No. 1 defencemen, No. 1 centres, No. 1 wingers and No. 1 goalies. Bridge candidates and future superstars that need to be locked up before the big breakout.
The 2025 class of impending restricted free agents offers a little bit of everything enticing.
And while several potential RFAs avoided drama and uncertainty by signing well before July 1 (the Rangers’ Alexis Lafreniere, Dallas’s Jake Oettinger and Wyat Johnston, Minnesota’s Brock Faber, St. Louis’s Jake Neighbours, Utah’s Dylan Guenther chief among them), plenty of intriguing young names remain unsigned for next season.
As these RFAs look to bank off their platform campaigns and managers wonder how to spend their dollars against a spiking salary cap, plenty of tense negotiations (or a couple of trades?) are still on deck.
The situations in Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Anaheim are particularly compelling.
Here’s where things stand with the top 12 RFAs of 2025, as the flurry of trades and signings at the deadline settles.
1. Evan Bouchard
Age on July 1: 25
Position: Defence
2024-25 salary cap hit: $3.9 million
Arbitration rights: Yes
Bargaining chips: Top-10 draft pick. Right shot. Releaser of the Bouch Bomb. Key power-play contributor. Stanley Cup finalist. Followed an 82-point regular season with 32 points in a 25-game playoff run. Holds record for most assists by a D-man in one playoff year (26).
The latest: The Edmonton Oilers haven’t dressed such a productive offensive defenceman since Paul Coffey, and Bouchard’s performance in 2023-24 — particularly come post-season — has set him up to flip his bridge deal into a whopper.
“Nothing on that yet,” GM Stan Bowman told reporters in pre-season. “He’s still a very big priority for our team, he had a fantastic season, he’s a great player, and I think his best years are still ahead of him. We’ll probably get to that at some point.”
Bouchard’s pricy extension took a back seat to that of Leon Draisaitl’s over the off-season, and Connor McDavid’s raise lies around the corner.
Bowman knows he must squeeze in another superstar salary on the back end (somewhere in the $10-million range?) for Bouchard, which is partly why St. Louis’s offer sheets for Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway were successful.
Because Bouchard has his defensive lapses, however, the idea of committing eight figures and locking him up long-term has divided the fan base.
“Bouch does get a lot of criticism — I think a lot unfairly so,” Bowman told Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli on Feb. 26. “He’s a great player. He really is a big part of our team. He’s very effective, and I think sometimes when… your mistakes get spotlighted, for whatever reason, then maybe there’s more attention given to it.
“But he’s played well. He’s very good at complementing our best players. That’s an important role. When you got really creative offensive players who are forwards, you need to have someone who can help them score.”
Bouchard won’t hit 80 points this season, 60 is more reasonable at this point.
Does that keep his asking price down a tad?
2. Luke Hughes
Age on July 1: 21
Position: Defence
2024-25 salary cap hit: $925,000
Arbitration rights: No
Bargaining chips: Fourth-overall draft pick. Legit hockey family. World junior medallist. Already repped Team USA twice at world championships. Calder finalist. Named to 2024 NHL All-Rookie Team. EA Sports coverboy. Impressive 47-point rookie campaign and instant top-four D-man in the pros.
The latest: After hiring a new coach and making a ton of UFA noise in the summer of ’24, New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald’s top priority is now clear: Get Hughes locked up for a team-friendly rate.
The Devils did just that with Hughes’ older brother, Jack, and a great long-term comparable for Luke emerged when fellow 2024 Calder Trophy finalist Brock Faber re-upped in Minnesota for eight years at $8.5 million per season.
Such a deal would elevate Luke’s salary over Jack’s $8 million, which is excellent value.
Luke underwent off-season shoulder surgery, missing the first few weeks of his platform campaign, but rebounded strong and has stepped up down the stretch with injuries to Dougie Hamilton and Jonas Siegenthaler.
Fitzgerald said he would begin negotiating with Hughes’s agent in January, but concrete updates have been scarce.
Bridging the young defenceman at, say, $5.1 million per season, could save money now but set the Devils up for a monster bill when Hughes approaches UFA status and the salary cap has gone through the roof.
The smart money says buy big now.
3. Noah Dobson
Age on July 1: 25
Position: Defence
2024-25 salary cap hit: $4 million
Arbitration rights: Yes
Bargaining chips: Right-shot blueliner with tremendous vision. Top-12 draft pick. One of two Islanders defencemen to record 60 assists in a single season. First Isles D-man to hit 70 points since Denis Potvin. Logged 24:30 per night in 2023-24, tops among all pending RFAs. Seldom takes penalties.
The latest: General manager Lou Lamoriello got ahead of his most important RFAs, forward Mathew Barzal and goaltender Ilya Sorokin, in off-seasons past. But Dobson has entered 2024-25, the final year of his bridge pact, with uncertainty in the air.
