By Adam Gretz | Last updated Jul 4, 2026 7:32 PM ET
Between February 1998 and August 2024 the NHL only had 10 restricted free agent offer sheets actually get signed. Only two of them were successful in the sense that they were not matched by the team that originally had the rights to the player in question.
It was just never a path anybody really wanted to go down due to the financial cost, the potential draft pick compensation, the fear of retribution from other teams in the form of future offer sheets against your own RFAs, and the harsh reality that nobody wanted to inflate player salaries too soon.
Even if you did find a player that wanted to sign an offer sheet, and a player that was worth giving up the potential draft pick capital for, it was typically matched.
But over the past three years NHL general managers are finally starting to realize restricted free agency is not only a viable strategy, it might also be one of the best options teams can have in finding impact talent.
Why more teams should be getting into the restricted free agent market
We have already seen two offer sheets get signed this past week. The first came when the New Jersey Devils signed Utah Mammoth restricted free agent forward Barrett Hayton to a one-year deal that would require a second-round pick as compensation if it is not matched.
Then on Friday we had the potentially seismic move of the Philadelphia Flyers signing Anaheim Ducks forward Leo Carlsson to a five-year, $90 million offer sheet that will make him the highest paid player per season in the NHL.
If the Ducks do not match it, they Flyers will send their next four first-round draft picks to Anaheim.
Those offer sheets came just two years after the St. Louis Blues successfully pulled off a double offer sheet to get forward Dylan Holloway and defenseman Philip Broberg away from the Edmonton Oilers (a pair of moves that cost them second-and third-round picks).
The Blues successful signings gave them two outstanding young players that have now become a key part of their long-term outlook.
If the Flyers are able to get Carlsson, it would give them a 21-year-old, No. 1 center that can be a cornerstone piece of their rebuild for the next five years.
Is it a potential overpay financially given the player Carlsson is at this stage of his career? Almost certainly. But if you are going to overpay financially, it is better to overpay players at the top of the lineup that you know are going to be star-level players. And Carlsson, at the very least, is that. Financial overpays in a salary cap league become an issue when it happens with players at the bottom of your lineup. The top-tier players are almost always still going to be a good value.
While the four first-round picks is a steep price, they still tend to get overvalued by hockey fans (and teams). Given the team the Flyers have, and would have with Carlsson, those picks are not likely to be in the top half of the draft. They will most likely be in the 14-32 range of the first-round.
Is there value to that? Sure.
Can you find good players there? You can.
But the odds are not in your favor. Once you get out of the top-10 in most draft years you typically only have a 50-50 chance of even getting somebody that becomes an NHL regular, let alone a star.
If Brady Tkachuk is worth three first-round picks in a trade, and if Pavel Dorofeyev, JJ Peterka, Simon Nemec and Mason McTavish are all worth two first-round picks in a trade, then a player of Carlsson’s ability, production, and upside is almost certainly worth four.
Philadelphia would have never been in a position to draft a player of this caliber given where it has finished in the standings, and they are rarely available by trade.
They are almost never available in unrestricted free agency.
If there is an RFA sitting there that their team isn’t signing, and you can convince them to join you, it’s definitely a swing worth taking. Even if it costs a lot.
