Everyone loves free-agent-frenzy day, but in my mind there’s no topping what might happen with restricted free agents. They don’t have a specific day, but these decisions can impact a team’s future.

Of course, for those of us in cap leagues, we want all these players to sign for the league minimum if they are on our roster.

Sometimes, it’s smart for a team to sign a RFA to a long-term deal to save money down the road. Think of how cheap the contracts are for Nathan MacKinnon and David Pastrnak and how that has allowed their teams to keep other players. Or maybe a team signs a bridge contract for short-term cap space, but it backfires on the player’s next contract, a la P.K. Subban.

There are risks/rewards for each situation, which makes RFAs more fun than UFAs. You can usually tell immediately if a UFA signing is bad or good, but a RFA signing can take a few years before the value is realized.

Below are 10 restricted free agents who you could argue would be better for either a short-term or a long-term deal.

10. Kaapo Kahkonen

As it stands now, the Sharks can go into next season paying three NHL netminders, but Kahkonen is not one of them. The Sharks already have James Reimer and Adin Hill on their roster for another year and are paying Martin Jones for the next five seasons not to play for them. Where does Kahkonen fit into that? He posted the best numbers with the Sharks (though just a 2-6-1 record) with a team-best 0.916 SV%, 58.3% QS and a GSAA of 1.66 – also a team best. But the Sharks look ready for a rebuild. Many had pegged Kahkonen as the next great goalie prospect a couple of years ago, but he didn't beat out Cam Talbot in Minnesota for the top job. So, what is a player like that worth to a rebuilding team? Maybe the Sharks want him as the goalie of the future. Or maybe they want to sign him to a one-year deal so he, Reimer and Hill are all free agents next summer and the team can go after the one they think is best at that time. This contract will tell us the story.

9. Dylan Strome

Strome needs to be in a top-six role to succeed. That may sound obvious for so many players, but maybe that is truer than for Strome than anyone else. When he is playing with Mike Hardman and Reese Johnson, like at the start of the season, Strome gets three points in 12 games. When he’s alongside Patrick Kane, he has 45 points in 57 games. He’s not great defensively, so that’s a downside, and there are rumors he will be dealt this off-season. However, he’s hit an 82-game pace of 54 points in three of the last four seasons, so he can be productive when put into the right situation.

8. Brock Boeser

Usually, when a player is in a contract year, they produce at a crazy high level, which inevitably leads to an overpayment on their next contract. In a bit of a change from the usual, Boeser had a down year in his contract year. Before this year, Boeser had four straight seasons with an 82-game pace of at least 65 points, including a 72-point pace in 2020-21. This year, he had an 82-point pace of 53 points. That’s not great, but he did have 10 points in his first 22 games, but 36 in 49 games under Bruce Boudreau. A good agent will make the team forget about the 22-game blip.

7. Pierre-Luc Dubois

In his favour, the Jets centre just had his second 60-point season. He’s now negotiating his third contract, and the Jets will probably have to buy a couple of his UFA years, which usually drives up the price. Also rising the price will be this past season, when he had career highs in goals, PIM, shots, hits, power-play goals, power-play points and faceoff wins while averaging a career-high 18:56 per game. However, we saw him benched for a lack of effort in Columbus when he wanted out, so maybe there is some concern there.

6. Jesse Puljujarvi

With rumors that Puljujarvi is on the trading block, it will be interesting to see the deal he would get on a new team. We saw the Habs sign Josh Anderson to a seven-year contract after trading for him a couple of years ago, although their hands were forced by Anderson being one year away from UFA. Puljujarvi is two years away. If he is traded to a rebuilding team with cap space, it might be smart to lock him up long term. He had 25 points in 36 games playing alongside Connor McDavid but was on the second power-play unit. His ice time dropped once Evander Kane was signed, but you hope he can reach his breakout threshold when he hits 400 games (he’s at 259 now, so he’s still a couple of seasons away).

5. Andrew Mangiapane

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. In a contract year, a player hits career highs in goals, assists, points, shots, plus/minus, PIM, hit, power-play goals, power-play points, shorthanded goals and shorthanded points, all while averaging a minute less per game than a year ago. That’s what happened for the 26-year-old Mangiapane this season. He could be the odd man put in Calgary however, as the team also needs to sign Matthew Tkachuk, Johnny Gaudreau and about seven other players. With only $27 million in cap space, Mangiapane might be forced to sign for less money.

4. Tony DeAngelo

It’s funny the way the league’s rules work sometimes. A year ago, DeAngelo was an unrestricted free agent. He signed a one-year deal with Carolina and is now a restricted free agent. He had an excellent bounce-back season with 10 goals and 51 points (20 of those coming with the man advantage) in 64 games, good for an 82-game pace of 65 points. He followed that up with 10 points in 14 postseason games. He kept himself away from controversy, which was key, but can he be trusted with a long-term deal? Would he wear out his welcome in Carolina as he did with the Rangers?

3. Jake Oettinger

It took numerous injuries before Oettinger was allowed to be the team’s number one netminder, but there’s no doubt that he should be leading this team next season. This year, he started in the AHL as the Stars went with Braden Holtby and Anton Khudobin. Oettinger was called up due to injury, but the 23-year-old was excellent and started all seven postseason games, where he never gave up more than three goals in a game. Maybe there’s some concern about signing a young goalie to a long-term deal after Carter Hart was excellent early on at a young age before faltering. The Stars have almost $20 million in cap space but have to sign or replace John Klingberg, Alexander Radulov and Jason Robertson.

2. Jesper Bratt

Bratt had an absolute surprising breakout season, and it would be easy to chalk it up to him playing alongside Jack Hughes. However, that would be oversimplified and incorrect. Bratt produced wherever he was in the lineup, from the start of the campaign with Dawson Mercer and Andreas Johnsson, to Hughes in the middle of the season to Nico Hischier and Tomas Tatar at the end of the year. He finished with 73 points in 76 games, and many expect Bratt to continue this output next season.

1. Kaapo Kakko

It hasn’t been the greatest career start for Kakko production-wise, but part of that has been usage. He was even a healthy scratch in the final game of the postseason, showing that he doesn’t have the trust of the coach. That’s not a good sign for next year. In his rookie season, he had 13 power-play points and then saw his power-play time drastically decrease the next two seasons. He will probably sign a cheap contract this off-season, but it wouldn’t be a shock if the team wanted to sign him cheap to a long-term deal.