levels had been released yet. With the rising cap, the thresholds would get bumped up as well.
