Canadian GMs Set to Harvest Thin Free Agent Crop

by Alan Adams

Filed under: Canadiens, Canucks, Flames, Maple Leafs, Oilers, Senators, NHL Free Agency, NHL Rumors

Imagine going to the local meat market wanting filet mignon for the BBQ and all that's behind the counter is well-marbled chuck steak.

Well that pretty much sums up this year's NHL's free agent marketplace, which opens for business at noon on Thursday.

This year's offering for the Canada Day celebrations isn't exactly prime beef, not counting Ilya Kovalchuk that is. But even then he will not come cheap.

There's no shortage of older depth players, including Mike Modano who has ended his run with the Dallas Stars. Modano is set to become an unrestricted free agent and other household names facing the same status include Paul Kariya, Saku Koivu, Teemu Selanne, Owen Nolan and Bill Guerin.

There is a second tier of forwards -- Maxim Afinogenov, Olli Jokinen, Eric Belanger, Brendan Morrison and Pavol Demitra -- but what you have here is another crop of serviceable depth players. No difference-makers here.

Once Kovalchuk is signed -- most likely by Los Angeles -- the GMs will spend money on the back end of their teams because defencemen are the cream of the free agent crop this off-season. But outside of the Russian sniper, no stars here when the shopping season opens.

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This is what is staring the GMs looking across the meat counter.

The braintrust of the 30 teams have a little bit of extra cap room to work with. The ceiling is $59.4 million US, while the floor is $43.4 million. The $43.4 million floor is $4 million more than the ceiling was when the NHL came out of the lockout in 2005.

There are roster spots available on every team but there is no real reason for the GMs to over-spend because there's not a lot, talent-wise, to spend on.

Here is how your correspondent would spend his money on each of Canada's six NHL teams:

 

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