Nicklas Backstrom
Two key members of the Cup-winning Minsk Hussars, and a top-line winger for the runners-up in Bratislava will be the top names available when “Free Agent Frenzy” gets under way Sunday night (or earlier).
The EURO League has advanced and 24 players with OV ratings of 80 or higher will be available on the free agent market. That includes goalie extraordinaire Carey Price and center Nicklas Backstrom of Minsk and winger Tyler Ennis of Bratislava, who felt he was low-balled by an offer from General Manager Chuck Massaro. Stockholm also suffered a gut shot with four big names (Bobby Ryan, Joe Pavelski, Bryan Little and Keith Yandle) leaving to hit the open market.
Here’s a quick glimpse of what to expect in free agency, by position:
Goalie – Price (88 OV) and Kari Lehtonen (85) are who you will be shooting for with Cam Ward (81) as the consolation prize. If there are four teams looking for established netminders, one team will be out of luck, and that’s if you consider Ward to be good enough, because he was released last season and no one picked him up.
Defense – This position is pretty shallow. Kevin Shattenkirk (84) of London is the best of the bunch, with Luke Schenn (81) and Keith Yandle (80) a little behind him. So if you need a top-pairing guy, you better go big and have a backup plan ready.
Center – Backstrom (87) is an elite player capable of lifting any team. In Season 6, he was Player of the Year and he reached the 100-point mark three times. Last year, he was hurt and then demoted to the second line after his fill-in Jordan Staal was too good to move out of the top spot. After Backstrom, Joe Pavelski (82), Patrik Berglund (81) and Sam Gagner (81) are your men. You could become Pavelski’s sixth team in nine seasons. He is 35 now and more like a 70-point player than the 100-point player he was with Madrid early in his career.
Left Wing – Bobby Ryan (84), Brad Marchand( 82) and James Van Riemsdyk (82) all have a lot of life left in their legs and signing them to multi-year deals would make a lot of sense. If you miss on those four, there are four more right behind them in Olivier Roland, Josh Bailey, Artem Anisimov and Josef Vasicek.
Right Wing – There are a lot good right wings looking for good contracts. The best is probably Ennis (86) who left his team despite the fact linemates Jonathan Toews and Alexander Ovechkin both decided to exercise options and play another year in Bratislava. Other high-powered right wings available include Phil Kessel (84) of Berlin, Loui Eriksson (83) of Athens, Blake Wheeler (82) of Madrid, James Neal (82) of Prague and Bryan Little (82) of Stockholm.
Leadership – Almost all of the top free agents have high experience ratings, but Backstrom is the only one with a 100 Leadeship rating. He is captain of the Hussars and Price is an alternate captain. And Backstrom is good every else, too. Like we said, he’s an elite player.
