Bargain bin: Which free agents might be smart buy-low adds for teams?

Earlier this month, I looked at the free-agent class this offseason and picked out players who might sign deals that won’t age well — some even right out of the gate with how weak of a class there is this year. It’s an easy thing to do in the NHL, as teams get into bidding wars over middling players because they need to make headlines and round out their depth with the best options available.

What’s more impressive for a general manager is accomplishing the difficult task of finding bargain deals in free agency. You not only have to identify good players, but you have to find ones no one else has noticed, so you can nab them for super cheap before they even realize how good they were. It’s a tricky skill to master, and only a few GMs are really good at it.

So, I decided to look at some of the players I could see being the best bang for your buck in free agency this season. Some of them are players who will likely sign for almost nothing, and some might be a bit pricier but are coming off down years or injury-plagued seasons and might look for one-year show-me deals to reboot their market value next season. This isn’t a guarantee they will be signed for cheap either, as free agency is always unpredictable and a GM will sometimes sign a player to a contract for which many have to double check if the salary in the breaking news hit is total or per-year (especially with how weak the field is this season), but these are players I could see being bargains based on how the market seems to be shaping up on Saturday.

Connor Brown

Brown was dealt to the Washington Capitals for the 2022-23 season and looking to join an intriguing offense despite the early-season injuries to some of the forwards. Unfortunately, Brown played all of four games before his season was over, and now he heads into unrestricted free agency with some uncertainty to his play. There will always be questions about how well he’ll recover from his ACL injury and if he can bring the same level of play next season, but at 29 years old, it’s not like his body was one bad injury away from his game falling off.

It should be obvious why he could be a bargain for some teams. 2022-23 isn’t the season Brown wants to cash in on, so he’ll likely want to find a team to play with on a one-year show-me deal for cheap to get a full season under his belt again and remind teams how much he’s actually worth. Based on the chatter so far, that team could be the Edmonton Oilers, which is even smarter for Brown, as he could play next to Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl for a year, likely put up career-highs and get a big pay raise next offseason. Regardless, this is a guy who at is his best as a top-six scorer, so if he’s looking for a cheap, short-term deal, it’s in most teams’ best interest to bring him in to beef up their offensive depth.

Travis Dermott

Maybe it’s the optimist in me watching him crush bottom-pair competition and doing solid as an injury replacement in the top four as a Toronto Maple Leaf, but I still want to believe in Travis Dermott. I don’t think he’ll be a stud top-four option, but he still does a solid job of driving play in easy minutes and holding his own when thrust into a bigger role.

However, he happens to suffer from something many not-quite elite puck-moving defensemen deal with called the big mistake. You know what I’m talking about. It’s that one play in a game that a player makes that leads to a brutal turnover and either a strong scoring chance or a goal, and by the standard of the eye test, that automatically cancels out the other 90%+ of plays made that were fine or moved the play up but went unnoticed. Dermott is far from flawless, but he’s definitely a solid NHL defenseman. Coming off a season where he missed most of it with a concussion, he’ll likely not come with a high price tag, so he’d be a decent bet for a cap-strapped team needing some defensive depth.

Danton Heinen

Need a scrappy, versatile bottom-six forward who isn’t a possession blackhole? Danton Heinen is your guy. He’s good at both ends of the ice, has some really solid scoring rates and he’ll only be 28 by the time next season starts. The scoring rates are particularly important, because it means he can also be somewhat productive in big minutes with big teammates, and while he wouldn’t be carrying the line, he wouldn’t be holding them back either.

If you’re the Oilers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Colorado Avalanche or some other team looking for a cheap complementary piece for your top players to join in on the production, Heinen wouldn’t be a bad option. He put up 33 points in 2021-22 playing a good amount of time with Evgeni Malkin when he wasn’t hurt and also got some time with Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak in his 47-point rookie season with the Boston Bruins, so he’d be a solid bet to do well with a top-end player if you need a cheap option. If not, he’ll certainly do some damage in a bottom-six role.

Alex Nedeljkovic

Out of all the players on this list, Nedeljkovic may be the one I have the least confidence in truly being a bargain. Some of it is because goaltending is always tough to predict, but some of it is also just because of how shaky he’s been since joining the Detroit Red Wings. He posted an underwhelming .901 save percentage and -11.52 5v5 goals saved above expected in 59 games in 2021-22 before only surviving 15 games in 2022-23 and getting sent to the AHL for the rest of the season, where he did see a bit of improvement with a .912 save percentage.

