Blackhawks offseason updates: NHL free agent market still flooded with quality players
Ex-Hawks Slater Koekkoek, Drake Caggiula sit among the lengthy list of free agents still looking for jobs.
Seven weeks since the NHL free agency window opened, the market is still crowded with quality players looking for jobs.
That’s the reality created by flattening the salary cap without permitting compliance buyouts.
To be fair, most of the upper-tier unrestricted free agents were snapped up long ago. Game-changing top-six forwards and top-four defensemen proved valuable enough that teams found ways to fit them in. Mike Hoffman is the lone exception, but he’s reportedly been weighing numerous competitive offers.
But for bottom-six forwards, third-pair defensemen and other depth players — even clearly NHL-caliber ones — it’s proven difficult to convince general managers to meet their, say, $2 million salary demands when already-under-contract AHL players making less than $1 million could be used to fill those spots instead.
As a result, tons of players who carried significant value less than a year ago now wait patiently trying to find a home.
Among them are ex-Blackhawks Drake Caggiula and Slater Koekkoek, whom the Hawks let walk not because of poor play but rather to open up spots for their newly committed youth movement.
Caggiula, despite scoring only 15 points in 40 games last season, is a well-rounded wing who can capably play up and down the lineup; Koekkoek’s second half of the 2019-20 season was perhaps the most consistent stretch of his career to date. But so far, they remain unemployed.
Caggiula is one of 13 remaining UFA forwards who scored 15 or more points last season. The others are Hoffman (59 points), Anthony Duclair (40), Carl Soderberg (35), Derick Brassard (32), Mikael Granlund (30), Andreas Athanasiou (26), Ilya Kovalchuk (26), Erik Haula (24), Conor Sheary (23), Corey Perry (21), Brian Boyle (15) and Riley Sheahan (15).
The list of UFA defensemen is not quite as remarkable, but Koekkoek is nonetheless joined by the likes of Sami Vatanen, Travis Hamonic, Ben Hutton, Madison Bowey, Michael Del Zotto and familiar face Jan Rutta on it. Zdeno Chara is also technically a UFA, but that’s because the 43-year-old longtime Bruin reportedly hasn’t decided on his own future yet.
A few of those guys may sign contracts over the next few weeks, but many more will have to grind their way onto rosters via training camp tryouts — whenever camps finally happen — or sign with Russian KHL teams.
Furthermore, 25 restricted free agents have also not yet signed: Dylan Strome with the Hawks, Mathew Barzal with the Islanders, Pierre-Luc Dubois with the Blue Jackets, Anthony Cirelli with the Lightning, Ethan Bear with the Oilers, Vince Dunn with the Blues and many more.
There will likely be more movement in the RFA category once the owners and players’ association hammer out a salary deferral rate agreement.
Here are more Hawks-related updates from this offseason:
- Part of the holdup with Strome may be because his now-former agent, Mark Guy, left the hockey industry this week. Guy also represented Malcolm Subban on the Hawks. Stan Bowman and Jeremy Colliton both said recently the Hawks still plan to re-sign Strome, though.
- Hockey Canada has put its entire World Junior Championships selection camp team into 14-day quarantine, with Kirby Dach among the group, after a COVID-19 outbreak.
- Dach was dominating the camp before the shutdown, tallying two goals and a beautiful spin-o-rama assist in an intrasquad scrimmage last weekend. It’s extremely impressive to see the Hawks’ stud teenager standing out so much on a team loaded with first-round picks.
- Two other Hawks prospects have been equally dominant on loan with Swiss teams this fall. Brandon Hagel, whose loan to Thurgau took some serious string-pulling to execute, has made the most of the opportunity, recording 10 points (five goals, five assists) in eight games so far. Philipp Kurashev, meanwhile, has recorded 13 points (three goals, 10 assists) in 12 games with Lugano so far.