Almost all of the big free agents have signed, but there are still a handful of key restricted free agents left on the board. One of them was Florida's Anton Lundell, and the key word there being 'was' because he signed a six-year contract carrying an average annual value of $5-million:

Florida Panthers keeping forward Anton Lundell, will sign a six-year contract https://t.co/avXk7VJ1wF

— PB Post Sports (@pbpsports) July 3, 2024

Lundell, fresh off a Stanley Cup win and a 35-point season, will be heading in his age-23 campaign for 2023-24.

For fantasy purposes, especially in cap leagues, this is a bit dicey. Lundell doesn't hit much – his 61 hits in 2023-24 were by far a career-high – and he doesn't shoot much, as he's been around 2.1 shots per game each of the last two seasons. All of Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, and Matthew Tkachuk have long-term contracts, and all will be on the top power play unit. Both Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe have one year left, too. Things can change fast, but Lundell is probably capped in the 40- to 50-point range until those two move on. He could be a fine value in cap leagues started with the 2025-26 season, but next year will be tougher to manage.  

*

In somewhat Florida-related news, former Panther forward Vladimir Tarasenko signed a two-year deal with the Detroit Red Wings. Alex had a breakdown of that and the Robby Fabbri trade.

Tarasenko is effectively the replacement for David Perron. At this point of Tank's career, the 35-goal, 70-point seasons are unrealistic and if he can be a 25-goal, 55-point guy, then that's a big win. I wouldn't even expect that much.

*

Free agency has really settled down and all that is left for this offseason are a few important names, but likely more importance should be put on the trade front. Let's use today to take one final look back at free agency and some of the most impactful moves from our fantasy perspective. As usual, data from Natural Stat Trick and Frozen Tools with tracking numbers from AllThreeZones.

Elias Lindholm

Anyone that watched their fair share of Boston games in 2023-24 knows they had to address the centre position. They tried to ride out a season post-Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, and did find some success, but it was clear they were lacking a go-to- top-line option that they could use in all situations. I am personally not nearly as high on Lindholm as many other people seem to be, but the Bruins certainly think that of him. He should be going straight to the top-6 forward mix, though it's not a guarantee he plays primarily with David Pastrnak. They will get time together – the season is 82 games long – but whether it's 55% of their even strength time or 30% is very much up for debate.

The real reason this is an important signing is it gives them a player who is likely to going to be stuck on the top power play unit. One under-discussed aspect of Boston's season was a power play that really, really struggled: with Pastrnak, Marchand, and Charlie McAvoy on the ice at 5-on-4, the team scored 5.99 goals per 60 minutes. Across the league, that is worse than some players from Seattle and Chicago. It is not nearly good enough, and it's fair to wonder if Lindholm will help, given the lack of help he gave the Vancouver Canucks.

All that said, it now gives the team three forwards to use on the top PP unit. The fourth is likely to be Pavel Zacha, and that will push Matthew Poitras to the second unit for much of the season. However, Poitras will be taking the place of Zacha or Lindholm at times, and this is far from a death knell to his fantasy value.

Tyler Bertuzzi

Chicago adding Teuvo Teravainen likely gives them a forward to add to the top power play unit with Connor Bedard. That effectively leaves two other roles, and it's hard to see Bertuzzi not being one of them. Brennan wrote about the signing when it happened, and he's leaning Taylor Hall and Phillipp Kurashev, and yes, that's very much possible. However, Brennan also mentions that Bertuzzi can bring a net-front presence that the others don't really possess – Nick Foligno often had that role last year – and that's what I think separates him from the rest. Bertuzzi's individual 5-on-4 PP goal rate over the last three seasons is 1.76 per 60 minutes, and that's higher than names like Nathan MacKinnon, Andrei Svechnikov, and Clayton Keller. It is about the middle of the league, so far from elite or anything, but it is a skill set that can certainly do well on a power play unit with the likes of Bedard, Teravainen, and maybe Hall.

