{"id":845960,"date":"2026-08-04T16:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/845960\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T16:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:48:10","slug":"patrik-laine-and-the-2026-nhl-free-agent-steals-still-on-the-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/845960\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrik Laine and the 2026 NHL Free-Agent Steals Still on the Market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">There are not a lot of great defense options still on the open market, but Grzelcyk is one of the more intriguing ones, especially for a team that needs a bottom-pairing, depth defenseman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">He is just one year removed from a 40-point season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and he held his own and produced some solid results on a dreadful Chicago Blackhawks team a year ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">As bad as the Blackhawks were in 2025-26, they were only outscored by a 45-46 margin with him on the ice, a goal differential that was tops among all Chicago defenders. They also had a 45.6 percent expected goal share, which may not seem great in a vacuum, but was second among Blackhawks defenders, only marginally trailing the 46.1 percent from Connor Murphy. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">He has some offense and puck-skills to his game, and as a No. 6 or 7 defenseman, he might be able to provide something to a third-pair. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are not a lot of great defense options still on the open market, but Grzelcyk is one&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-845960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}