Top 25 2017 NHL Free Agents

 

You may not agree with our rankings, but here is our initial Top 25 2017 NHL free agents list.

In creating this list we took into consideration factors such as players age, position, injury history, likelihood of signing with another team, etc.

Joe Thornton drops a bit because he’s 37-years old, and will likely re-sign with the Sharks before July 1st.

Also factoring into the rankings is how a player may be in 3-4+ years, and not just in 1 or 2 years. A player like Andrei Markov fall down the list a bit because of this. Most free agent deals for the top players are longer than 2 years, hence why we rank this way.

As the season goes on, there will likely be some signings, and we’ll adjust our list according. We’ll also likely adjust based on play of the pending unrestricted free agents.

Top 2017 NHL Free Agents

RK	Player	Team	Pos.	Age	Clauses	Cap Hit
1	Kevin Shattenkirk		D	27		$4,250,000
2	Ben Bishop		G	30	NMC	$5,950,000
3	Alexander Radulov		RW	30		$5,750,000
4	Karl Alzner		D	28	M-NTC	$2,800,000
5	T.J. Oshie		RW	29		$4,175,000
6	Martin Hanzal		C	29	M-NTC	$3,100,000
7	Joe Thornton		C	37	NMC	$6,750,000
8	Dmitry Kulikov		D	26		$4,333,333
9	Michael Stone		D	26		$4,000,000
10	Steve Mason		G	28		$4,100,000
11	Thomas Vanek		LW, RW	32		$2,600,000
12	Nick Bonino		C	28		$1,900,000
13	Patrick Sharp		LW, C	34	M-NTC, NMC	$5,900,000
14	Kris Russell		D	29		$3,100,000
15	Chad Johnson		G	30		$1,700,000
16	Sam Gagner		C, RW	27		$650,000
17	Andrei Markov		D	37	M-NTC	$5,750,000
18	Scott Darling		G	27		$587,500
19	Justin Williams		RW	35		$3,250,000
20	Ryan Miller		G	36	M-NTC	$6,000,000
21	Radim Vrbata		RW	35		$1,000,000
22	Patrik Berglund		C, LW	28	M-NTC	$3,700,000
23	Brian Elliott		G	31		$2,500,000
24	Brian Boyle		C, LW	32		$2,000,000
25	Michael Del Zotto		D	26		$3,875,000

* Contract info and no-trade/no-movement clauses taken from Cap Friendly.