There's no strict reason for why some NHL teams have more pending UFAs than others, but the tight salary cap and competitive cycles may sometimes play a role, writes Adam Proteau.

All of the 32 NHL GMs have a dual task at the forefront of their operations – get your team playing as well as you can in the moment while positioning the team as positively as they can for the future. That means managing their salary cap situation to give them flexibility in the short term and lowest-possible-cost, highest-valued assets in the long term. A macro look at the league’s 2024 UFA picture shows you which teams are best at those tasks.

Working off of the salary cap hits provided by PuckPedia, THN.com has gathered information on every franchise’s cap status. We’ve examined all 32 rosters, and our data includes contracts for each team’s players, both healthy and injured, to illustrate which organizations are set up to be most flexible at the end of the 2023-24 season. 

In putting these numbers together, there were some instances in which we had to make a call on fringe players who may or may not be NHL-worthy for their teams, so there is a small degree of subjectivity here. But we recognize the fluidity of roster composition, so we did our best to make a decision on certain players where necessary.

On average, there are 6.59 NHL-level players who be UFAs next off-season per team as of Sept. 22, 2023.

As you can see, there’s no strict rhyme-or-reason for teams to have a plethora or lack of UFAs, although the teams with the most UFAs – Toronto, Florida and Carolina – all are bona fide Stanley Cup contenders who’ve locked up their core players to big-money deals, and thus must be more judicious about which players get long-term contracts. That said, the Coyotes and Blackhawks are likely to be two of the league’s lesser lights this year, and their abundance of 2024 UFAs probably will mean they ship out many, if not most, of them by this season’s trade deadline.

At the other end of the UFA spectrum, the Senators and Blue Jackets are considered to be in the early stages of their competitive cycle, so it makes sense that Ottawa and Columbus brass have done their utmost to lock up as many pieces of the puzzle as possible. 

The Canadiens are also in that boat, but it’s not always a guarantee teams with few UFAs are just beginning their push for a Cup. For instance, the Islanders aren’t a young team, but GM Lou Lamoriello did what he could to buy out years of free agency from his players. The Oilers, meanwhile, are also in the same boat as the Leafs, Panthers and Hurricanes, but Edmonton GM Ken Holland has got the grand majority of his players under contract for at least the next two years.

Some of these UFA numbers will change during the season as GMs try to get certain players signed to contract extensions for at least two or three years. But when you project which teams could be movers and shakers at the trade deadline, you have to believe the teams with many UFAs will be among the most active. No GM wants their team’s assets to walk away for nothing, which is why franchises like the Coyotes and Hawks almost assuredly will trade their veteran UFAs for draft picks and prospects once they’ve fallen out of the playoff race.

The cap-balancing act for GMs is real and considerable. Every organization has someone whose job it is to manage the cap for this season and seasons to come. To that end, don’t fool yourself into thinking teams aren’t aware of the UFA status of their competitors. Full contract disclosure makes the intent of teams relatively easy to discern, and many trades will be made or not made in no small part based on the aforementioned UFA information.

When the cap ceiling rises next summer, some teams will be better positioned than others to pluck UFA talent off the open market, but other teams will be happy to have cost certainty for the long term and stick with the lineup they have this season. It will be different in every market, but the principle is the same – spend to the cap ceiling and commit to your core group when necessary, but otherwise, keep your options open.