2026 Offseason Contract Projections are Live!

The AFP Analytics 2026 offseason contract projections are now live and available to all! A quick plug: consider subscribing to AFPAnalytics.com ($3/mo or $28.80/yr) to unlock contract projection comparable players, contract projection graphics (example below), contract tax info, Max Stat tables, and Max Stat graphics! And if you haven't already, follow us on X, BlueSky, Threads, and Instagram!

Okay, now that we got the #ad over and done with, we can talk contract projections! First off, we are a couple weeks later this offseason in comparison to 2025. Things took a little longer to get rolling, especially on my end. That is simply due to nine months being right at the end of the NHL season (yes, Max Term Pod listeners, I have a new Sabres' fan over here!). Nothing contract related caused this delay, everything is status quo. Thank you for your patience!

We have our usual contract projection content: pending unrestricted (UFA) and restricted (RFA) free agents, as well as July 1st extension eligible UFA's and RFA's. I believe this worked out to be 695 projected contracts (374 pending, 322 extension), and that does include some restricted free agents having both a long term and short term projection. A reminder, we have a contract for all players who played in at least one game in the 2025-2026 season.

Oh real quick, shout out CapWages.com (provides us contract data and integrates our projections in some cool features!) and NaturalStatTrick.com (provides us statistical data necessary to complete these projections!).

A real quick synopsis on how we do things here. We have a model. But it isn't 100% what you've come to expect when hearing that. It's not simply training a model, hitting run, and taking the results. We look at each player individually, set comparable parameters (age, cap hit percentage range), hit run, get the output of players who statistically are comparable to the player we are running. Then, we apply the eye test. We look at the list of comparable players/contracts and decide who actually does and does not belong as a comp for this player. We do our best to factor in variables that are extremely difficult to quantify. Leadership, locker room presence, potential desire to take less for certain teams/situations, are just a few examples of things we can think of or know that won't necessarily show up in the data. This is part of the reason it may sometimes take us a little bit longer (again, thank you for your patience!).

We are looking to capture what a player's worth is at that point in time based on past performance and what comparable players have been paid. We care about the team/player process of agreeing to a contract and try to provide what we think is fair and if the contract varies, we try to explain why and whether that is justifiable. Just because our projection comes in at a certain number, that does not mean we would necessarily give that contract out. Again, our goal is to capture market value, even if we don't think the contract is advisable.

Quick call out to Flyers' fans - We hope every player lives up to their contract or exceeds it to get a bigger payday in the future! For what we're trying to capture, we truly are not concerned with how a contract ages. That is not part of our assessment. Our contracts are based off past contracts signed by players with similar performance. Then, when we evaluate our projections, we look at the average length and AAV error at the end of the offseason and try to glean insights/learn lessons on what we can improve on in the future.

This is certainly an interesting offseason. If you've been a Max Term Podcast listener, you may have heard Kyle Stich's "Salary Cap Bubble" theory. Essentially, with a cap that's expected to somewhat consistently rise roughly $9M a year, that money has to go somewhere! Well, I think that this offseason could be where we start to see that money get spent in ways that shock us a little bit.

There was one contract recently that was a little surprising. Charlie Coyle signed a six year, six million dollar AAV deal after having a very good season with the Columbus Blue Jackets. AAV wise, that's just about exactly what we were expecting. As far as term... that was a bit of a shock. Coyle is entering his age 34 season, and just became a contract comparable for a lot of veteran players who are looking to receive market value AND term. Now, with the rising cap, maybe this ages fine (at least, that is what Columbus is hoping for). We've been saying it for awhile now, but $6M is going to become third line money very quickly. All of this to ultimately say, some of these projections might give you a little anxiety. That is ok, I already have told Kyle "I would not sign that contract" about 57 times.

I think it is plausible that Columbus wanted to get the player signed and might be thinking the $6M as nothing too crazy in year 4 of the deal, when the cap could be over $140M. There will be players not as good as Coyle that teams use a similar thought process to sign. But I don't want to bang on this drum too much (plus I'm sure we'll talk about this on the Max Term Podcast). So what sticks out about this iteration of projections?

Let's start with the easy one. Macklin Celebrini. Eligible for an extension on July 1st, he can pretty much ask for whatever he wants. We settled on 7 years, $17M AAV, matching Kaprizov as the highest paid player in the sport. Maybe he comes in nowhere near that. Maybe he beats Kaprizov. This cap environment is sure to produce some crazy, unpredictable things.

This years unrestricted free agent class? Well, some players with... elite traits, maybe. Alex Tuch leads the winger group (that's assuming he even makes it to UFA) then some veteran contributors (Anders Lee, Anthony Mantha, Michael Bunting, Mason Marchment... Ovi!?!). The center market is very thin, with Evgeni Malkin, Boone Jenner, and Jason Dickinson being our top 3 projected by AAV. Bobrovsky and Skinner top the UFA goalie market (becoming notoriously thin year after year).

Where is there, at least currently, somewhat of a surplus? Oddly enough, the hard to come by unrestricted right shot defensemen. Rasmus Andersson, Darren Raddysh, John Carlson, Jacob Trouba. Maybe looking a little further down the lineup? John Klingberg, Andrew Peeke, Nick Blankenburg, and Connor Murphy. Some of these names will surely be extended before free agency, but it's a healthy list at this point in time.

I could go on and on talking about random contract projections and how the market is shaping up, but I think I'll leave it here as a quick summary of the process and 2026 landscape. I'll save a lot of the extra discussion for the Max Term Podcast (available on all major listening platforms). You'll hear from us there very soon. Until then, check out and consider our subscription, @ us on social media, tell us we are dumb (or hopefully smart), tell us who you want your team to sign, which player is pricing their way out of town. We love the discussion and conversation this time of year. Enjoy the rest of the postseason, and enjoy the projections!