Speculation: 2025 RFA Class and offer sheets

I think you need the perfect storm of a young player looking for more opportunity, and a team being cap strapped and being unable/unwilling to match.

So I would look at teams like...
** based on puckpedia projected space and active roster
Team25-26 Cap Space**Players Signed**RFAs
:stars5.32m16[C] Mavrik Bourque
[D] Nils Lundqvist
:vegas9.62m18[D] Nic Hague
:rangers9.67m18[LW] Will Cuylle
[D] K'Andre Miller
[D] Zach Jones
:edmonton13.51m18[D] Evan Bouchard
[D] Ty Emberson

I think every other team has the means to be able to match an offersheet, so it will take a considerable overpayment. I only included the Oilers because I think Emberson could be a good target as they're going to blow theor load on re-signing Bouchard.

Thank you for the info!
If you go to any RFAs player profile on Puckpedia, it will say if they are offer sheet ineligible.
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With Holloway success we might see more offer sheets in the future.

Evan Bouchard
Noah Dobson
Matthew Knies
Luke Hughes
JJ Peterka
Gabriel Vilardi
Mason McTavish
Marco Rossi
Dmitri Voronkov

Who do you pick? I really like Knies and Voronkov.

Ya i can definitely see more offersheets. Especially the players who would be a value get. Knies is easy worth 1st and 3rd, so giving him an offer on the upper end of that 6.8M is a no brainer.
 
Problem with the OP list, all of those teams have cap space and would want to retain those players. I don't see anyone not matching unless the offer is something absurd...but then the payout would be worth it. Like, giving Knies $8-9mil. I'm sure the Leafs would be happy to take the picks.
 
Problem with the OP list, all of those teams have cap space and would want to retain those players. I don't see anyone not matching unless the offer is something absurd...but then the payout would be worth it. Like, giving Knies $8-9mil. I'm sure the Leafs would be happy to take the picks.

Teams might also learn from the Oilers mistake and not go sign UFAs and leave RFAs unsigned.
/Try to squeeze them.
 
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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.
I don't think that will necessarily be the way but a lot of the getting blackballed for offer sheets thing stems from when there were only 20 teams in the league. A lot of those dinosaurs are retiring now and breaking a relationship with one GM will soon mean still having 34 to deal with (after we expand to 36 probably this decade).

The other factor is how selfish American culture is. The greater number of American players means the more NBA selfishness will enter the league. Before a lot of Canadian players were refusing to sign offer sheets even when proposed. You're going to see guys leveraging it to get the contract they want way more often to maximize their dollars. Such is American culture.

As Bergevin said, if you want loyalty, buy a dog (as he was simultaneously stabbing 990 game career Hab Andrei Markov in the back over an extra year at 3 mil when we weren't tight on the cap space only to spend all that cap on garbage).
 
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I don't think that will necessarily be the way but a lot of the getting blackballed for offer sheets thing stems from when there were only 20 teams in the league. A lot of those dinosaurs are retiring now and breaking a relationship with one GM will soon mean still having 34 to deal with (after we expand to 36 probably this decade).

The other factor is how selfish American culture is. The greater number of American players means the more NBA selfishness will enter the league. Before a lot of Canadian players were refusing to sign offer sheets even when proposed. You're going to see guys leveraging it to get the contract they want way more often to maximize their dollars. Such is American culture.

As Bergevin said, if you want loyalty, buy a dog (as he was simultaneously stabbing 990 game career Hab Andrei Markov in the back over an extra year at 3 mil when we weren't tight on the cap space only to spend all that cap on garbage).
Pretty sure a lot of the guys that demanded big deals, placing their team in cap hell, were not Americans. Primarily Canadian and European players.
 
Will Cuylle seems like a good candidate, I'd be curious if NYR would match $4.58M or take the 2nd
I'd even go a bit more, or just the Burke approach and tell the Rangers I'm either going to sign him to an offer sheet, as I would have discussed it previously with him, or we make a trade.

Cuylle will be a hot target if he isn't signed imo.

A lot of teams have capspace, so might be harder to poach anyone.
 
I think the prime candidates for an offersheet are Hague in Vegas, Bourque in Dallas and one of Miller or Cuylle with the NYR.

Buffalo's situation is interesting to me because they have the cap space to match any offersheet, but would they match an offersheet for someone like Byram? If someone offered a 1st and 3rd round compensation for him, I'd probably take the picks over keeping Byram.
 
Pretty sure a lot of the guys that demanded big deals, placing their team in cap hell, were not Americans. Primarily Canadian and European players.
You can be pretty sure all you want but factually of the last however many cup winners with guys on discount deals, almost every single one of them was Canadian.

