Ranking the NHL's top 40 free agents of 2026: Connor McDavid, Kirill Kaprizov and more

So, with Nikolaj Ehlers signing with the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday , were close to being through all of the notable free agents of 2025 .

Onto next season? The 2026 class of unrestricted free agents (and restricted free agents) is at this point incredibly star-studded, especially at the top of the group, which includes a handful of the best offensive players in the NHL.

Advertisement As we saw this year, many of these players are likely to extend with the teams theyre with, thinning out who makes it to July 1.

But with the salary cap rising dramatically to $104 million, there is going to be even more money in the system, and it will be incredibly lucrative for any of these top 20 to go to market and field offers.

Honorable mentions: Patrick Kane (Detroit), Mattias Ekholm (Edmonton), Stuart Skinner (Edmonton), Frederik Andersen (Carolina), Mats Zuccarello (Minnesota), Mason Marchment (Seattle), Boone Jenner (Columbus), Claude Giroux (Ottawa), Jordan Eberle (Seattle), Anders Lee (NY Islanders), Patrik Laine (Montreal), Cam Fowler (St.

Louis) The Top 20 Restricted Free Agents One area where the rising cap clearly added pressure to the 2025 free agent class was the RFAs.

Teams were forced to either pay their young players more on their second or third contracts or deal them elsewhere, as evidenced by the Noah Dobson, KAndre Miller and JJ Peterka situations.

(Plus: Bowen Byram at some point, too.) The offer-sheet threat is also more real than ever, after what the Blues did last season, which is helping inflate these deals.

Here are the most significant names set to potentially become RFAs in 2026, as of today.

Again, many of these players will sign extensions between now and this time next year, but this gives you an idea of the work left for GMs of these teams to do.

Honorable mentions: Spencer Knight (Chicago), Pavel Mintyukov (Anaheim), Olen Zellweger (Anaheim), Trevor Zegras (Philadelphia), Cole Sillinger (Columbus), Zack Bolduc (Montreal) For an even more comprehensive list of 2026 UFAs and RFAs, check PuckPedias player dashboard .

(Top photos of Connor McDavid and Kirill Kaprizov: Codie McLachlan and Alex Goodlett / Getty Images).

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