While the opening of free agency has historically been one of the most important days on the NHL calendar, it's diminished somewhat in recent years. As teams got accustomed to life in a salary cap world, fewer and fewer marquee players have made it to unrestricted free agency and the day has started to lose some of its lustre.
But that trend may not hold this year, thanks to a salary cap that will drop for the first time in history. With cap space harder to come by, some teams have had to make the tough decisions to let players explore free agency. Mix in a handful of victims of compliance buyouts, and the list of available players suddenly doesn't seem so bad.
Here's a look at some of the top players who'll be available to the highest bidder on Friday.
Vincent Lecavalier - Is a player that every NHL owner would love to have chance to meet with in person, in most cases because they'd like to borrow money from him.
Tyler Bozak - Will probably proofread his contract offers very carefully to make sure he avoids any careless mistakes, like looking at a number three and for some reason fooling yourself into thinking it's somehow a number one.
Ilya Bryzgalov - Has spent the last week holed up in his home office loudly yelling about how many years could be available and how high the numbers might go, which is weird because he doesn't have a phone in there and hasn't been told he's a free agent and also his "office" is a castle he made out of lego.
Nathan Horton - Teams are said to be concerned about reports that his recurring dislocated shoulder is such a complete and irredeemable mess that Tyler Seguin recently moved into it.