Here are the core guys who were on team friendly underpaid deals from the last few cup winners.
Florida: Reinhart, Verhaege, Forsling
Vegas: Theodore, Hill, nobody (lol)
Colorado: Mack, Makar (ELC), Kadri
Tampa: Point, nobody.
St. Louis: Schwartz, Pietrangelo, Paryko, Perron

Not one of these guys had a "team-friendly" contract from an American player. You can argue McDonagh but his offensive game never warranted #1 D money and he was paid roughly fair market value in Tampa.

Basically Americans and Russians rarely take discounts. There are plenty of Canadians who don't but Canadians have traditionally made up 90% of NHL history, so of course the raw number will be higher. And a large chunk of those who refused to take discounts played in or retired in the USA after their playing days. You can pretend it's not cultural but it's the view of America to roughly 8 billion people around the world.

Nearly every cup winner has at least one Canadian taking a huge discount. Other countries well represented in the discount category are Sweden and Finland.

Why is it a new phenomena in hockey when every other big four sport without a large Canadian
presence has had this issue for 50+ years and the only real change is the number of American players entering the NHL?
 
The Isles have Holmstrom, Tsyplakov, Gatcomb, Boqvist, Romanov, Dobson and Perunovich all RFA eligible this summer. Personally I’m thinking if anyone gets an offer sheet it’s either Romanov or Holmstrom, not Dobson. Dobson will be priced out by quite a few teams.
 
Will Cuylle seems like a good candidate, I'd be curious if NYR would match $4.58M or take the 2nd

They'd instantly match that I think.

Cuylle has been solid for them this year, and likely will get to 20 goals scored this season as a guy with some maturing left to do and some grit in his game.

I think that they'd only start thinking about whether or not to sign Cuylle if a team went to 1st-round pick compensation price range.
 
Leafs would match in a minute. Bruins shouldn't offer sheet because they be drafting high next few years.
I doubt very much that the Leafs would match the offer proposed by the Bruins fan. After adjusting the seven year offer to the five year calculation, the Leafs would received four unprotected first round picks. That would be hard to pass up.
 
Buffalo's situation is interesting to me because they have the cap space to match any offersheet, but would they match an offersheet for someone like Byram? If someone offered a 1st and 3rd round compensation for him, I'd probably take the picks over keeping Byram.

Might depend on Byram's motivations as well. When Trouba was trying to get out of Winnipeg, he knew the offer sheet route wouldn't work since they could match.

If I'm counting on my fingers correctly, Byram is a year away from UFA status so maybe an offer sheet would be a last resort option. If Byram were to elect for arbitration (to get a 1 year deal that would walk him to UFA), he'd be ineligible for an offer sheet.
 
I think the prime candidates for an offersheet are Hague in Vegas, Bourque in Dallas and one of Miller or Cuylle with the NYR.

Buffalo's situation is interesting to me because they have the cap space to match any offersheet, but would they match an offersheet for someone like Byram? If someone offered a 1st and 3rd round compensation for him, I'd probably take the picks over keeping Byram.
Yup They have $ 23,206,986 in cap space but have to sign
Ryan McCleod :71 games , 48 pts
Jack Quinn :66 games,35 pts
Peterka: 69 games,60 pts
Byram:74 games,35 pts
Bernard-Docker:7 games,3 pts
And probably Levi + Johnson
 
Might depend on Byram's motivations as well. When Trouba was trying to get out of Winnipeg, he knew the offer sheet route wouldn't work since they could match.

If I'm counting on my fingers correctly, Byram is a year away from UFA status so maybe an offer sheet would be a last resort option. If Byram were to elect for arbitration (to get a 1 year deal that would walk him to UFA), he'd be ineligible for an offer sheet.

He's a summer of 2027 UFA.
 
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Just a reminder to everyone, we do not know what the RFA Offer sheet thresholds are yet for offer sheets this summer.

From the summer of 2022 to summer of 2023 compensation rose 2.07%, while the cap rose 1.2%.
From the summer of 2023 to summer of 2024 compensation rose 6.35%, while the cap rose 5.11%.

If we assume another 6.35% increase (I think it will be more since the cap is rising 7.85%) teh thresholds would be:
Low EndHigh EndCompensation
Min1,607,662
None
1,607,6632,435,8533rd in 2026
2,435,8544,871,7092nd in 2026
4,871,7107,307,5621st and 3rd in 2026
7,307,5639,743,4181st, 2nd and 3rd in 2026
9,743,41912,179,2741st in 2027 and 1st, 2nd and 3rd in 2026
12,179,275Max1st in 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029
 
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I doubt very much that the Leafs would match the offer proposed by the Bruins fan. After adjusting the seven year offer to the five year calculation, the Leafs would received four unprotected first round picks. That would be hard to pass up.
unlikely, compensation levels will increase again. using the same threshold as last season for he increase, 11.55m (which is what 8.25m x 7 would be) would likely fall in the 2 firsts, a 2nd and a 3rd category.
 

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