5 NHL Unrestricted Free Agents Available Your Team Should Sign

There's Black Friday shopping, and then there's Day After Black Friday shopping.

And the savviest bargain-hunter knows there are significant deals to be had if the person holding the cash has the patience to wait it out and the prudence to select well.

Carry that over to the NHL and you'll be where we are now.

Saturday's arrival of unrestricted free agency brought the usual flurry of activity and high-profile players signing for, in some cases, more than was expected. In fact, better than a dozen contracts with eight-figure total values were agreed over the weekend.

Which means, now that a new week has arrived, there are savings still out there.

The B/R hockey team got together to scan the list of players still available as UFAs and came up with five names your team should sign if your general manager is looking to blend maximum on-ice production with minimal financial outlay.

Take a look at who we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the comments.

Matt Dumba

Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images

ST PAUL, MN - APRIL 23: Matt Dumba #24 of the Minnesota Wild skates with the puck in the first period of Game Four of the First Round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Dallas Stars at Xcel Energy Center on April 23, 2023 in St Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images)

Perhaps we all need a Matt Dumba refresher.

Lest anyone forget, the 2012 seventh overall pick is a 6'0", 181-pound defenseman who's scored double-digit goals and reached double-digit power-play points four times in his career, and he's coming off a season in which he played at least 20 minutes in 58 games.

And somehow he's still only 28 years old.

Indeed, the fact that Dumba has played in parts of 10 NHL seasons and been a regular in nine of them makes him seem older than he is. Yet he's still a youngster by comparison to some and is available for presumably far less than the $6 million he made in each of the last five seasons on a $30 million deal signed with the Minnesota Wild in 2018.

With the number of teams looking for established and reliable help on the blue line, it's only a matter of time before Dumba is snatched up.

And here's a guess: Whichever team gets him will be better in the long run because of the investment.

Jaroslav Halák

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ST. LOUIS, MO - APRIL 06: New York Rangers goaltender Jaroslav Halak (41) watches a puck go out of play during the second period of an NHL hockey game between the St. Louis Blues and the New York Rangers on April 6, 2023, at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, MO. (Photo by Tim Spyers/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

OK, we won't pretend that anyone had Jaroslav Halák atop their wish list.

After all, he's a 38-year-old goaltender who debuted in the 2006-07 season, has played for seven teams and hasn't started half the scheduled games since 2017-18.

So, he's not a No. 1 starter. But he is still an uber-reliable backup with street cred.

Halák shared William M. Jennings trophies during stops in St. Louis and Boston and was still effective last year while making 24 starts for the New York Rangers behind Igor Shesterkin. In that role, he won 10 games and posted a .903 save percentage that is top among the remaining free-agent netminders who had double-digit victories in 2022-23.

He's played the last two seasons on one-year deals with $1.5 million cap hits, and he's gone public, via agent Allan Walsh, with the insistence that he's 100 percent committed to playing this year, thanks in no small part to his proximity to a 300-win milestone after ending last season at 295.

Patrick Kane

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NEWARK, NJ - APRIL 20: Patrick Kane #88 of the New York Rangers celebrates at the bench after scoring during Game Two of the First Round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Prudential Center on April 20, 2023 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Rich Graessle/NHLI via Getty Images)

No, this is not your grandfather's Patrick Kane.

Gone for good is the long-haired 20-something sniper who was a perennial point-per-game player with the Chicago Blackhawks while sweeping the NHL's major awards and winning three Stanley Cups.

Now 34, Kane was winding down the final season of an eight-year, $84 million deal when the Blackhawks shipped him to the New York Rangers for what everyone presumed would be a significant push toward another championship in midtown Manhattan.

It didn't work out that way for the Rangers, who were dispatched in Round 1 by the New Jersey Devils, leaving Kane as a free agent for the first time in his NHL career.

But make no mistake, we're not talking another $10 million here.

The hip resurfacing surgery he underwent before the start of free agency might keep him from playing at 100 percent until the season's second half, which means it'll take a GM with some foresight and some courage to pull the trigger on bringing him in.

His hometown Buffalo Sabres would make an intriguing stop, but otherwise it may be a pool where only established title contenders are willing to swim.

Tomáš Tatar

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NEWARK, NJ - OCTOBER 22: New Jersey Devils left wing Tomas Tatar (90) skates in the first period of the game against the San Jose Sharks on October 22, 2022 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Rich Graessle/Getty Images)

If you know hockey, you know Tomáš Tatar.

The Slovakian winger was a second-round pick back in 2009, arrived as a full-time player in 2013-14 and has scored 20 or more goals six times, including last season across 82 games with the New Jersey Devils.

And guess what? His secondary numbers were even better.

The Devils scored 61 goals with Tatar on the ice at full strength in 2022-23 compared to just 28 for opponents, yielding a team-best +33 differential. He also netted a power-play goal for the 12th consecutive season to reach 50 on his career and added a game-winner to get to 30 overall, which places him firmly in the top 100 among active players in both categories.

Last season was the second of a two-year, $9 million deal the 32-year-old inked with the Devils in 2021, and there's a chance they could bring him back at a reduced rate given other moves they've made in the offseason.

Toward that end, Max Miller of The Hockey News suggested the San Jose Sharks could be a destination if Tatar was willing to commit for $2.5 million or $3 million.

Jonathan Toews

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NASHVILLE, TN - DECEMBER 01: Chicago Blackhawks center Jonathan Toews (19) leaves the ice following pre-game warmups prior to the NHL game between the Nashville Predators and Chicago Blackhawks, held on December 1, 2018, at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Danny Murphy/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

And last but not least, it's another Cup winner from Chicago.

But unlike former teammate Patrick Kane, center Jonathan Toews did not get dealt at the deadline and instead finished out the 2022-23 season with the Blackhawks even after they went public with the decision that they'd not try to re-sign him for 2023-24.

Like Kane, he played out the final season of the eight-year, $84 million he signed with then-GM Stan Bowman in 2014, but his last few years have been pockmarked by injury and illness. He sat out the entire 2020-21 season and then missed February and March last season with long-COVID symptoms before returning for seven games in April.

Still, he did score 15 goals and post 31 points across 53 games with a Chicago team that was in the league's lower echelon, so there remains a significant amount of value from a hockey talent standpoint in addition to leadership presence and postseason experience.

The decision whether Toews is up to putting himself through the rigors of another NHL run is up to him, but there won't be any shortage of title contenders hitting him up for recruiting visits if the 35-year-old ultimately signals that the answer is yes.