Public Skate: NHL Free Agency Begins!

Happy Free Agency Day, folks!

It’s that magical day where your team is in the mix for every big name, no matter how unrealistic.

The magical day where GMs spend tens of millions of dollars like it’s Monopoly money, and they never, ever end up regretting the moves.

Rather than do a separate Morning Skate then an Open Thread at noon, I decided to just create one big Public Skate where you can discuss the day’s happenings.

Let’s all have fun out there!

Free agency officially begins today at noon on the East Coast, but it wouldn’t be shocking to hear destinations for some big names before then.

It came out Tuesday night that Johnny Gaudreau would be declining Calgary’s mega offer and would sign elsewhere, with rumors circulating that he’s heading East (he’s from New Jersey, so).

Evgeni Malkin will hit the market as well, so there should be some excitement over the course of the day.

The Bruins shouldn’t be doing much in terms of shopping today, but it appears that the Patrice Bergeron extension is close to being announced.

In fact, there’s a decent chance that by the time you read this on Wednesday, you already know the answers to stuff mentioned above.

I don’t know, I can’t see the future!

Anyways, enjoy free agency today, and if you’re on Twitter, remember to look for the blue check mark.

Starter discussion topic

Any guesses on where some of the big names go?

Gaudreau to the Devils seems like a good fit, as they’ve got plenty of cap space (though they have a lot of RFAs to take care of too).