NHL Twitter Mailbag: Who Was the Most Underrated Free-Agent Signing?

Time to clean out the mailbag again. This week, we have questions about free agency, whether the NHL is more entertaining now than when it was a higher-scoring game and what the best things to do in Toronto are (spoiler alert: the Hockey Hall of Fame is on the list), among others.

Let's get right to it.

Hmm. Hmmmmm. This is tough. It would be much easier for me to come to answers if you'd ask what I thought the most overrated signing would prove to be. Milan Lucic for seven years with the Edmonton Oilers? James Reimer, five years with the Florida Panthers? Loui Eriksson, six years with the Vancouver Canucks? Andrew Ladd, seven years with the New York Islanders? Future buyouts, all.

There was a lot of stupid spending by NHL owners this summer, which will only add to the sad irony when the next lockout happens and they all cry poverty again. It's truly amazing how they always get suckered into these kinds of signings every July 1. I mean, Darren Helm got a five-year, $19.25 million contract to re-sign as a free agent with the Detroit Red Wings. 

Not to pick on Helm specifically, but let's pick on this signing. Helm had 13 goals and 13 assists in 77 games for the Red Wings last season. He's a forward, not a defenseman. Thirteen goals in 77 games. He has 72 goals and 162 points in 443 career games, all with Detroit. He has 21 points in 82 career playoff games. His career high for points in a season is 33 (2014-15). In the last 18 postseason games he's played, he's chipped in one goal to go with a minus-seven. He's 29 years old.

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

How did this guy get any more than a one-year, $1 million deal? Beats me. 

So to find the most underrated signing? Tough duty. Honestly, I spent about an hour going over the list of free-agent signings this summer, and coming up with one guy was brutal. That's why, with not much conviction at all, I'm going to go with the 37-year-old Brian Campbell as the most underrated free-agent signing of 2016. 

The Chicago Blackhawks signed Campbell to a one-year, $1.5 million deal, per General Fanager. He's 37. But this move could be a great one for GM Stan Bowman. Campbell posted 31 points in 82 games for Florida last term, the third straight full season he's played (so he's durable for his age), and he was a plus-31. Thirty-one points is five more than, ahem, Helm got in just five more games. 

Campbell handles the puck a lot. He's had a Corsi percentage higher than 50 every season since 2007-08 (the first one in which the statistic was tabulated), per Hockey-Reference.com. He's a reliable veteran D-man who was had at a very reasonable price. He will give Chicago more of a two-pronged attack from the back end again. 

In an offseason with a lot of batty free-agent signings, Campbell looks like a bargain.

Another tough question. But overall, the game is just played better by its players than it was in yesteryear. No, we don't have the amazing, head-popping individual scoring statistics of players such as Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Brett Hull, Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito. 

But that's because NHL defensemen and goaltenders are, on average, much better than they once were. It's not even close how much faster the D-men are from the old days. The forwards are faster too, but their once-dominant speed advantage over the defense (with exceptions for guys such as Orr and Paul Coffey) has been whittled to almost nothing. 

PETER SOUTHWICK/Associated Press/Associated Press

The forwards don't have the advantage they used to have, so scoring has gone down. And there is much worry about that again. North American sports fans like offense and tend to punish sports in which scoring is rare. Yet I'll submit that the NHL is more fun to watch than the past, even though I'm as sentimental as they get for the "good old days" in just about everything. 

The speed at which the game is played today is just amazing. Go and watch a tape of a game played in the 1970s or '80s, and then watch a tape of any game played this past season, regular season or playoffs. The difference in speed will shock you.

Would it be nice to see more 50-goal scorers again? Yes. Big scorers make for big stars, and the NHL has continued to lack the kind of major, household names since Gretzky, Lemieux and Orr played. In its flight to higher quality across the board, the NHL is ironically starting to suffer from homogenization. So many of the players are equal to each other in overall skill that stratification to superstar status is becoming rarer.

The challenge for offensive players is to get even better than their defensive counterparts. The league may try to artificially engineer some of that again (bigger nets, smaller goalie equipment), but for the NHL to become on the tips of the tongues of everyday sports fans again, the scorers need to find a way to score again.

Too bad you aren't going to a city with much hockey history. Good luck in trying to get your puck on in Hogtown!

But seriously, there is a place called the Hockey Hall of Fame that you and your bud should visit. It's a marvelous place, even though it's located on the bottom floor of a mall, with a food court not far from the entrance. 

Ken Straiton/Associated Press/Associated Press

There are some other things serious hockey fans should do in Toronto. Go to the lobby of the Royal York Hotel and breathe in the history. Many a visiting hockey team, many a hockey trade, many a hockey everything has gone down at least once between the four sides of the hotel. There's a fabulous, old-school bar tucked away in the corner too, and you're almost certain to see someone connected with the NHL enjoying a beverage there should you visit.

The same can be said for the bar of the Westin Harbour Castle hotel. It's a who's who of the sport anytime there's a big hockey event in town, so it will certainly be that way during the World Cup. 

Go visit the old Maple Leaf Gardens too. It's still there, although it is now called the Mattamy Athletic Centre. The Golden Griddle is still right across the street too. When the Maple Leafs played in the building, every NHL player who ever lived ate breakfast there at least once.

Going to a Toronto Blue Jays game at Rogers Centre is a must too. It still has a space-age feel, even though it's been around for a long time. 

Toronto still has a lively media scene too. There are still four daily, very competitive newspapers based there, so make sure to buy them all to catch up on all the latest World Cup hockey news with your Golden Griddle pancakes.

Colorado Avalanche fans have been in a mostly grumpy mood the last few years, and with good reason. The once-dominant club has not been past the second round since 2002 despite plenty of high draft picks in recent years and being owned by the empire of Stan Kroenke, one of the richest men in the world.

As alluded to in the tweet above, whether the Avs are to get back to being real players again in the Western Conference hinges on the play of the team's still-young core of Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon, Gabe Landeskog, Semyon Varlamov, Erik Johnson and Tyson Barrie. All six players make more than $5 million per year, yet none have ever helped the Avs win a single playoff series.

The Avs, according to General Fanager, have less than $1 million in cap room entering this season. So Kroenke can't be accused of being cheap, as has sometimes been the charge. 

If the Avs miss the playoffs again, a lot of people assume coach Patrick Roy will pay for it with his job. But Roy has a lot of power within the organization. He's not just the coach but also the vice president of hockey operations. I don't think the Avs would ever actually fire Roy. I think he'd leave of his own volition first, either moving to another team or taking on another title to stay.

David Zalubowski/Associated Press/Associated Press

Maybe Roy kicks himself upstairs and has a say in naming a new coach. Maybe GM Joe Sakic takes another title too, such as team president. Those are realistic scenarios. It's just too hard to see the team's governor, Josh Kroenke, firing either team legend. They'd probably get a softer landing than that.

The Avs have always been a team that promotes from within, which has occasionally lent to charges of parochialism, but that approach had always worked pretty well before.

Now, though, there is real pressure in Denver. If this team fails to make the playoffs again, real change is likely to occur. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Adrian Dater covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @Adater.