8 NHL Free Agents with Big Money on the Line in the 2023 Playoffs
Ever notice that the start of the NHL playoffs coincides with the end of tax season?
Maybe it's no coincidence.
The result of free agency becoming the binding law of the land in hockey is that every year, there is a handful of wannabe big-ticket players on the verge of unrestricted status come July.
This means the postseason tournament that runs until the brink of summertime is their last time to audition for general managers looking to make a big financial splash.
Sometimes, they're unheralded players looking for a first life-changing score. Sometimes, they're established players angling for a lucrative change of scenery.
And sometimes, they're something in between.
The B/R hockey staff looked at the 2023 crop whose current teams are in the playoffs and came up with a list of eight for whom the number of zeroes on the next contract might hinge on how they perform over the next two months.
Take a look at what we came up with, and drop a thought of your own in the comments.
Tyler Bertuzzi, LW, Boston Bruins
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Tyler Bertuzzi was by no means struggling.
The former second-round pick of the Detroit Red Wings signed a two-year deal worth $9.5 million in 2021 after playing three seasons and making better than $8 million.
But he was on a prolonged road to nowhere in the Motor City and, at 28, was already starting to age out of their long-term plans. So the trade that sent him to Boston on March 2 was a win-win for both sides, but maybe more so for the 6'1", 186-pound winger.
Getting a spot with the best team in hockey all but guarantees a long playoff run for the postseason newbie. But considering the Bruins already have eight players under contract for 2023-24 making the same or more than Bertuzzi does, it may be difficult for GM Don Sweeney to work yet another $5 million-plus deal into the team's salary structure.
Bertuzzi had two assists in his playoff debut on Monday night, and a long, productive stint from April to June, plus the leadership street cred it brings, could spike his asking price for other teams interested come July 1.
Michael Bunting, LW, Toronto Maple Leafs
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We may have to put an asterisk alongside this one.
Twenty-seven-year-old winger Michael Bunting was a bargain signing for the Maple Leafs in 2021, inking a two-year worth just $1.9 million but rewarding the Toronto faithful with consecutive career-best 23-goal seasons.
Those are pretty prodigious numbers from a guy signed as a bottom-six forward and would have been good enough on their own to give him a nice bump this summer, not to mention what playoff production at anywhere near the same rate would have done.
Notice the past tense on that last sentence, though.
The Maple Leafs were not only routed in their postseason opener on Tuesday night, but Bunting was handed a three-game suspension for "an illegal check to the head and interference" against Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak.
The doomsday scenario in hockey-mad Toronto (and for Bunting's accountant) is that the team gets swept, and he's done for the season. Assuming anything less than a four-game exit, though, presumably means Bunting will have a chance to better the inglorious playoff stat line (one shot, 15 penalty minutes) he compiled in Game 1.
Stay tuned.
Matt Dumba, D, Minnesota Wild
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What a difference five years make.
Rewind to the summer of 2018, and Matt Dumba was a fresh-faced kid signing a five-year, $30 million contract just four days before his 24th birthday.
The assumption in Minnesota was surely that the 6-foot, 181-pound defenseman would continue a trajectory that had already seen him produce 44 goals and 128 points before his new deal.
Well, let's just say it hasn't aged so well.
Dumba hasn't approached the numbers he'd put up before cashing in. In fact, the 27 points he compiled across 57 games in 2021-22 were the only time he'd gotten more than halfway to the career-best 50 he'd produced in 2017-18.
Now 28, he'll be an unrestricted free agent in July and unlikely to be offered with the Wild, so a playoff run in which he even gives the illusion of productivity may cajole an itchy-fingered GM to make the call on a high-profile name. He played better than 38 minutes in Minnesota's two-overtime win at Dallas on Monday, which is certainly a good start.
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Patrick Kane, RW, New York Rangers
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Let's say Patrick Kane, at age 34, gets "grandfathered" into this spot.
The Hall of Fame-bound winger is a three-time Cup champion alongside an already prodigious trophy room that includes the Calder, the Art Ross, the Hart and the Conn Smythe.
So it's no wonder he's been making $10.5 million per season thanks to an eight-year extension that went into effect after the most recent of those Cups in 2015.
A trade to the New York Rangers got the remaining cash off the Chicago Blackhawks' books on February 28, providing Kane with the chance at one last playoff run before he presumably reaches unrestricted free agency for the first time this summer.
Now we're in no way suggesting Kane has anything to prove after the career he's already had, but it's unlikely he fits into New York's salary plans for next season.
So a glimpse or two of his halcyon days this spring—he played 19 shifts and had an assist in the Rangers' series-opening win on Tuesday—may help up the ante on whatever he may get from an interested new team for the 2023-24 season and beyond.
