Barely a week and a half since the Tampa Bay Lightning became Stanley Cup Champions has the NHL moved forward with their Entry Draft and today is the first day of Free Agency. All unrestricted free agents (UFAs) can go sign with their team of choice, and restricted free agents (RFAs) can be given offer sheets.
The maximum length of contracts that can be given to any player, regardless of whether they’re re-signing with their original club, is seven years, with a maximum cap hit of $16.3 million. It’s impossible that a team is going to sign a max contract in terms of cap hit, but we might see some max term contracts as teams scrounge for every dollar against the cap that they can.