The aging Islanders can ill afford not to invest in young talent.
“He’s growing every year,” Lamoriello said of his power-play QB. “And I think that there’s no ceiling to his potential.
“Every year that you have success, certainly you get recognized a little bit more and you get a little more attention. But there’s no question that the sky is the limit.”
Hampered by injury and struggling at both ends of the ice compared to last season, Dobson’s production has been chopped in half. This is a disappointing season for all involved.
Dobson switched agents, from Andrew Maloney to Wasserman’s Judd Moldaver and Olivier Fortier, ahead of this critical negotiation.
Another cautious bridge deal, and the Isles could walk a top-four right shot straight to UFA.
Should Lamoriello go long-term here, the player could be pushing for an eight-year deal nearing $8 million per season. Dobson should soon become the highest-paid player on the team’s back end.
4. Gabriel Vilardi
Age on July 1: 25
Position: Centre / Right wing
2024-25 salary cap hit: $3.44 million
Arbitration rights: Yes
Bargaining chips: First-round pick. 2021 IIHF world champion with Team Canada. Traded a significant asset to obtain him. Three straight 20-goal seasons. Integral player in Presidents’ Trophy bid. Enjoying career season.
The latest: A major reason why trading Pierre-Luc Dubois to L.A. a couple of years back looks so good on GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, the versatile Vilardi has flourished as a Winnipeg Jet.
Not only has the forward grown from a third-liner to a top-six staple but he has become one of the more dangerous power-play threats in the league.
Another two-year bridge deal would walk Vilardi straight to free agency, so we suspect Cheveldayoff will aim for term here. The fit with core forwards Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor has been fantastic.
Cheveldayoff keeps his cards close to the vest, but when he was asked about doling out big raises for impending UFAs Nikolaj Ehlers and Neal Pionk, the executive said that he needs to sort out extensions for his younger RFAs.
Reading the tea leaves, we’d say the odds of Vilardi getting his money in Winnipeg are greater than Ehlers’.
5. Matthew Knies
Age on July 1: 22
Position: Left wing
2024-25 salary cap hit: $925,000
Arbitration rights: No
Bargaining chips: Top-line power forward who skates on both special teams. Meshes well with superstars Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. Biggest player on the Maple Leafs. Strong playoff showing. Easily crushing career highs in goals, points and minutes. Net-front presence. Fights own battles. Olympian.
The latest: So much for the sophomore slump.
Knies packed on 10 pounds over the summer, then got shot out of cannon. The second-year pro instantly gained trust (and ice time) from new Toronto coach Craig Berube and has been one of the Leafs’ best stories of 2024-25.
“He’s a beast,” confirms fellow Arizonan Auston Matthews.
Berube has gone so far as to compare Knies to power forwards like Keith Tkachuk, Bill Guerin and John Leclair — comments GM Brad Treliving hopes Knies’ agent didn’t catch wind of.
In speaking with Knies, he has made it clear that he loves being a Maple Leaf and has no thoughts of leaving Toronto.
He has politely declined to publicly discuss the state of extension talks, but there is no doubt Treliving wants to keep him in the fold, rebuffing rival GMs’ trade interest at the deadline.
“Matthew is just realizing how big and strong he is, and he’s getting more comfortable,” Treliving said of his top-line left wing on March 7. “He’s sort of grown right in front of our eyes. So, he’s a big part of our team now (and will) continue to be moving forward. And he’s a unique player. You know, that’s a big, strong man at 22 years old.”
Of course, the Leafs have monster decisions to make on UFAs Marner and John Tavares, but with the cap and Knies’s stock both on the rise, we can’t see a good reason not to lock him up for as long as possible.
6. JJ Peterka
Age on July 1: 23
Position: Centre
2024-25 salary cap hit: $855,833
Arbitration rights: No
Bargaining chips: 2022 AHL All-Rookie Team. Silver medallist and Best Forward at 2023 world championships. Superb skater. Sniper. Career-high 28 goals and 50 points in 2023-24.
The latest: In the case of multiple RFAs who have shown early promise — Tage Thompson, Dylan Cozens, Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Mattias Samuelson — Buffalo Sabres GM Kevyn Adams has tried to get ahead of a breakout by locking up his young players for major term.
A scorer in the ballpark of Guenther’s capabilities, Peterka — one of the great bargain deals of 2023-24 — could be looking for an AAV north of $7 million should Adams wish to buy UFA years.
Failing that, a bridge deal would be the easier route.
Adams maintains that he is philosophically open to buying term, betting that the AAV would benefit the team against a rising cap.
“We’re always open. We’ve done it before, but we’ve also gone the other way,” the executive said, cautiously. “It’s always about what’s right for us and what’s right for the player.”
