Patrik Laine and the 2026 NHL Free-Agent Steals Still on the Market

When it comes to top-tier players, or even first-line or top-pairing players, the NHL's unrestricted free agent market has started to become a barren wasteland of talent. Teams have always tried to make sure they keep their best players, and now that the salary cap is on the rise, it is even easier for them to make sure the league's best players stay in place and almost never get to the open market.

It seems like every year we are talking about how weak the latest crop of unrestricted free agents is and how few impact players there are.

This offseason was not only no different but also might have been the worst in years.

Defenseman Darren Raddysh and forward Alex Tuch were the two best players set to reach the open market, and neither one actually made it there as their free agent rights were traded to new teams (The Toronto Maple Leafs for Raddysh; the Washington Capitals for Tuch) and signed to new deals before the free agent signing period even began.

There was a big gap in potential impact talent after that.

As true as that might have been (and still is), there are always some good value signings to be had. 

There are every offseason.

There will be again this offseason.

There still might be a few lurking out there, just waiting to get signed.

So let's take a look at some potential late-summer steals that still might be waiting for a contract.

Patrik Laine, Right Wing

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Patrik Laine is far from a perfect player, and he would certainly come with some risk.

The risks are that he is not going to give you much away from the puck, and that he has struggled to stay on the ice over the past few years. He was limited to just five games during the 2025-26 season, and only 186 games out of a possible 410 regular-season games over the past five seasons.

Not great.

But there is also an upside here that could pay off in a big way, especially if a team could get him to sign a cheap, incentive-laden contract.

Even though he has missed a ton of time over the past few years, he still scores a lot of goals.

Since the start of the 2021-22 season, he has still scored 74 goals in those 186 games, which comes out to a 32.6-goal pace over 82 games.

That's a lot.

He might not drive his own line. He might not be a great all-around player. And there might be some risk. Even so, a team that needs a goal-scorer and some potential power-play help might be wise to roll the dice.

Michael Bunting, Left Wing

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Bunting would not be a huge needle-mover for a team, but that doesn't mean he is without value or that he wouldn't provide something.

Aside from being a pesky player to play against due to his ability and willingness to cause chaos around the net, he also has a use on the power play. How much of a use? Over the past three seasons, there have been 395 forwards who have logged at least 50 minutes of power play time in the NHL.

Bunting's 2.78 goals per 60 minutes on the power play are 27th in the NHL out of that group.

He won't score the prettiest goals.

He won't be somebody you want to throw out there on your top power play unit every time to try and run it.

But as a second-unit forward, or perhaps even as a net-front presence on your top unit, there is a definite role for him. Even this past season, he was 43rd out of 278 forwards in power-play goals per 60 minutes.

Overall, he's a pest of a forward who can chip in 15-20 goals and could probably be had for a low price. There are worse options on the open market.

Vladimir Tarasenko, Right Wing

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The red flags with Tarasenko are that since the start of the 2022-23 season, when he was still a member of the St. Louis Blues, he has played for six different teams in four years, as well as the fact that he's probably not going to offer you much help when the puck is not on his stick.

He's a very one-dimensional player at this point, and one who hasn't really been able to stick with a team for more than a year.

The upside is that he can still produce some offense.

He is coming off a 23-goal, 47-point season for the Minnesota Wild, while also averaging 1.06 goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play. That put him 49th in the entire NHL out of 384 forwards that logged at least 500 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time.

He is going to be 35 years old and, again, has some limitations, but some of the offense is still there, and he is a two-time Stanley Cup winner who has had some moments in the playoffs.

Matt Grzelcyk, Defenseman

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There are not a lot of great defense options still on the open market, but Grzelcyk is one of the more intriguing ones, especially for a team that needs a bottom-pairing, depth defenseman.

He is just one year removed from a 40-point season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and he held his own and produced some solid results on a dreadful Chicago Blackhawks team a year ago.

As bad as the Blackhawks were in 2025-26, they were only outscored by a 45-46 margin with him on the ice, a goal differential that was tops among all Chicago defenders. They also had a 45.6 percent expected goal share, which may not seem great in a vacuum, but was second among Blackhawks defenders, only marginally trailing the 46.1 percent from Connor Murphy.

He has some offense and puck-skills to his game, and as a No. 6 or 7 defenseman, he might be able to provide something to a third-pair.

Connor Ingram, Goaltender

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Goalies are unpredictable. They are volatile. You never really know when one of them is going to completely self-destruct, or when one of them is going to get hot and unexpectedly carry your team.

I wouldn't sign Ingram as a starter, but you could certainly do worse as a cheap backup with some upside to be more.

Outside of one dreadful year with Utah in 2024-25 (a season in which he only appeared in 22 games), Ingram has a track record of being an average, to even slightly above average, NHL goalie.

For example, here are his goals saved above average by year:

• 2022-23: +2.9
• 2023-24: +5.2
• 2024-25: -10.2
• 2025-26: +2.7

Now, his goals saved above expected:

• 2022-23: +3.7
• 2023-24: +8.3
• 2024-25: -11.6
• 2025-26: +1.7

That is four full seasons in the NHL, with three of them at least league average or slightly above. That one year in 2024-25 looks like the extreme outlier.

He might not steal you a lot of games, but chances are he is not going to lose you many games, either, and he might just make the saves you expect him to make. There is value in that in a backup goalie, especially if the price is low.

[Data in this post via Hockey-Reference, Natural Stat Trick and MoneyPuck]