With the new year fast approaching, the NHL season is in full swing. Teams are jockeying for playoff position, and many players with expiring contracts across the NHL are playing games that could ultimately determine what type of payday they might receive in the summer.
In a multi-part series, we’ll take a look at each position group of the upcoming free agent class, and do a rundown on how those upcoming unrestricted free agents have performed this year. Which players have increased their odds of landing a massive contract? Which players have potentially hurt their earning potential with their play? We’ll break it all down here.
The marquee names
Andrei Kuzmenko, Vancouver Canucks
The second-straight Canuck to headline free agency stock watch, Kuzmenko is not your traditional candidate to be a top-of-his-position-group free agent. But he certainly has the numbers to back up his case.
After a lengthy courting process this summer, the Canucks signed Kuzmenko to a one-year, $925K deal out of the KHL’s SKA St. Petersburg.
Kuzmenko scored 53 points in 45 games in the KHL, and while the inevitable questions of whether his KHL numbers would translate persisted, he has silenced them so far this year.
Kuzmenko has been a rare bright spot in a Vancouver market that hasn’t had much fun in 2022-23, scoring 14 goals and 29 points in 32 games.
Kuzmenko has helped the Canucks’ power play convert on 26.6% of its opportunities on the man advantage, which ranks inside the league’s top 10.
But complicating the good vibes surrounding Kuzmenko’s success has been the potential contract standoff that looms. After re-signing J.T. Miller to a seven-year, $8M AAV extension, the Canucks have seemingly made re-organizing their cap balance sheet a priority.
That raises some questions. Do the Canucks have the financial bandwidth to compete with the many bidders Kuzmenko is likely to attract?
If the Canucks want to retain Kuzmenko, does the cost of his extension necessitate trading Brock Boeser, even if his $6.65M cap hit means the team’s received return in any deal could be a fraction of Boeser’s on-ice value?
The months leading up to the opening of free agency won’t be easy ones for Canucks management.
Kuzmenko’s stock is soaring, and while the Canucks are reaping the benefits at the moment, it’s possible that his play is pricing him out of a long-term extension to stay in British Columbia.
