Juan Soto and Gleyber Torres each bashed homers as the New York Yankees rolled to a 16-5 trouncing of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Top-pair defencemen and Number 1 goalies. Bridge candidates and budding superstars who need to be locked up ASAP.
The 2024 class of impending restricted free agents offers a little of everything.
And while several potential RFAs avoided the drama and uncertainty by signing well before July 1 (Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson and Filip Hronek chief among them), plenty of intriguing young names remain unsigned for 2024-25.
As these RFAs look to bank off their platform campaigns and managers wonder how to spend their newfound cap space, plenty of tense negotiations (or trades?) are on deck.
The situations in Carolina and Detroit are particularly compelling.
Here’s where things stand with the top 12 RFAs of 2024, with qualifying offers due at the end of June.
1. Jeremy Swayman (Boston)
Age on July 1: 25
Position: Goaltender
2023-24 salary cap hit: $3.475 million
Arbitration rights: Yes
Bargaining chips: World juniors bronze medallist (2018). William Jennings Trophy co-winner (2023). Career save percentage of .919. Three consecutive 20-win seasons. 2024 All-Star Game representative. Big hugger. Playoff stud.
The latest: Despite sharing the Boston Bruins’ crease with pal Linus Ullmark, Swayman played an integral role in the club’s run to the 2023 Presidents’ Trophy and took over as the club’s go-to goalie in the 2024 post-season.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported in early March that Swayman and GM Don Sweeney had begun negotiating his next contract, which should be a biggie now that the goaltender has sparkled during his one-year prove-it pact.
Swayman politely declined comment on the report but did not deny that talks were underway.
The goalie, remember, went through arbitration last summer, where he said he was subjected to “hearing things that a player should never hear” before getting a one-year award.
The inevitable raise for Swayman prompted Boston’s trade of hug buddy Ullmark (locked into a $5 million cap hit) to Ottawa.
The price to keep Swayman happy only jumped with his .933 save percentage in the post-season.
He’s the real deal.
2. Moritz Seider (Detroit)
Age on July 1: 23
Position: Defence
2023-24 salary cap hit: $863,333
Arbitration rights: No
Bargaining chips: Top-six draft pick. Calder Trophy winner (2022). Silver medallist at 2023 world championship. Named to 2021 and 2023 world championship all-star teams. Six-foot-three, 205-pound right-shot horse with edge. Can run a power play and kill a penalty. Led all Red Wings in ice time (22:22). Capable of 50 points while taking on hard matchups. Only NHLer with 200 blocks and 200 hits this season.
The latest: Seldom do rebuilding clubs mess around trying to nickel-and-dime their young stud defencemen.
Consider how swiftly Ottawa locked up Jake Sanderson with an eight-year, $64.4-million extension. Or how Buffalo gave Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power monster offers they couldn’t refuse to secure their prime seasons.
Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman should be willing to ink Seider the maximum term of an eight-year extension and make the German his highest-paid defenceman by a mile.
“He battles hard every game,” Yzerman said after the season ended. “He blocks shots, gets hit, makes plays. We’re asking him to do a lot. He’s got the mental toughness to weather it all.
“As our team gets better around him, Mo’s role might change a little bit. He’ll be used a little bit differently, which I think will allow him to display offensive side of his game.”
How does an AAV around $8.6 million sound?
That would tuck Seider in just below team captain and payroll leader Dylan Larkin ($8.7 million cap hit).
“It’s not a big secret I want to be a Red Wing,” Seider said.
“I’m also confident enough that I could be a good asset for this organization, and that really matters to me. I think then you can talk about numbers, lengths and how long the contract should be, but those two first parts fit well — and they do — then I’m pretty confident we’ve got something done.”
3. Lucas Raymond (Detroit)
Age on July 1: 22
Position: Right wing / Left wing
2023-24 salary cap hit: $925,000
Arbitration rights: No
Bargaining chips: Fourth-overall pick. World junior star twice over for Sweden. Two-time 20-goal, 57-point forward. His age fits well with Red Wings’ trajectory for improvement. Led Detroit in scoring in 2023-24 (72 points) and played all 82 games.
The latest: While Yzerman keeps his plans under lock and key, the Detroit GM’s previous actions may tell us where things may go with Raymond.
When Yzerman signed stud RFA Alex DeBrincat to a four-year contract averaging $7.875 million per season, he suggested a preference for mid-term commitments instead of longer deal — like, say, the seven-year, $49-million whopper Anaheim gave to RFA Troy Terry last summer.
“You’re starting to see more players, at least this off-season, and I think it might be a trend, signing shorter-term contracts, not necessarily going the full seven, eight years,” Yzerman said.
“I’m not sure I have a hard-set philosophy on contracts. There’s risk in every deal. There’s short-term risk you lose control of the player. On the back end, the long-term risk is a lot of things can happen that affect a player’s ability to perform on a long-term deal.
“What is my philosophy? I try to make a deal with the player, try to understand what they’re looking for and what’s important to them, but ultimately, I’m comfortable. I like these mid-term deals.”
Something to keep in mind when talks heat up.
“What I do know is that I love this team,” Raymond said. “I love the city, and I want to be here.”
At his pre-draft availability, Yzerman raised eyebrows when discussing the unsigned Seider and Raymond.
“Ultimately, I can’t force anything. They’ll get done in due time,” the GM said. “I prefer to have them done. But to be quite honest, I don’t anticipate that happening at this stage. And we’ll just work around it and make decisions along the way fully aware … that we will try to get them under contract or plan to get them under contract.”
4. Seth Jarvis (Carolina)
Age on July 1: 22
Position: Right wing
2023-24 salary cap hit: $894,167
Arbitration rights: No
Bargaining chips: First-round pick. Always produces in post-season. Ripped career highs in goals (33), points (67) and plus/minus (plus-23). Hurricanes need his offence. Carolina has gobs of cap space opening for 2024-25.
The latest: The benefits of buying out Patrick Marleau’s Maple Leafs contract are now paying off big-time for the Hurricanes. Jarvis — drafted with the pick Carolina obtained from Toronto to take an aging Marleau’s bad money — is emerging as an impact winger who delivers on the power play and in clutch situations.
While rookie GM Eric Tulsky’s decisions on key UFAs Teuvo Teravainen, Jake Guentzel, Jordan Martinook, Brady Skjei, Brett Pesce and Tony DeAngelo will be more complicated and costly, keeping Jarvis in the fold is a no-brainer.
Because Jarvis is just now emerging from his entry-level deal, the team holds the hammer.
Does Tulsky wish to go bridge?
Or will the Canes bet big that Jarvis could break out and lock him up long-term the way they did with Andrei Svechnikov as he wrapped his ELC?
Cory Lavalette of the North State Journal reported that based on deals regarding similar players, Jarvis’s camp could ask for an eight-year extension with an $8.35 million AAV.
Tulsky has said publicly that he is “not worried about offer sheets” because the Canes have the cap space to match: “It’s not really a route I expect anyone to take.”
5. Thomas Harley (Dallas)
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