2019 RFA Primer

After my UFA primer was posted, there was a request from Eric for a RFA primer so that he could more easily target his poison pill offers.

I figured why the hell not… the league’s going to pay me for it….

So below are the top 10 term offer sheet – meaning able to sign for more than one year – eligible players this off season and the top 5 RFAs that are only eligible for one year offers that teams have left unsigned hoping that some sucker GM will give them a one year sweetheart deal and some cap relief.

Again, these rankings are based on averaging a number of key ratings, while excluding others; i.e. ST since that’s mainly based on how tall a player is.

Here we go:

Top 10 RFA Forwards & Defencemen (Term Offer Sheet Eligible):

Honorable Mentions: John Moore (80 DF), Zach Bogosian (88 DF)

Key Stats:

-          The drop off outside of the 10 players listed is pretty steep so these 10, possibly 12 including Moore and Bogo, players are the only ones this season worth an offer sheet

-          Only 2 players – ROR and Tatar – in this offer sheet class have a SC and PA rating > 80

-          Only 3 players total have both a SC & PA rating > 70

-          Only 1 player – ROR – has a SC, PA, and DF rating > 70

-          There are only 2 other players, Cizikas and Johansson, that have a SC rating > 70 other than ROR and Tatar

-          There are 4 players, ROR, Tatar, Palat, & Krug, with a PA rating of 80 or over and only another 2 with a PA rating between 70 & 79

-          Only 2 defensemen have a PA rating > 70 – Krug (86) & Ellis (70)

-          There are only 5 players with a DF rating > 80; 3 D and 2 F.  Only Cizikas has either a SC or PA rating 70 or above to go along with that high DF rating

Top 5 RFA Forwards & Defencemen (One Year Eligible Only):

Honorable Mentions: William Nylander (78 PA)

Notes:

-          The only goalie that is eligible that might be worth a flier on for a long-term RFA  offer sheet is Jake Allen; but his ratings back-up worthy at best. Anyone going down this road is also hoping that he gets traded somewhere and they give him a shot, because the way that Billington is playing in real life, he won’t start again for St, Louis again any time soon.