Quote:
Originally Posted by Aarongavey
The list of absolute NHL studs under the age of 30 that made it to the post-season of their final year of their contract where they could become a UFA is very small. There is a reason for that, most teams get that business done long before that date. Not that I think the Flames will sign Tkachuk to a one year deal and let him go to UFA, but if they did, Tkachuk and Gaudreau would be two of the top 5 players to hit UFA in the last decade. It almost never happens for a reason. Even letting Johnny reach that stage, the only two players that compare to him under the age of 30 in the past decade that reached that stage are Tavares and Panarin.
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Actually if you go back to the 2016 offsesaon and look at contracts $8M or greater for guys that could have been expiring to UFA and it actually leans more to people getting to the period where they at least have the threat of UFA.
Signed Prior to end of last season: 13 - Hertl, Barkov, Zibanejad, Nurse, Jones, Josi, Seguin, Wheeler, Doughty, Couture, Ekman-Larsson, Price, Burns
Signed Post-Season but Before UFA: 6 - Forsberg, Karlsson, Skinner, Stone, Stamkos, Carlson
Went UFA: 8 - Gaudreau, Hamilton, Pietrangelo, Hall, Panarin, Duchene, Bobrovsky, Tavares,
So 13 re-signed between July 1st and the end of the season with one year left on their deal, and 14 made it to the end of the season with their contract technically up - 6 stayed with their team, and 8 went to actual UFA. And sure with 115 points Gaudreau is a bit of a step ahead of some of these guys, but if you look at the last 4 years a whole I think it's a fair comparison.
So the split is much more equal than people think - because generally it's the RFAs like in Tkachuk's situation that get re-signed early avoiding this whole UFA risk altogether.
I'd say one thing does stand out with that list above though...of those 27 contracts only a handful have aged well. Just proves that signing guys to 7+ years when they are 28 or older is risky.