Despite a flurry of trade deadline rumours, Adams’ stated goal is to sign Peterka to an extension at season’s end. He plans to talk to Peterka’s agent, Allan Walsh, soon.
“Zero, zero truth to that, anything around JJ in terms of looking to move him or any of that stuff,” Adams said. “We’ll get to his agent immediately, say, ‘OK, where do we go from here?’
“He’s one our core young guys. We need him to continue to get better, and we need to make sure that we’re also explaining to him how we’re going to make the team better.”
Peterka has already eclipsed his previous season high in points (50) and is doing himself a favour by tracking back-to-back 20-goal showings on a talent-starved team with cap space to spare.
7. K’Andre Miller
Age on July 1: 25
Position: Defence
2024-25 salary cap hit: $3.872 million
Arbitration rights: Yes
Bargaining chips: First-round pick. World junior silver medallist. NHL All-Rookie Team. Durable. Great size and reach at six-foot-five, 210 pounds. Productive despite limited power-play time. More than 40games of playoff experience already. Excellent skater.
The latest: Big, strong, smart blueliners in their prime are essentially must-keeps.
So, while the New York Rangers were quick to re-sign power forward Lafreniere, elite goaltender Igor Shesterkin, and newly acquired defenceman Will Borgen, locking up Miller before he wraps his bridge contract should be imperative.
All these raises add up, and Miller has (so far) survived the Rangers’ in-season salary purge that has seen Jacob Trouba, Kaapo Kakko, Ryan Lindgren, Reilly Smith, and Jimmy Vesey sent packing.
GM Chris Drury will be staring at a $4.65-million qualifying offer to retain Miller’s rights this summer; a long-term deal should push Miller’s AAV into the $6 million–to–$6.5 million range.
New York still holds a couple years of club control here, so Miller’s file has taken a back seat. That he survived the deadline bodes well for an extension, though.
“We’re just looking for the best players we could,” Drury said on March 7, regarding his defence corps.
“We knew we wanted to make some changes as this season got underway. Just the best pieces we could possibly find. There’s certainly some size back there now, which is always nice. But you’ve got to be able to move, you’ve got to be able to move a puck, you’ve got to be able to play in a lot of different scenarios over the course of an NHL season. We think we have a lot of D back there that can do that.”
8. Lukas Dostal
Age on July 1: 25
Position: Goaltender
2024-25 salary cap hit: $812,500
Arbitration rights: Yes
Bargaining chips: Gold (2024) and bronze (2022) medallist at world championships. Crowed Best Goaltender at ’24 worlds. AHL All-Star. Clear successor to John Gibson as Anaheim’s No. 1 goalie. Fantastic traditional and underlying stats despite playing behind a subpar team of skaters. Ducks sure can use saves.
The latest: With Gibson sidelined by an appendectomy to begin 2024-25, Dostal happily carried the workload in Orange County and began performing among the league’s elite at his position.
Dostal’s strong track record has met opportunity at the perfect time, and the goalie is putting himself in line for a massive payday.
GM Pat Verbeek was in no panic to extend Dostal before the season began, but the way the goaltender is performing, the executive may wish for a time machine.
“We’ll take our time on that,” Verbeek stated at the start of training camp when asked about extensions for his pending RFAs. “We haven’t really started thinking about that yet, but we’ll lay a plan out for when we’ll start talking about all that stuff. To me, that’s far down the road.”
Verbeek has yet to extend any of his RFAs in-season, but if there is a candidate to break that trend, it should be Dostal.
That Gibson’s salary could still get moved this summer — the Ville Husso trade feels like foreshadowing — only clears more space for a significant commitment to Dostal.
9. Marco Rossi
Age on July 1: 23
Position: Centre
2024-25 salary cap hit: $883,334
Arbitration rights: No
Bargaining chips: Top-10 draft pick. Ontario Hockey League MVP. Austrian national team captain. Put up 21 goals and 40 points in first full NHL season. 2024 NHL All-Rookie Team. Can never have enough skilled centres.
The latest: Sure, Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin will soon be squirming out from the weight of the Ryan Suter and Zach Parise buyout payments, but only to face requests for significant pay bumps from integral forwards.
While Rossi’s raise is a priority, Guerin’s cap planning must begin with locking in team MVP, Kirill Kaprizov, to an eight-figure deal. Kaprizov is eligible to re-sign as early as July 1, but knowing his number will help inform how Minnesota allots the rest of its dollars.
The longer Guerin waits to negotiate with Rossi’s agent, Ian Pulver, however, the more Rossi — already on pace for a career high in points — should ask for.
In light of Minnesota’s tight budget and other centre prospects coming (Danila Yurov, Riely Heidt), things could get tricky here.
The best route is likely a short-term, kick-the-issue-down-the-road solution. Think something along the lines of Cole Perfetti’s two-year, $6.5-million extension in Winnipeg.
