July 1st has come and gone, and for the most part there were no major surprises. The high-end defensemen were all signed very quickly, and all for reasonable cap hits considering that overpayment is usually a necessary aspect of dipping into the free agent market.
There are several players who will likely end up on different teams for the 2010-11 season still out there – Ilya Kovalchuk, Tomas Kaberle, Kevin Bieksa, Simon Gagne, Marc Savard, and potentially even Bobby Ryan. There are also a few interesting young players that I want to talk a bit about in more detail.
I’ll go into a bit of depth on a fantasy issue or two pertaining to each of the 30 NHL clubs.