John Klingberg, D, Minnesota Wild
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John Klingberg was a hot name last summer.
He was coming off a seven-year, $29.8 million deal with the Dallas Stars and looking for both a nice raise and some guaranteed tenure with a new team.
But the phone never rang. Or when it did, the numbers weren't right.
So rather than getting the five- or seven-year contract that had seemed a lock, the 6'3", 190-pound Swede instead signed a one-year, $7 million deal with the Anaheim Ducks that almost guaranteed he'd be dealt to a contender at the trade deadline.
He was. The Minnesota Wild acquired him for two players and a draft pick on March 3, and he posted nine points in 17 games with his new team after producing 24 in 50 games with Anaheim. Nevertheless, he's not really challenged the numbers he'd had earlier in his stint with the Stars, including a career-high 13 goals in 2016-17 and 67 points a season later.
Still, he's a long, rangy body with puck-moving skill and experience, and if the Wild continue beyond a first-round date with Klingberg's former teammates in Dallas, it may be a boon for him as he takes another stab at a summertime windfall.
A cautionary note, though: He missed the first two game swith a lower-body injury sustained the weekend before the playoff opener. If it's more serious than it appears, all bets are off.
Timo Meier, RW, New Jersey Devils
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For these purposes, Timo Meier is a special case.
He's the only restricted free agent on our list, which means the New Jersey Devils have the opportunity to retain his services with no risk of losing him, provided they meet his $10 million qualifying offer he's earned based on prior contracts.
The 26-year-old winger played the first 451 regular-season games of his career with the San Jose Sharks before heading to the Garden State on February 26 as part of a mega-deal that included eight other players and four draft picks.
He'd most recently signed a four-year, $24 million contract with the Sharks in 2019 and had posted seasons of 22 and 12 goals before breaking out with a career-best 35 in 2021-22 and upping that mark to 40 in 78 games with the two teams this season.
The 19 shifts he took in New Jersey's loss to the New York Rangers in Tuesday's opener were his first in a playoff environment since 2019. Clearly, the Devils will need him to produce just so their stay is longer than a week. And unless they decide to break open the checkbooks to keep him long term, that production will enhance his value elsewhere as well.
Ryan O'Reilly, C, Toronto Maple Leafs
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If this story sounds familiar, it should.
An established NHLer in the final year of a contract is traded at the deadline by a non-contending team to a playoff wannabe whose long-term salary situation probably means the new acquisition is better off renting a home in his new city than buying one.
Such is the case with Ryan O'Reilly.
Like Kane before him, O'Reilly has hoisted the Stanley Cup and won a Conn Smythe Trophy. And he was actually traded twice on February 17—first from St. Louis to Minnesota and then from Minnesota to Toronto—in a pair of deals that netted the Blues players and picks and the Wild a draft pick.
He brings experience and grit to an uber-talented Maple Leafs team hoping to end a generations-long title drought. However, his most recent $7.5 million annual salary and Toronto's seemingly chronic issues with the cap will probably prevent the 32-year-old from remaining in his home province unless other deals are made.
That said, there'll probably be a market for a guy with his resume, particularly if Toronto can even get close to ending the drought.
A rout loss in the opener didn't help that cause, but O'Reilly did score a goal on his only shot and logged nearly 17 minutes of ice time across 25 shifts, so his production hasn't suffered. And given the aforementioned suspension of teammate Bunting, the opportunity for an important early-round role is apparent.
Vladimir Tarasenko, RW, New York Rangers
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Vladimir Tarasenko was another sexy pick for the Rangers.
He and Kane not only added four Cups and better than 700 regular-season goals to the New York arsenal upon their respective arrivals in February, but they also added the sort of title-pedigreed star power not seen at Madison Square Garden since Messier and Gretzky left.
But just like Kane before him, it's also unlikely the 31-year-old Russian fits into the long-term salary plans, given tGM Chris Drury's decisions he has to make on youngsters like recent No. 1 overall pick Alexis Lafrenière.
So it's incumbent upon Tarasenko, who scored just 18 goals this season after netting 34 in 2021-22, to play like a playoff superstar if he wants to be paid equally or better than the $7.5 million he's made since signing an eight-year, $60 million contract with the Blues in 2015.
He's been as consistent a right wing as there is in the NHL, scoring 30 goals six times while working through shoulder injuries. So a nice contract elsewhere is almost a given no matter how he performs this spring, but a heater resembling the 11 goals he scored in the 2019 playoffs—he scored once in the opening win against the Devils—might significantly uptick the adjectives come signing time.
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