This week on Frozen Tool Forensics we are going to dive into upcoming UFAs. We won't specifically be tackling which players might be moving at the deadline, though there certainly could be some overlap in the names we address today. Instead, we are taking a look at players who have seen changes in their production during the final year of their contract so far. Part of the reason to choose now is that the trade deadline is March 6th, and while that is still two months away a big chunk of that time is the Olympic break. Basically, GMs need to decide whether to move or acquire a player and are going to be using the current data to do so.

In order to grab this data, I pulled the UFA report on the Dobber Reports page. It provides players on expiring deals who will be UFAs this summer. It contains some basic player performance data and for the purposes of today we are focused solely on points per game. For a comparison I pulled each player's point per game numbers for the 2024-25 season. This will help us see if a player is trending up or down for the season.

The tables below will contain basic player information (name, position, and team) as well as 2025-26 stats (games played, points, and points per game), as well as 2024-25 points per game and the change between the two seasons. This data is current as of Thursday, January 8^th.

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First up we are going to look at players who are performing better so far in 2025-26.

We have to start with Darren Raddysh. No player has evolved more over this season than Raddysh. He started the season on a third pair, getting healthy scratched, and only seeing about 14 minutes on average when he was in the lineup. Fast forward, Tampa has experienced several injuries on defense that have thrust Raddysh into the spotlight. Since November he has been on the top pair, averaging 24 minutes of ice time a night, over four minutes of that on the top power play, and has been putting up a 100-point pace over that period. Clearly that pace is not going to continue but a 65-point pace seems reasonable given his increased time on ice, deployment, and shot rates. The big question is, how does Tampa view this? He is certainly due for a raise, but do they see him as a stopgap between an aging Victor Hedman and the next wave of defensemen or was he merely a placeholder until the blueline is fully healthy? It is hard to deny this kind of success, but it is a big change for the 29-year-old who hasn't broken 40 points in a season to date.

Retirement speculation aside, Evgeni Malkin has had a productive, albeit short, season so far. He is on a 91-point pace in 26 games thus far, though he has been out since the start of December. He is buoyed by a very hot October, and something similar did happen in 2024-25, if to a less extreme degree. While a lot of the underlying numbers look ok, it would be his highest point pace since 2019-20. With Malkin, given the unknowns in the future, and his injury history it is exciting for managers just to be able to see him currently productive.

Nick Blankenburg had a very fun run in November where he put up 11 points in 13 games. Since December 13th though he has four points in 12 games. The November stretch was certainly buoyed by Nashville missing some D and Blakenburg getting more than 50% of the team's power-play. Ultimately, he seems to be reverting to his more usual production, but that brief glimpse of stardom might be enough for some other teams to be interested in giving him a shot with some increased deployment.

On the flip side we have players who are performing worse than their 2024-25 seasons.

I am not going to spend a ton of time on Alex Ovechkin and Anze Kopitar. Kopitar is planning on retiring, and Ovechkin is just such a known quantity at this point that it isn't clear that his performance this season is going to dramatically impact what happens next.

Matt Grzelcyk is an interesting study though. He was listed in the PTO article as well as he made the Blackhawks after an excellent season in Pittsburgh that somehow did not land him a contract. He was identified as one to watch to see if he could pull off some of the same magic in Chicago as he did in Pittsburgh. Generally speaking, the answer has been: not really. He has spent most of the season low on the depth chart with guys like Sam Rinzel and Artyom Levshunov getting the best looks on the power play. He has even been missing from the second power play unit for most of the season. It seems clear then that he hasn't really been increasing his stock. Something interesting to note though is that in two of his last three games he has seen more than 50% of the team's power-play time and has seen at least 30% (an improvement from the beginning of the year) in his last five. Is it just a blip or is it happening again?

Mason Marchment isn't dramatically altering his value, but it is interesting to see that he has already played for two teams. In Seattle he was shuffled all through the lineup and ended up with 13 points in 29 games for a 37-point pace with about 17 minutes of ice time on average (but with some pretty dramatic fluctuations). In Columbus he has only played seven games as of this writing, but has seven points, and has averaged more than 18 minutes a night. The fit in Columbus does seem to be significantly better than the Seattle one, though we do have to wonder if he ends up moving again by the trade deadline.

For a bonus we have two players who did not put up regular season stats who are on expiring deals.

Evander Kane has been given opportunities in Vancouver getting top six, and occasionally top power-play deployment. Unfortunately, his 38-point pace is the lowest of his career (not counting his rookie season). He maybe deserves a little bit better, but Vancouver just doesn't seem like a place to be to produce this year. While I don't think he is improving his stock with this performance there might potentially be playoff teams interested in his services in a depth role. Still, that doesn't bode well for an increase to his fantasy relevance.

At 37 and with a 26-point pace, Jonathan Toews doesn't seem to be inspiring a lot of confidence, but a lot of his underlying numbers indicate he deserves a bit better. Though the caveat here is that he hasn't played in several seasons and his most recent career numbers probably aren't the best comparison. His personal and team shooting percentages are very low for basically any forward though, so some bounce back is still likely. There are probably other teams who might be interested in a depth center with his experience so this might not be a one and done for Toews, but in most fantasy circles not sure we will see a significant bump in relevance.

That is all for this week.

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