The middle of August is typically quiet in the hockey world, especially on a transactions front. Most of the heavy lifting of team building is done and while there are some NHL free agents remaining, many of them will be waiting until closer to training camp for their next contracts.
But we’ll soon see a new group of players hit the free agent market as some teams will be losing the rights to some of their college prospects. These are players that have played out their NCAA eligibility (or at least have gone four years since being drafted) but have not signed an NHL contract. Those teams hold their exclusive rights up to and including Aug. 15. Here’s a listing of those players as well as when they were drafted (round/overall, year).
Arizona
D Michael Karow (5/126, 2017)
Boston
F Jack Becker (7/195/2015)
Carolina
D Tyler Inamoto (5/133, 2017)
Chicago
D Stanislav Demin (4/99, 2018)*
D Josh Ess (7/215, 2017) – signed in France
Colorado
F Tyler Weiss (4/109, 2018)*
Columbus
G Peter Thome (6,155, 2016)
Montreal
F Brett Stapley (7/190, 2018)*
NY Islanders
F Logan Cockerill (7/201, 2017) – signed in Sweden
D Ben Mirageas (3/77, 2017)
Philadelphia
D Jack St. Ivany (4/112, 2018)*
Pittsburgh
D Clayton Phillips (3/93, 2017)
San Jose
G Mike Robinson (3/86, 2015)
Tampa Bay
F Cole Guttman (6/180, 2017)*
F Samuel Walker (7/200, 2017)*
Vegas
F Nicolas Campoli (6/158, 2017)*
F Brandon Kruse (5/135, 2018)
Washington
D Benton Maass (6/182, 2017) – signed with Washington’s farm team
*The player is eligible to return for a bonus fifth season due to the pandemic. ome of those decisions aren’t made public so some of these players might wind up playing another year and remain property of their respective NHL clubs.
Some years, there are some August 15 free agents that generate a lot of interest – Jimmy Vesey and Alexander Kerfoot are somewhat recent examples – but this class doesn’t have anyone like that. However, there are some players that will be intriguing.
Guttman and Stapley are both coming off strong years with Denver that saw them post better than a point per game for the champion Pioneers. Weiss was just shy of the point per game mark with Omaha-Nebraska while Walker had 27 points with Minnesota. As for Karow, he got into 13 games with Dallas’ farm team down the stretch and didn’t look out of place. Those are at least a handful of players that should be receiving some phone calls once they officially hit the open market.
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