NHL Buyers Must Beware Overpaying UFAs In Shallow 2026 Off-Season Market

As the 2026 off-season continues, it’s an optimistic time at this point in the hockey calendar. This year in particular is shaping up to be a prosperous one for every team in the league, as the salary cap ceiling is rising by $8.5 million – about a 10 percent increase from the 2025-26 season – to $104 million for 2026-27.

But if there’s one thing that’s true, it’s that there almost assuredly will be teams that overpay for players in a shallow UFA market. Whether it’s teams that desperately want to be playoff teams next season or playoff teams that want to take the next competitive step, there will be teams that spend their cap increase on just one or two veteran players. 

And that could prove to be a colossal mistake.

Here are the top UFAs this off-season. The best forward available is Buffalo Sabres right winger Alex Tuch. The best defenseman available is Vegas Golden Knights blueliner Rasmus Andersson. And the best goalie available is Florida Panthers netminder Sergei Bobrovsky.

But while we can debate as to which of those three players deserves a long-term, lucrative deal, what isn’t up for debate is that the drop-off in impact once you get beyond those names is going to be considerable.

That means the bidding wars for Tuch, Andersson and Bobrovsky are going to be fierce this summer. That is going to drive up the salaries those players command.

For instance, do teams really want to pay Tuch more than $9 million per season? Would others also be willing to pay Andersson $9 million-plus on a long-term contract when he’s turning 30 in October?

Meanwhile, what is the price point where teams stop bidding on Bobrovsky? There are teams out there who have a clear need for goaltending, and Bobrovsky is coming off a contract that paid him $10 million per season.

Would teams go near him on a two-or three-year contract that takes him to age 40? And would he just chase the money, or would Bobrovsky take significantly less to be in a position to win another Stanley Cup?

These are all questions NHL GMs have to ask themselves this off-season. Yes, teams will in theory have more money to spend on players, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do, to throw millions at every player simply because they were fortunate to be prominent names in a shallow market for difference-making talent.

For the right player, there's no problem if teams open up the financial firehose and spray it enough to make them happy. But not doing so carefully could be a recipe for disaster.

There must be some form of restraint when it comes to free agents, because just about every franchise has some horror stories regarding players they erroneously invested in.

The Toronto Maple Leafs’ primary free-agency horror story centers around right winger David Clarkson, who inked a seven-year, $5.25-million per season contract in 2013.

More recently, the Pittsburgh Penguins threw a six-year deal worth $4.5 million per year at defenseman Ryan Graves in 2023 and almost instantly regretted it.

And the Edmonton Oilers erred by paying defenseman Darnell Nurse far too much money, for too long a period of time, with an eight-year contract at $9.25 million per season, signed in 2021.

This is all something to bear in mind when July 1 rolls around and the free-agent frenzy kicks off. For one thing, this year’s frenzy is going to end in a hurry with the limited number of notable names.

And while the trade market may prove to be the better route to go for teams wanting to improve their roster, there are going to be teams that feel like winners with free agents, but that learn over time how wrong they were to outbid their rivals.

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