Frost, Zacha lead an NHL center market that is thinner than ever
It’s shaping up to be yet another seller’s market for centers in the NHL this season.
Save for Dylan Larkin, whose fragmented market is more a consequence of the Detroit Red Wings‘ long-term dysfunction than anything else, the pool of available centers is thinner than Dickensian gruel. Virtually every prominent pivot across the league is either locked up already or almost certainly will be soon — but at the same time, contenders from coast to coast continue to search for more help down the middle.
True star centers only become available once in a blue moon, which is why there’s always such a flurry of activity around secondary (or even tertiary) options. Just look at the 2025-26 Trade Deadline, where Jason Dickinson and Nicolas Roy both fetched their teams first-round draft picks — as did a 35-year-old Nazem Kadri.
When centers hold this much intrinsic value, why would a team ever allow theirs to hit the open market? Just this week, the Vegas Golden Knights acted nine months in advance to prevent oft-injured middleman William Karlsson from testing free agency in 2027. Many of the pre-emptive RFA deals we saw in this summer’s youth spending frenzy were handed out to burgeoning centers, such as Fraser Minten, Noah Ostlund, and, of course, Macklin Celebrini. In the modern NHL, teams aren’t taking any chances when it comes time to pay their key guys, and centers play the most important position of any skater.
What all of this means is that the very few centers who do become available in free agency tend to sign for windfalls beyond their wildest dreams, particularly given the limitations that led their previous teams to move on from them. Case in point: The top centers up for grabs in the 2026 UFA period were 33-year-old checker Boone Jenner, 32-year-old checker Scott Laughton, 32-year-old checker Colton Sissons, and 31-year-old checker Alex Kerfoot. Notice a theme?
The scarcity prompted two teams to tender offer sheets to young centers this summer, and while it wasn’t too surprising to see Leo Carlsson command significant interest (albeit at a higher number than anyone expected), it’s a testament to how desperate teams are becoming that even Barrett Hayton, a 26-year-old coming off a 25-point season, garnered a one-year, $4.775 million offer from the New Jersey Devils — an offer the Utah Mammoth decided to match instead of taking a second-round pick as compensation. A pick could be anything, but a center’s a center.
As the 2026-27 season begins, there are only two centers currently scheduled to become unrestricted free agents next summer who a) scored at least 20 goals last year and b) are under 30. Can you name them? We’ll give you a second.
In the meantime, here are some of the other natural centers on expiring contracts, with their ages as of Oct. 1, 2026 in parentheses: Sidney Crosby (39), Ryan O’Reilly (35), Evgeni Malkin (40), Tyler Seguin (34), Phillip Danault (33), Andrew Copp (32), Evan Rodrigues (33), Pius Suter (30), Ryan Hartman (32), Cody Glass (27), Nicolas Roy (29), Ross Colton (30), Nic Dowd (36), and Kirby Dach (25). It’s a list populated by a handful of fading stars in their mid-to-late 30s, followed by a collection of bottom-six forwards of various ages. These days, some of them spend less time at center than on the wing. Virtually everyone listed will be highly coveted on the open market, but only because expansion and the ever-rising salary cap have made it next to impossible to acquire anyone better.
Back to the question posed above. (We’ve made it easier for you by spoiling the answers in the headline). The two centers listed below are among the top options available by default in one of the most depleted markets in recent memory, and there’s no guarantee either will still be available by the Trade Deadline, let alone July 1, 2027. Let’s dig into it.
Morgan Frost
One of the youngest players slated to hit the UFA market without an extension over the next nine months, Frost is coming off a season in which he set a new career high with 22 goals in 82 games as the Calgary Flames‘ second-line center. Now, with Kadri out of his way, Frost will begin the 2026-27 campaign as Calgary’s de facto No. 1 option down the middle. The 27-year-old pivot lined up with talented young wingers Matt Coronato and Matvei Gridin during the Flames’ 2026 training camp and will undoubtedly receive top power-play reps throughout the coming season.
The Flames acquired Frost and Joel Farabee from the Philadelphia Flyers midway through the 2024-25 season in exchange for a relatively meager package of assets: Andrei Kuzmenko, Jakob Pelletier, a 2025 second-round pick, and a 2028 seventh-round pick. Should the Flames choose to trade Frost this season, there’s a decent chance they could get more in return only for him than they paid for both ex-Flyers forwards in the first place. The three-time 40-point scorer plays a flashy, up-tempo game and will likely shatter his previous career-high average TOI of 16:21 in his contract year. Considering his usage and potential linemates, don’t be surprised if Frost pushes for 60 points in his second full season in Calgary.
Unlike most of the players the Flames have sent elsewhere under GM Craig Conroy, Frost is on the younger side and is only just getting his first chance to be a go-to guy in the NHL. The Flames engaged in preliminary contract talks with the likes of Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm before trading them away during the 2023-24 season, and they’ll likely take a similar approach with Frost, who could feasibly continue to be their interim No. 1 center while Cole Reschny, Jack Hextall, and Cullen Potter develop into capable pros. But if Frost’s contract ask doesn’t align with Conroy’s long-term outlook, he could become a highly desirable piece for contenders looking to upgrade on their existing second- or third-line options.
Pavel Zacha
That brings us to Zacha, whose numbers looked awfully Frost-ish (at best) before a 2022 trade from the New Jersey Devils to the Boston Bruins put him on the same power-play unit as David Pastrnak. Since then, Zacha has transformed from a consistent 25-30 point player into someone who has scored at least 47 points in four consecutive seasons, including a career-best 30-goal, 65-point campaign in 2025-26. He’s not particularly fleet of foot, but as a 6-foot-4 center who was drafted sixth overall in 2015, Zacha will have no shortage of suitors over the next nine months — including the Bruins.
As opposed to the Flames, who are virtually guaranteed to finish near the bottom of the league standings in 2026-27, the Bruins are coming off a 100-point season and have a ton of money committed to Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, Jeremy Swayman, JJ Peterka, and Elias Lindholm. Among the NHL’s 2026 playoff clubs, the Bruins were already among the thinnest down the middle, and they can ill afford to lose a player of Zacha’s pedigree with a relatively barren group of forward prospects (with apologies to James Hagens and Dean Letourneau). If the Bruins want to keep Zacha around, they should be able to meet his asking price.
But what if things go south again for the Bruins this year, as they did in 2024-25? Between Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov, Tanner Jeannot, and Will Borgen, the Bruins already have a lot of money allocated for the foreseeable future to middle-of-the-lineup players in or entering their 30s. Zacha will turn 30 in April and could feasibly seek double his existing $4.75 million cap hit on his next contract. Depending on what Hagens can accomplish as a rookie with the Bruins this season, Zacha may already be redundant by the Trade Deadline. Both the Bruins and Zacha have expressed a willingness to prolong their mutual relationship, but it speaks volumes that he hasn’t already re-signed with the club. As was the case the last time Zacha was on an expiring deal in Boston, the first few weeks of the season will do a lot to inform how the team and player move forward.
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