- Vladimir Tarasenko scored 23 goals for Minnesota last season and still has no contract
- Patrik Laine, Evander Kane, John Klingberg and Michael Bunting are stuck on the same list
- Read below for who is left and why teams with money are not spending it
Vladimir Tarasenko scored 23 goals last season. He is still waiting on a phone call.
The 34-year-old winger put up 47 points in 75 games for the Minnesota Wild and headlines a group of proven NHL players without a deal, with training camp roughly five weeks out. Patrik Laine, Evander Kane, Michael Bunting, John Klingberg and Adam Henrique are all sitting in the same place.
Hockey fans have been asking the obvious question all month:
Michael Menzies of Oilersnation dug into the freeze this week and landed somewhere uncomfortable for anybody in the middle of the pay scale. He pointed at analytics departments and the leverage teams have figured out they hold.
“My hunch is that it’s going to be harder for the lower-to-middle class of players to get paid, especially if your fancy stats don’t pop. Teams are looking for efficiency wherever they can find it, and overpaying this tier of player is not a recipe for sustained success,” Menzies wrote.
Money is not the holdup. Detroit leads the league with $19.6 million in space, and eight other clubs are carrying more than $10 million, per our cap breakdown. Nobody is in a hurry to hand any of it over.
Here is the meat of what is left, per Pro Hockey Rumors:
- Forwards: Tarasenko, Laine, Kane, Bunting, Eeli Tolvanen, James van Riemsdyk, David Perron, Reilly Smith, Henrique, Kevin Hayes
- Defensemen: Klingberg, Logan Stanley, Carson Soucy, Matt Dumba, Matt Grzelcyk, Nick Leddy, Jeff Petry
- Goalies: Connor Ingram, Alexandar Georgiev, Petr Mrazek, Cam Talbot, James Reimer, Matt Murray
Ingram might be the strangest name on it. He went 16-10-3 with a 2.60 goals-against average in 32 games for Edmonton last season and started all five of the Oilers’ playoff games. Goalies who can do that usually get paid by mid-July.
Stanley picked the wrong year to have his best one. The 6-foot-7 defenseman scored nine goals between Winnipeg and Buffalo after managing five in his first six NHL seasons combined, and a career year in a contract year has bought him nothing so far.
Tarasenko has drawn interest from a handful of clubs, including a pitch to Philadelphia as a power-play fix, and Laine has been tied to the Rangers, Wild, Lightning, Maple Leafs and Flyers without a deal coming out of any of it. Daily Faceoff spent a chunk of Monday’s show on the same logjam:
Camps open next month, and the professional tryout is the last door in the building for most of this group.
