Although most players must wait until after their 27th birthday to become eligible for unrestricted free agency and be able to sign with any team in the league without compensation, there are a few other ways to reach the open market. Players who complete seven full seasons in the NHL are eligible for UFA status, as are restricted free agents who do not receive qualifying offers.<\/p>\n
There is another option, however, available to players who don\u2019t receive many opportunities in the NHL but have spent several years at the professional level: Group VI unrestricted free agency.<\/p>\n
PuckPedia has a complete list of players<\/a> who will become free agents through this category. To refresh your memory on how a player qualifies for Group VI free agency, they must meet three requirements:<\/p>\n The player is 25 years or older (as of June 30 of the calendar year the contract expires). This year\u2019s list is as follows:<\/p>\n Anaheim Ducks<\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Boston Bruins<\/p>\n F Matej Blumel<\/a> Buffalo Sabres<\/p>\n F Trevor Kuntar<\/a><\/p>\n Calgary Flames<\/p>\n D Nick Cicek<\/a><\/p>\n Carolina Hurricanes<\/p>\n G Amir Miftakhov<\/a> Chicago Blackhawks<\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Colorado Avalanche<\/p>\n F Matthew Stienburg<\/a><\/p>\n Columbus Blue Jackets<\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Dallas Stars<\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Detroit Red Wings<\/p>\n D Antti Tuomisto<\/a><\/p>\n Edmonton Oilers<\/p>\n F Samuel Poulin<\/a><\/p>\n Florida Panthers<\/p>\n F Nolan Foote<\/a> Los Angeles Kings<\/p>\n F Nikita Alexandrov<\/a> Minnesota Wild<\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Montreal Canadiens<\/p>\n D Marc Del Gaizo<\/a><\/p>\n Nashville Predators<\/p>\n G Magnus Chrona<\/a><\/p>\n New Jersey Devils<\/p>\n F Jonathan Gruden<\/a> New York Islanders<\/p>\n F Adam Beckman<\/a> New York Rangers<\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Ottawa Senators<\/p>\n D Samuel Bolduc<\/a> Philadelphia Flyers<\/p>\n D Adam Ginning<\/a> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/p>\n G Taylor Gauthier<\/a> San Jose Sharks<\/p>\n F Egor Afanasyev<\/a> Seattle Kraken<\/p>\n None<\/p>\n St. Louis Blues<\/p>\n G Georgi Romanov<\/a> Tampa Bay Lightning<\/p>\n D Declan Carlile<\/a> Toronto Maple Leafs<\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Utah Mammoth<\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Vancouver Canucks<\/p>\n F Curtis Douglas<\/a><\/p>\n Vegas Golden Knights<\/p>\n F Raphael Lavoie<\/a><\/p>\n Washington Capitals<\/p>\n F Wyatt Bongiovanni<\/a> Winnipeg Jets<\/p>\n F Samuel Fagemo<\/a>
\nThe player has completed three or more professional seasons, qualified by 11 or more professional games (for an 18\/19-year-old player), or one or more professional games (for a player aged 20 or older). This can include NHL, minor league, and European professional league seasons played while on an NHL contract.
\nThe player has played fewer than 80 NHL games, or 28 NHL games of 30 minutes or greater for a goaltender.<\/p>\n
D Michael Callahan<\/a>
F John Farinacci<\/a>
F Georgii Merkulov<\/a>
F Navrin Mutter<\/a>
D Victor Soderstrom<\/a><\/p>\n
F Ryan Suzuki<\/a><\/p>\n
F Cole Schwindt<\/a><\/p>\n
F Jan Jenik<\/a><\/p>\n
F Nathan Legare<\/a>
F Marc McLaughlin<\/a><\/p>\n
D Cole McWard<\/a>
D Travis Mitchell<\/a><\/p>\n
F Graeme Clarke<\/a>
F Olle Lycksell<\/a>
D Lassi Thomson<\/a><\/p>\n
D Max Guenette<\/a><\/p>\n
D Ilya Solovyov<\/a><\/p>\n
F Shane Bowers<\/a>
F Patrick Giles<\/a>
F Pavol Regenda<\/a>
G Jakub Skarek<\/a>
D Jett Woo<\/a><\/p>\n
D Hunter Skinner<\/a>
F Akil Thomas<\/a>
G Vadim Zherenko<\/a><\/p>\n
G Ryan Fanti<\/a><\/p>\n
F Henrik Rybinski<\/a><\/p>\n
D Ville Heinola<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although most players must wait until after their 27th birthday to become eligible for unrestricted free agency and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[231142,64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-603657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-2026-free-agency","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}