Back on January 18, USA Today's Kevin Allen posted a list of what he thought were the Top 25 unrestricted free agent players for this summer.

Similarly on April 28, Sportsnet's Luke Fox posted his Top 15 UFA players.

Even if their rankings of the best free agent players available are different, both will list players that will induce you to believe the idea of contract years is a major incentive to players. They will perform better because they have a carrot dangling in front of them.

Allen and Fox do not explicitly say that this is the case. It is us who infer from these and others lists we come across that assume it must be true.

Note: USA Today's list is missing Johnny Boychuk (1) and Mats Zuccarello (15) because they signed extensions.

We could go through the list and argue who should be ranked higher or lower. We could analyze if these players deserve raises with their next deal. We could ponder which teams they will end up on.

The fact is that they have done well enough this season that they will be sought after by teams.

What about the others?

According to GeneralFanager.com, there are a total of 293 unrestricted free agents. Here are the Top players not on Allen's or Fox's lists, based on their Cap Hit.

Note: Rich Peverley was removed from the list because he is on the long-term injury reserve list.

What happened? Did they not realize that they were in their contract year?

You could argue that Mike Fisher does not belong on the list especially since it has been rumored that he is not considering retiring anymore. The other guys had rough years though.

Their teams are looking forward to seeing them go, making cap and roster space for new players. Montreal's Marc Bergevin has already indicated that he will not try to keep Sergei Gonchar. Martin Erat could not have been chased out of Arizona fast enough and now I'm reading that the same could be true for Marek Zidlicky.

The players on this list are slightly a bit older than the first one, but they are within the same range.

It cuts both ways. You have to be prepared, especially if you are in a keeper league and are trading over the summer. Some owners like to use it as an influencing point during trade negotiations.

Fans and teams pray for contract years, for good and not so good reasons.

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