Bertuzzi, Severson, Orlov projected for richest contracts among Top 50 Free Agents

Credit: Tyler Bertuzzi (© Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports)

The Stanley Cup playoffs both giveth and taketh when it comes to money in the pocket of pending free agents.

With a strong showing as Brad Marchand Lite for the Boston Bruins, despite their historic first-round flameout, trade deadline acquisition Tyler Bertuzzi acquitted himself quite well in his first career postseason performance. He climbs from No. 12 all the way to No. 2 on Daily Faceoff’s latest Top 50 free agents ranking.

Michael Bunting went in the opposite direction. With a suspension followed by a healthy scratch, the Toronto forward tumbles from the No. 1 spot down to No. 5.

And now, we’re armed with more data to help support those rankings – which are usually a blend of projected interest level in the player plus total projected dollars earned on the market.

Courtesy of AFP Analytics, whose work is available in the public sphere, we are able to now provide a specific contract projection for each of the players in our Top 50. AFP first began projecting and predicting contracts in 2019. Over the four free agent periods since, Kyle Stich and James Finch have honed their formula to reduce the margin of error significantly. AFP Analytics uses a proprietary code to find comparable players and contracts, factors in both traditional counting and advanced analytics to spit out a prediction, and then manually sharpens their number using the eye test and market trends to come up with a final projection.

Last year, AFP Analytics had a mean absolute error (MAE) of $348,000 on AAVs and an MAE of just 0.61 years on term of the contract. In other words, considering they also projected every RFA contract where there is a high degree of variability, their projections are pretty damn strong and certainly make them one of the leaders in the public space.

In all actuality, some of these projections may be low, as they do not factor in a number of variables, including human emotion during negotiation, current playoff performance, and a minimum ($83.5 million) increase in next season’s salary cap upper limit. Those numbers may change in the coming days and weeks. For now, they are a great baseline to add critical context to an ever-evolving conversation.

Here is Daily Faceoff’s latest Top 50, with projections for every player, courtesy of AFP Analytics:

Daily Faceoff’s Top 50 Pending Free Agents

Rank	Player	Pos	Age	Team	Cap Hit	GP	G	PTS	AFP Projection
1	Damon Severson	RD	28	NJD	$4.17M	81	7	33	6 x $6.1m
2	Tyler Bertuzzi	LW	28	BOS	$4.75M	50	8	30	6 x $5.25m
3	Dmitry Orlov	LD	31	BOS	$5.1M	66	7	36	5 x $6.25m
4	J.T. Compher	C	28	COL	$3.5M	82	17	52	5 x $5.3m
5	Michael Bunting	LW	27	TOR	$950K	82	23	49	5 x $5.25m
6	Ryan Graves	LD	28	NJD	$3.17M	78	8	26	5 x $5.1m
7	Alex Killorn	RW	33	TBL	$4.45M	82	27	64	4 x $5.25m
8	Patrick Kane	RW	34	NYR	$10.5M	73	21	57	3 x $5.75m
9	Ryan O’Reilly	C	32	TOR	$7.5M	53	16	30	3 x $5.5m
10	Vladislav Gavrikov	LD	27	LAK	$2.8M	72	6	19	5 x $4.9m
11	Tristan Jarry	G	28	PIT	$3.5M	47	2.9	.909	4 x $4.8m
12	Jordan Staal	C	34	CAR	$6M	81	17	34	2 x $3.2m
13	Vladimir Tarasenko	RW	31	NYR	$7.5M	69	18	50	3 x $5m
14	Max Pacioretty	LW	34	CAR	$7M	5	3	3	1 x $1.5m
15	Max Domi	C/LW	28	DAL	$3M	80	20	56	5 x $4.75m
16	Ivan Barbashev	LW	27	VGK	$2.25M	82	16	45	4 x $4.2m
17	Scott Mayfield	RD	30	NYI	$1.45M	82	6	24	3 x $3.75m
18	Frederik Andersen	G	33	CAR	$4.5M	34	2.48	.903	2 x $4m
19	Evgenii Dadonov	RW	34	DAL	$5M	73	7	33	1 x $1.9m
20	Connor Brown	RW	29	WSH	$3.6M	4	0	0	4 x $3.3m
21	Carson Soucy	LD	28	SEA	$2.75M	78	3	16	3 x $2.5m
22	Radko Gudas	RD	33	FLA	$2.5M	72	2	17	3 x $3.3m
23	Erik Haula	C/LW	32	NJD	$2.38M	80	14	41	3 x $3.5m
24	Matt Dumba	RD	28	MIN	$6M	79	4	14	3 x $4.4m
25	Adin Hill	G	27	VGK	$2.18M	27	2.50	.915	2 x $3.3m
26	Joonas Korpisalo	G	29	LAK	$1.3M	39	2.87	.914	2 x $2.6m
27	Semyon Varlamov	G	35	NYI	$5M	23	2.70	.913	2 x $2.75m
28	Alex Kerfoot	LW/RW	28	TOR	$3.5M	82	10	32	4 x $3.5m
29	Shayne Gostisbehere	LD	30	CAR	$4.5M	75	13	41	4 x $4.8m
30	Luke Schenn	RD	33	TOR	$850K	70	4	22	1 x $1.6m
31	Garnet Hathaway	RW	31	BOS	$1.5M	84	13	22	4 x $2m
32	Jason Zucker	LW	31	PIT	$5.5M	78	27	48	5 x $5.4m
33	John Klingberg	RD	30	MIN	$7M	67	10	33	3 x $4.6m
34	James van Riemsdyk	LW/RW	34	PHI	$7M	61	12	29	1 x $1.8m
35	Gustav Nyquist	LW	33	MIN	$5.5M	51	11	27	2 x $3.2m
36	Pierre Engvall	RW	27	NYI	$2.25M	76	17	30	4 x $4.1m
37	David Kampf	C	28	TOR	$1.5M	82	7	27	2 x $1.8m
38	Connor Clifton	RD	27	BOS	$1M	78	5	23	2 x $1.75m
39	Evan Rodrigues	C	29	COL	$2M	69	16	39	3 x $3.7m
40	Tomas Tatar	LW	32	NJD	$4.5M	82	20	48	3 x $3.3m
41	Ian Cole	LD	34	TBL	$3M	78	3	17	2 x $2.75m
42	Nick Foligno	C/LW	35	BOS	$3.8M	60	10	26	1 x $1.2m
43	Jesper Fast	RW	31	CAR	$2M	80	10	29	2 x $2.3m
44	Nick Bjugstad	C	30	EDM	$900K	78	17	29	2 x $2.3m
45	Erik Gustafsson	LD	31	TOR	$800K	70	7	42	3 x $3.4m
46	Justin Holl	RD	31	TOR	$2M	80	2	18	3 x $3m
47	Sean Monahan	C	28	MTL	$6.38M	25	6	17	1 x $2m
48	Jonathan Drouin	C/LW	28	MTL	$5.5M	58	2	29	1 x $2m
49	Teddy Blueger	C	28	VGK	$2.2M	63	4	16	2 x $1.1m
50	Corey Perry	RW	38	TBL	$1M	81	12	25	1 x $850k

Projection data courtesy: @AFPAnalytics

Next up: Noel Acciari, Toronto Maple Leafs. Projection: 2 years x $1.5 million.

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Bertuzzi, Severson, Orlov projected for richest contracts among Top 50 Free Agents

Daily Faceoff’s Top 50 Pending Free Agents

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