from Travis Yost of TSN,

To say the 2020 version of free agency had little precedent is probably an understatement. The ongoing pandemic has really stung at the National Hockey League’s bottom line, and the business uncertainty facing teams around the league has had a substantial chilling effect on the market.

That’s not to say that players and teams aren’t figuring out ways to get deals done – the opposite, in fact, appears to be true.

The player’s perspective is particularly interesting because incentives have started to change. Some players have actively chased job security. Others, perhaps a group more optimistic about the future and willing to bet on themselves, have signed short-term deals to try and catch free agency at another time. We have seen household names like Taylor Hall, Sam Reinhart and Tyson Barrie sign one-year deals, effectively punting on free agency for another year.

On the other side of the table, front offices are starting to feel serious financial squeeze. The cash-poor teams that were already hurting before the stoppage of the 2020-21 regular season have been predictably quiet in the market. But so too have some of the bigger-market teams, those that tend to spend aggressively to the salary cap on an annual basis.

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