So why do I have him here? A lot of it is clinging on to a bit of hope in him after his incredible rookie season in 2020-21, when he posted a .932 save percentage and saved 13.25 5v5 goals above expected, was a Calder finalist, and became the starter for the Carolina Hurricanes in the playoffs. I don’t think he’ll consistently be at that level, but I feel like he’s somewhere in between that elite goalie behind an elite team in Carolina and a replacement goalie behind a flawed Detroit team. If you’re a contender with a shaky backup situation, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to bring him in on a cheap deal and have him as a potential option, either as a reclamation project à la Ilya Samsonov last season or bring him in as depth insurance if you’re going with a young, inexperienced backup goalie. There aren’t a ton of options in this goalie free-agent class who have the potential for high upside while coming at a cheap price tag, so Nedeljkovic feels like the best option there.

Max Pacioretty

Much like Brown, Pacioretty joined a new team in 2022-23 hoping to be a difference-maker, and for the Hurricanes, he especially seemed like he was going to make a difference. He was the finishing talent they needed, and even at 33, he could certainly provide that scoring punch for them. But also like Brown, that was cut very short, as he only played five games for the Canes while dealing with a torn Achilles, although he still scored three goals in that time.

There’s a bit of uncertainty as to whether Pacioretty will even be able to come back, and there’s also some talks that he might give the Canes another try, so he may not even be an option in free agency. If he is, the market may not be there for him as much as it would have been in a healthy season, so it could be a great chance to get a guy who’s good for 30+ goals when healthy for the price of a middle- or bottom-six forward on a short-term deal. He’s also eligible to sign a bonus-laden contract at a cheap average annual value even though he’s younger than 35; he has 400-plus NHL games to his name and is coming off a long-term injury, so per the CBA a team can sign him at a league-minimum cap hit with performance bonuses that wouldn’t count against the cap until he following season.

Matthew Phillips

Phillips may be the best player with the least amount of NHL experience. Oh right, Connor Bedard exists. Regardless, Phillips has been incredible in the AHL these past two seasons, finishing in the top 10 in scoring in both seasons and totaling 67 goals, 77 assists and 144 points in 131 games. He probably would have gotten more than just the two NHL games and 18 minutes he did in 2022-23 if not for the fact that Darryl Sutter was allergic to players with no NHL experience. Even with the new coaching and management, it seems like the Flames won’t qualify him, and he’ll be a free agent.

That lack of NHL experience is where a team can really capitalize on his value. With only three NHL games, it’s going to be hard for Phillips to try and ask for a ton of money, maybe even as much as seven digits in his salary. If you can nab him at that price on a one- or even two-year deal, you could potentially have a really cheap player with the potential to be a solid NHL scorer if finally given a shot. AHL success doesn’t always translate to NHL success, but it doesn’t hurt to try, especially when it likely won’t count against the cap all that much. If it doesn’t work, it’s super easy to bury, and he just dominates on your AHL team. Even if the reward ends up being low, the risk is almost nonexistent.

Pius Suter

Suter’s value isn’t quite at the level that it was when he was in free agency in 2021 after the Chicago Blackhawks elected not to give him a qualifying offer, as he hasn’t had as good of a year as his rookie season in his two years in Detroit. So, you’re not going to get a high-end scorer, but with his value being a bit lower, you still might be able to get a decent deal for someone who rounds out as a strong middle-six option.

He’s an excellent play-driver, a strong penalty-killer and has the versatility that you could put him anywhere in your lineup if needed, although you’d be somewhat misled if you were looking for him to anchor your top line. He’s not the biggest gamebreaker in free agency, or even on this list, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he goes for a reasonable deal by free-agency standards, so you could do a lot worse than to bring him in.

Jonathan Toews

If you told me at the start of the season that Jonathan Toews might actually go for a deal lower than his on-ice value in free agency, I probably wouldn’t believe you. Toews has had an incredible career, but his market value has always seemed to be above what his actual value was, especially since the three Stanley Cup wins in Chicago gave him that intangibles bonus. His strong two-way play and point scoring made him a high-end player, but he always got compared to Sidney Crosby when he wasn’t quite at that level. And his “veteran experience and leadership” are the kind of things that would see him get overpaid in free agency at age 35 in a normal year.

But, times have changed. Toews' recent health concerns have put him in a situation where a lot of teams may be cautious to break the bank to bring him aboard. At the very least, they likely only are willing to vie him a one-year deal, and that’s where the value is. He was still quite productive when he played last season with 15 goals and 31 points in 53 games, so if you can bring him in on a one-year deal, there’s a chance you can get that production and not have to worry about any long-term concerns if he falls off after this season. You might still have to bring him in at a higher cap hit than most players on this list, but signing him to a one-and-done now while you have the chance to is a solid way to bring in a once-elite veteran player. The question is whether he still desires to continue his career.