Winnipeg Jets<\/a> before being acquired by the Buffalo Sabres at the trade deadline. His role in Buffalo shrunk, however, as he served in more of a depth role on the bottom pair. His ice time was cut by more than two minutes per game in Buffalo compared to Winnipeg, and in the playoffs it dwindled further: he played in just 8 of the team’s 13 postseason games, averaging 13:04 TOI per contest.\u00a0<\/p>\nWhile insider Frank Seravalli reported that Stanley was looking for up to\u00a0$25 million on a four- or five-year deal earlier this summer, he may have overshot his market.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fox suggests that the Jets could circle back on Stanley, or perhaps the Seattle Kraken could see him as a replacement for the departed Jamie Oleksiak.\u00a0<\/p>\n
3. Patrik Laine, F<\/p>\n
Giving a shot to a seven-time 20-goal scorer at what should be the minimum salary should be a no-brainer for some teams who are cap-crunched but looking for scoring. The fact that he only played five games last season with Montreal is certainly working against him in the market.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Teams like the NY\u00a0Islanders, Los Angeles Kings, Tampa Bay Lightning, Calgary Flames and Minnesota Wild are all reportedly considering taking him on “as a project,” says Fox.<\/p>\n
4. Eeli Tolvanen, F<\/p>\n
Tolvanen, the youngest player on this list, logged the highest average ice time of his career this past season, at 16:03 per night. Although he didn’t follow up on his 23-goal season a year earlier, with only 12 goals, he did deliver 24 assists and had 36 points. <\/p>\n
Fox says the 27-year-old is likely “seeking term,” and “Tolvanen\u2019s skill and relatively young age make him an intriguing bet.”<\/p>\n
5. Michael Bunting, F<\/p>\n
Bunting, a 15-20 goal scorer, could fill a role in a number of teams’ top six or top nine, at a reasonable cost. At this point in the summer, although he might not like the pay cut from the $4.5M AAV he earned on his last contract, he could potentially be had for somewhere between the $3M to $4M range.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There isn’t a whole lot of money still out there to be spent by NHL teams, by most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-798589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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There isn’t a whole lot of money still out there to be spent by NHL teams, by most accounts, but there are a number of viable unrestricted free agents still available on the open market. <\/p>\n