For a few reasons, I think that is what makes Bertuzzi one of the most impactful free agent signings for fantasy purposes. He won't spend all season next to Bedard, but even like 30-40% of the season with the budding superstar, as well as top power play time, could see him get back to the 30-goal and 60-point plateaus.

David Perron

This isn't a signing that I think is necessarily a big signing for the individual player, it's more of the impact he'll have on the roles elsewhere. Perron has legitimate been one of my favourite non-elite players to watch over the last decade, which is why it was hard to watch him in 2023-24. His play fell off real, real hard. Consider his time with and without Dylan Larkin at 5-on:

Stat	Perron w/ Larkin (250 minutes)	Perron w/o Larkin (672 minutes)	Larkin w/o Perron (705 minutes)
xGoals For/60	1.9	2.0	2.7
xGoals Against/60	2.5	2.8	2.8
Goals For/60	2.3	2.5	3.8
Goals Against/60	3.3	2.8	3.1

Even worse was that he wasn't an engine of the offence whatsoever. Whether scoring chances, chances from teammates he assisted on, zone entries, playing off the rush, none of it was good:

Yes, things can improve, and maybe they will when he plays a full season opposite Brady Tkachuk, or on the wings of Tim Stutzle or Shane Pinto. With Perron turning 36 years old in May, I have my doubts.

The real impact is on the top power play unit. There is a new coach in town with Travis Green, and this was a team that struggled on the PP last season. Ostensibly, Perron should help, but we have already named four forwards and that doesn't include Drake Batherson, Claude Giroux, and Josh Norris. There are now a lot of mouths to feed with the man advantage, and a few players are going to get the short end of the stick. It is not certain that any of them are a lock for the top unit, either, outside of Tkachuk, so there are going to be some frustrated fantasy owners next season, whether it's due to Perron taking some top PP time or Green just deciding to run two even units.

Steven Stamkos

There isn't a whole lot to add to what Alex wrote about Stamkos at the time of the signing. It is a bit of a downgrade for Stamkos's power play output – though I don't think it's going to fall off in a big way – and it could help Tommy Novak add some points to his total. That line would struggle defensively, so it'll be interesting to see what they do with the line combinations. Tampa Bay tried to insulate Stamkos by using him with Anthony Cirelli at 5-on-5 and that had very mixed (and often poor) results. It might be better just to shelter a Stamkos/Novak duo and live with whatever defensive issues crop up.

I will say that Nashville's top PP unit was pretty good last season. With the trio of Filip Forsberg, Ryan O'Reilly, and Roman Josi on the ice, the team scored 9.6 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-4. It is a fair bit lower than the 11.3 goals/60 scored by Tampa's top unit, and I don't think Stamkos gets back to nearly 40 PP points again, but 30 points with the man advantage is very much in play. If he and Novak can find some offensive chemistry that Stamkos and Cirelli couldn't, maybe it's not far-fetched that Stamkos pushes for a point per game again?

Jeff Skinner

It is hard to imagine a bigger glow-up than going from Buffalo's bottom-6 forward mix at times towards the end of the 2023-24 season to moving to Edmonton's top-6 forward mix for the 2024-25 season. This is another section that won't run long because I have written extensively about how Buffalo overhauled their offence and it hurt the offensive production of nearly every important player on the roster with a couple of exceptions. Nashville literally did this one year ago with Matt Duchene and we saw how that went with his move to Dallas.

The real question for Skinner is whether or not he gets top power play time. All four top forwards that were on Edmonton's premiere unit are returning, so there's no guarantee at all that Skinner will be getting top power play time, and that's important. Consider that over the last three seasons, no Oilers forward reached 40 even strength points unless they were named Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Skinner represents an offensive upgrade on most any name the team has had outside those four players, so maybe he can reclaim his Buffalo production from 2021-22 and 2022-23, but even then, without top PP time, 70 points would be his upper limit.

If he does get top power play time, though, this could very well be a career year for Skinner. I have a lot of faith that he can bounce back for a year or two, and he's in the best position possible to make that happen.