The NHL’s Free-Agent Class Of 2024 Can Cash In On A Salary Cap Surge

Barely a month into the NHL’s new calendar year, it’s hard not to cast an eye toward July 1, 2024.

That’s the day when the league’s salary cap ceiling will take its first significant jump since the summer of 2018, when the fiscal impact of the first season of the Vegas Golden Knights fuelled a larger-than-expected leap from $75 million up to $79.5 million.

With the books finally re-balanced after the players received more than their designated 50 percent share of a smaller-than-normal revenue pie when the impacts of COVID-19 were at their most severe, current estimates suggest an increase of $4 million should be expected in the summer of 2024, followed by a $4.5 million increase in 2025, per CapFriendly.

After two years of no increase followed by two years of just $1 million in growth, the boost is already eagerly anticipated by general managers, players and their agents — all of whom have been planning accordingly.

At the beginning of this month, players who are scheduled to become either restricted or unrestricted free agents next summer became eligible to sign contract extensions with their current teams. There’s no rush, but many of the league’s biggest stars typically re-up promptly, wanting remove the distraction of negotiations before the new season gets underway.

This year, only one big extension was signed on July 1. The New York Islanders inked goaltender Ilya Sorokin to a new eight-year deal which will take effect in 2024, when he’s 28. At that time, he’ll see his cap hit more than double, from his current $4 million to $8.25 million.

Sorokin’s deal is a signpost of a more optimistic economic environment. He’s the first goaltender to sign an eight-year deal since Andrei Vasilevskiy inked his extension with the Tampa Bay Lightning before the pandemic, on July 29, 2019.

Only two other goaltenders are currently on eight-year deals, and neither contract is aging well. Carey Price signed his extension with the Montreal Canadiens in 2017. The 35-year-old spent all of last season on long-term injured reserve with a knee issue and his playing career is likely over, but he still has three years remaining on his contract. With the Anaheim Ducks, John Gibson signed his eight-year extension in 2018. The 30-year-old has four years remaining on his deal and is looking to be moved to a contender as the Ducks embrace their rebuild, but his personal numbers dipped precipitously last year.

Connor Hellebuyck will be hoping that Sorokin’s extension bodes well for his next contract negotiation. The 30-year-old Winnipeg Jets stopper is a three-time Vezina Trophy finalist who won the award as best goaltender in 2020, and has one year left on a contract that carries a cap hit of $6.17 million. He has indicated that he does not plan to re-sign in Winnipeg.

The Jets will look to maximize their return by trading him to a club that will sign him to a long-term extension, as they did when they traded center Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Los Angeles Kings on June 27.

Among top skaters with one year remaining before free agency, Sebastian Aho and the Carolina Hurricanes set the market rate last week, when they inked the first-line center and proven playoff performer to an eight-year deal with a cap hit of $9.75 million a year — a tidy raise from his current $8.46 million.

It’s a little richer than the eight-year deal signed by Timo Meier and the New Jersey Devils in June. That takes effect this fall and carries a cap hit of $8.8 million. It also compares favorably to the eight-year deals that were signed during last season by Bo Horvat with the New York Islanders ($8.5 million) and Dylan Larkin of the Detroit Red Wings ($8.7 million).

Just 26, Aho has already logged the required seven years of service to qualify for unrestricted free agency. Nevertheless, his deal may serve as a benchmark for younger stars who are still restricted free agents. While they don’t yet have the explicit leverage to pick their destination, they can still apply leverage by declining to sign for the long term.

That’s how Matthew Tkachuk got himself to Florida a year ago. Now, Elias Pettersson is shaping up to potentially be a similar case with the Vancouver Canucks.

After posting a career high 102 points last season, the super-skilled Swede is playing out the last year of a contract that carries a cap hit of $7.35 million per season. Turning 25 in November, he’s currently one of the league’s better bargains — and has upside.

Pettersson will still be an RFA at season’s end. But the Canucks will need to qualify him at $8.82 million to retain his rights and if they do, he’ll be eligible for salary arbitration — a one-year award that would then walk him right to unrestricted free agency.

In five seasons, Pettersson has 323 points in 325 games — a scoring pace that exceeds Aho’s 468 points in 520 games. Pettersson’s single-season career high is also 19 points above Aho’s best-to-date 83 points in the 2018-19 season, but Aho comes out on top in postseason production, with 58 points in 63 games. Pettersson has just one career playoff appearance to date, but did put up 18 points in 17 games in the 2020 bubble.

Long story short: Aho’s contract should be a starting point for a long-term deal for Pettersson’s agent, J.P. Barry — even with unrestricted free agency still two years out.

Aho’s new deal also falls short of the eight-year extension signed by Nathan MacKinnon last September. That carries a cap hit of $12.6 million which is the largest in NHL history.

It was widely assumed that Auston Matthews would eclipse that number when he signed his extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs on July 1, with one year remaining on his current deal worth $11.6 million a year. Matthews has said he wants to stay in Toronto, but while the arrival of new GM Brad Treliving after the dismissal of Kyle Dubas in May hasn’t necessarily caused a wholesale change in direction for the Maple Leafs, both sides are going to need to build trust with each other before making any sort of long-term commitment.

Matthews’ teammate, William Nylander, is also set to become an unrestricted free agent in 2024 — a class that also currently includes high-end forwards Mark Scheifele of the Winnipeg Jets, Sam Reinhart of the Florida Panthers and 2023 Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jonathan Marchessault of the Vegas Golden Knights. It will be interesting to see if any of those players are able to sign extensions before the new season begins.

A handful of 2023 UFAs, including Tyler Bertuzzi, Jason Zucker and Vladimir Tarasenko, have opted to sign one-year deals over the last month, in order to improve their chances of cashing in when there’s more money in the system next summer.