Rossi says he “100 per cent” wishes to stay in Minnesota.
Guerin denied any thoughts of trading Rossi to The Athletic in late December. He also said there is “no rush at all” to re-sign the improving asset.
“I’m very happy with Marco. Oh, my God, yeah,” Guerin said. “Just his pace of play, his engagement every night, he has been one of our best players. I think the biggest thing, too — and I know this is the hardest thing for young players — is his consistency.
“He’s one of our better net-front presence guys. And he’s not the biggest guy, but he stands in there and that’s why he’s getting rewarded. All his goals are from 10 feet and less. He’s doing all the right stuff.”
10. Dmitri Voronkov
Age on July 1: 24
Position: Centre
2024-25 salary cap hit: $925,000
Arbitration rights: Yes
Bargaining chips: Silver medallist at world juniors and Olympic Games. Star player for Ak Bars Kazan in run to 2023 Gagarin Cup final. Seamless transition to North American game. Already set career highs in goals, assists, points, and plus/minus. Time as No. 1 centre on team in playoff race.
The latest: Voronkov has been a wonderful success story on a Columbus Blue Jackets team brimming with them.
The fourth-round pick has made an immediate impact since flying across the Atlantic after developing his game for four seasons in the KHL and has already hit the 20-goal and 40-point plateaus.
Asked to spotlight an under-the-radar player who has impressed him, GM Don Waddell pointed to his centreman.
“Well, I think Dmitri Voronkov has really taken a step forward. He’s a big guy. For a big guy, he’s got great hands. He goes to the net. He knows where to be,” Waddell told The Hockey Writers.
Colombus is flush with cap space, and Voronkov is the perfect age to grow with Waddell’s emerging core. He’s getting a top-six opportunity.
We see no reason why both sides won’t wish to extend the relationship here.
11. Mason McTavish
Age on July 1: 22
Position: Centre
2024-25 salary cap hit: $894,167
Arbitration rights: No
Bargaining chips: Third-overall draft pick. Olympian. 2022 world junior gold medallist, MVP, and author of the “McTavish Miracle.” Three straight 40-point seasons in the NHL. Key piece of Anaheim Ducks future.
The latest: The seven-year, $49-million contract Pat Verbeek issued young RFA centre Troy Terry in 2023 might tell us something about the type of deal the Ducks GM may wish to strike with McTavish, the next young stud centre on his to-do list.
The Terry deal took time to come together, however, and Verbeek’s other high-profile forward, Trevor Zegras, settled for less money and less term.
The executive has cap space to play with but is mindful of the number of players he’ll have knocking at his door for raises. He has a track record of patience, playing out situations where he holds the hammer.
That McTavish hasn’t earned arb rights hurts. That he has improved defensively while remaining an offensive threat helps.
“It’s on the radar,” Verbeek stated when asked about potential extensions for players whose contracts will expire next summer. “We go through our process with the timing of it all. It’ll certainly be something that we look at.”
A comparable for McTavish’s next contract could be Quinton Byfield’s recent five-year extension in Los Angeles, which carries a $6.25-million AAV.
12. Fabian Zetterlund
Age on July 1: 25
Position: Left wing
2024-25 salary cap hit: $1.45 million
Arbitration rights: Yes
Bargaining chips: World junior silver medallist. 2024 world championship medallist. Ripped 24 goals and added 20 assists in 2023-24, his first full NHL campaign. Can deadlift 600 pounds.
The latest: San Jose Sharks general manager Mike Grier didn’t appear to have a re-signing priority higher than Zetterlund, who entered the final season of his bridge pact as his club’s most prolific finisher.
Because Grier has shed so much salary in (a successful) attempt to win the draft lottery and stock up on young talent, cap space is of little concern in Silicon Valley. And there was no obvious reason to avoid a long-term deal with the sniper, who struck a tight friendship with teammate William Eklund.
Which is why Zetterlund’s deadline-day trade to the surging Ottawa Senators caught many of us by surprise.
The Sens have decisions to make on UFAs like Claude Giroux and Anton Forsberg, but one must assume they acquired Zetterlund to keep him. A strong playoff showing will go a long way for the player’s leverage.
More notable pending RFAs: Ryan McLeod, Philipp Kurashev, Morgan Frost, Joel Hofer, Will Cuylle, Connor Zary, Devon Levi, Daniil Tarasov, Mason Lohrei, Tyson Foerster, Cameron York, Bowen Byram, Morgan Geekie, Luke Evangelista, Alexander Holtz, Simon Holmstrom, Alex Laferriere, Hendrix Lapierre, Kaapo Kakko, Jack McBain, Jack Quinn, Adam Boqvist, Nick Robertson, Alexander Romanov, Pontus Holmberg
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