NHL free agency: 5 best players still available
By James Reeve
Phil Kessel and Paul Stastny have finally signed with new teams, but there are still plenty of intriguing players remaining in NHL free agency.
Most NHL teams will be satisfied with the rosters they currently have at their disposal, with training camps set to begin very soon, but some teams may still be on the lookout for new faces to compete for roster spots.
There are still a swathe of players available in free agency that could have a positive impact on any team that needs their particular skillset or has a deficiency in their position, and here we take a look at the top five NHL players still available.
5. Jonathan Dahlén
This list starts with a player who had two completely different seasons this past year in former San Jose Sharks winger Jonathan Dahlén.
The Swede was originally selected in the second round (42nd overall) of the 2016 Draft by the Ottawa Senators before being sent to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for Alexandre Burrows, before then being flipped to San Jose for Linus Karlsson in 2019.
The 2021-22 season saw him make his debut in the NHL, after predominantly playing in the Swedish Allsvenskan for Timrå, with whom he guided to promotion to the SHL the season prior.
The first half of the campaign saw Dahlén impress greatly. By January, he had scored eight goals and had 14 points in 28 appearances, on pace for a comfortable 41 points over an 82-game stretch.
The second half of the year saw him struggle through health concerns, being placed in Covid protocol on two occasions, suffering a concussion and other upper-body injuries, and he finished the year with 12 goals and 22 total points in 61 games.
As a restricted free agent, the Sharks opted not to qualify him, allowing him to walk into unrestricted free agency. Given he showed what he could truly be capable of at the NHL level earlier in the season, there are plenty of reasons for teams to give him another chance in the league.
He’s still relatively young at 24 years old and produced at a similar rate to former Anaheim Ducks’ Sam Steel, who has played significantly more games in the NHL, and finding a fit with the right team could see him become quite a steal on a cheap contract.