{"id":938720,"date":"2026-10-19T10:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T10:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/938720\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T10:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T10:50:10","slug":"how-likely-are-the-top-2027-free-agents-to-hit-the-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/938720\/","title":{"rendered":"How likely are the top 2027 free agents to hit the market?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re only 10 or so games into the 2026-27 season, but it\u2019s never too early to look at next summer\u2019s pending free agent class. <\/p>\n

OK, maybe it\u2019s a bit too early. Despite some big names on the list of players who may be available July 1, 2027, there\u2019s still close to nine months for pending unrestricted free agents to sign contract extensions with their teams, or be traded to clubs who want to sign them to long-term deals. <\/p>\n

Read more: 2027 free agency class is set to be barren yet again<\/a><\/p>\n

Players like Nikita Kucherov and Sidney Crosby will have no contract on July 1, but the odds are better than not of them sorting out their situations between now and then. So, who else may be available? <\/p>\n

On Thursday\u2019s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE<\/a>, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss the 2027 NHL free agent class and whether any of the names currently projected to be available will make it to the summer without a new deal.<\/p>\n

Tyler Yaremchuk: You have Ryan O\u2019Reilly, Nikita Kucherov, Quinn Hughes, Jason Robertson and Erik Karlsson. Who is the most likely to get to free agency and who is the least likely? <\/p>\n

Carter Hutton: I think the most-likely free agent out of that crop right now, for me, is Jason Robertson. I just think like the way the year has gone down last year, he\u2019s very selective in where he wants to go, taking the one-year contract in the summer. He\u2019s the guy for me that\u2019s most interesting. I know he\u2019s got a good situation there, but I think he moves on. <\/p>\n

The least likely to get to free agency is Kucherov. I think he stays in Tampa Bay and cements his legacy with the club. <\/p>\n

Now the one for me that I think is going to draw the most attention is Hughes \u2026 he\u2019s the guy who is such a unicorn in the way he thinks about the game, the way he thinks about his contracts, how he processes the whole business side of hockey \u2026 he\u2019s the guy that\u2019s going to be interesting to watch. <\/p>\n

Tyler Yaremchuk: I actually think Karlsson is the most likely to test free agency, just based on where Pittsburgh is as an organization, based on Karlsson\u2019s age. They\u2019re going to keep Crosby around, they\u2019re always going to keep Kris Letang around, but as much as I know general manager Kyle Dubas, as much as he loves the player, I think he might look at this and go, \u201cYou know what? We need to get younger at certain spots.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"tampa-bay-lightning\"<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay LightningTeam Cap Summary<\/p>\n

\"PuckPedia\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cap Summary<\/p>\n

Projected Cap Hit<\/p>\n

$101,267,026<\/p>\n

$83,700,000<\/p>\n

Projected Cap Space<\/p>\n

$2,732,974<\/p>\n

$29,800,000<\/p>\n

Current Cap Space<\/p>\n

$3,029,697<\/p>\n

$29,800,000<\/p>\n

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here\u2026<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re only 10 or so games into the 2026-27 season, but it\u2019s never too early to look at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-938720","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\/938720","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=938720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}