We had a very entertaining draft earlier in the week, and the folks over at DobberProspects had you covered the entire way through. With free agency opening on Friday though, it's now my Christmas and time in the spotlight. I'll have you covered the entire way with anything you may need as free agency open at noon on Friday.

If you want projections on the salaries for any relevant free agent:

Top-200 free agent salary projections – skaters

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If you want live updates on signing numbers with my take attached, you can find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean where I will be churning out my thoughts on any relevant signings over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I'll set up a few thoughts on things to watch out for over the next few days (and weeks), especially related to why things are different this year, and how that will affect the landscape moving forward. To finish things off, I'll cover some thoughts on recent signings as well.

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Free Agency notes:

To begin, there was no courting period this year for teams to discuss with free agents ahead of Friday at noon. Teams always seem to manage to get around this and sign a few deals right away, however, with things moving backwards to the way they used to be teams may take a little more time to lock up players. Especially with the crackdown on the illegal testing by Arizona teams may be a little more hesitant to "tamper" and discuss contracts with players ahead of time. In a similar vein, there also seem to be a lot of players that aren't happy with the offers from their current teams and are looking to test out the market. Once those players realize how stagnant the market will be in a flat-cap year then I expect a lot of them to come crawling back to their original teams. Players such as Torey Krug, Erik Haula, and T.J Brodie would fit that mold.

Every year it sounds as though there's some set of stars aligning to make it so that we finally see multiple offer sheets signed, and then nothing happens. Last year we actually saw one signed, but it was barely even a half-hearted effort on the part of Montreal to try and pry Sebastian Aho away from Carolina. The Lightning and the Islanders are both cap-strapped and are ripe for being targeted, however it is more likely that trades occur to free up enough space for the RFAs to sign shorter term deals. Set your expectations of offer sheets lower… even lower… there.

Players that are set to go for salary arbitration often settle before the hearing. Typically, they end up meeting close to the middle on a shorter-term deal, similar to what the result of the arbitration hearing would have been anyways. No one really wants to go through that process as it is not good for the relationship between the player and the team (oftentimes if players do go through arbitration then they don't stay with that team for much longer).

Yesterday was also the deadline for qualifying offers (QOs). Many players were not extended QOs as RFAs and are now eligible to sign wherever they choose as of Friday. However, many of these will follow the same path out to a saturated FA market, and realize their best spot is to take a smaller deal with the team that currently owns their rights.

The players being bought out like Kyle Turris, Henrik Lundqvist, Bobby Ryan, and others, are going to be great value adds for teams in free agency. They are still getting paid by their old teams plus they have a chip on their shoulder. It sounds like Lundqvist will sign with Washington – which is a great spot for him – and he should be signing for $2 million or less there. A $2 million AAV would fit under Washington's cap, and added to the buyout money he is earning will make him about $7 million richer over the course of the year.

One last thing to key in on for the depth players, is that one-way vs two-way contracts is one of the big deciding factors for making a team out of training camp. This year especially teams are not going to want to pay more actual dollars than they have to, so players on two-way deals are much more likely to be sent down to only have to be paid their AHL level salary. I cover this fully in the DobberHockey Fantasy Guide but I'll give you a sample here:

Mark Friedman D, Philadelphia Flyers

Cap Hit: $725,000

The right-handed defencemen on the Flyers roster are Matt Niskanen (retired), Philippe Myers, Justin Braun, and Mark Friedman. One of the slots on the right side is Friedman's to lose unless another addition is made. In all of last season's defence pairings, only one pairing of two left shots showed up more than two percent of the time. Coach Alain Vigneault will try hard to balance the lefties and righties, giving Friedman a leg up on the competition to earn regular playing time.

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Recent signings

Jason Spezza (C/RW) – Toronto Maple Leafs

Projected Cap Hit: $910,292

New Cap Hit: $700,000

Spezza re-upped in Toronto which didn't surprise anyone, but his $700k price tag is still a little lower than he might have fetched on the open market. He's still a bargain to fill out your roster in deeper fantasy leagues. In a broader view, we may see a lot more signings like this moving forward where a player takes a little less money to go to a situation that really fits them.

Robin Lehner (G) – Vegas Golden Knights

Projected Cap Hit: $6,017,556

New Cap Hit: $5,000,000

Speaking of taking a little less money to work with a situation that fits you, Lehner should be the poster boy for that. Lehner also set the bar for free agent goalies, and he didn't do a great job at raising it. The Canucks and Leafs should really be thanking him as they may be able to respectively sign Jacob Markstrom and Frederik Andersen (one year remaining) for close to Lehner's $5 million in this flat cap market. The secondary guys like Braden Holtby and Matt Murray are going to be in tough to get what they may have been expecting. Now may be the best year to buy in on

Dylan DeMelo (D) – Winnipeg Jets

Projected Cap Hit: $2,117,277

New Cap Hit: $3,000,000

DeMelo played most of last season on the top pair with Josh Morrissey for the Jets, so being able to lock him up for $3 million is a bargain. However, he's not likely someone to target in your fantasy leagues as he's never going to be a heavy point producer. He can rack up a reasonable amount of peripherals, but you can usually get hits, blocks, and shots for cheaper and with more offensive upside.

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All statistics are all pulled from FrozenTools, and all contract info from Capfriendly.

Stay safe!

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Previous Capped Articles:

Recent Buyouts, Signings, and Rookie Notes

Top-200 free agent salary projections – skaters