Every NHL offseason, the biggest contracts get the biggest headlines. But by the time the calendar flips to spring, it’s often the quieter signings, the ones buried halfway down the free agent tracker, that end up paying the biggest dividends.
The 2025 class was no exception. While plenty of attention went to the marquee deals last July, some of the most impactful contracts in the league came from players who generated little fanfare on Day 1 of free agency. Low-risk gambles, bounce-back candidates, and cheap depth signings that turned into significant bargains for their teams. Here are three of them.
Justin Brazeau — Pittsburgh Penguins (2 years, $3MM / $1.5MM AAV)
When Kyle Dubas signed the 6-foot-6, 232-pound winger to a two-year deal at roughly the league minimum, the move drew little attention. Brazeau was coming off a 2024-25 season split between Boston and Minnesota in which he produced 11 goals and 22 points across 76 games. The signing appeared to fit a familiar profile, a depth forward brought in to provide size and fill out the bottom of the lineup.
His production told a different story. In 64 games, Brazeau recorded 17 goals and 34 points, matching his entire prior NHL career goal total (16) across 95 previous games. At a $1.5MM cap hit, he outproduced forwards who were making four times as much.
Daniel Vladař — Philadelphia Flyers (2 years, $6.7MM / $3.35MM AAV)
Of the three signings on this list, Vladař’s drew the most skepticism at the time. The Czech goaltender arrived in Philadelphia following several difficult seasons in Calgary, where he posted a cumulative -23 Goals Saved Above Average, via hocketstats.com. For a Flyers team that had struggled with team save percentage for several years, committing $6.7MM over two years to a goaltender with that trajectory raised questions across the league.
Valdař answered every one of them.
In a career-high 52 games, he posted a 2.42 goals-against average, .906 save percentage, and 13.8 goals saved above expected, per moneypuck.com. Year-over-year, that’s one of the largest single-season goaltending turnarounds in the league. His performance separated him as the Flyers’ true number one goaltender, and Vladař settled into the starter’s role within weeks of the season’s opening. He also earned his first Olympic appearance, winning his debut for Czech Republic.
His playoff performance reinforced the value of the contract. Vladař held Pittsburgh’s third-ranked offense (3.52 goals per game) to four goals on 74 shots over the first three games of their opening-round series, a .946 save percentage. He closed out the series with a 42-save shutout in Game 6, a 1-0 overtime win that gave Philadelphia its first playoff series victory since 2020. It is safe to say Philadelphia has found their starter.
Anthony Mantha — Pittsburgh Penguins (1 year, $2.5MM + bonuses)
Mantha didn’t just bounce back. He produced the best season of his career, and one of the most efficient contracts in the entire league.
The context of the deal made the production all the more notable. Mantha was coming off a 2024-25 season cut short by a torn ACL with Calgary. He was entering his age-31 season and had not produced 50 points in several years. Pittsburgh’s one-year, $2.5MM contract, with up to $2MM in performance bonuses, appeared structured as a reclamation deal, the kind of short-term agreement that often precedes a trade-deadline move.
Instead, through 81 games, Mantha recorded 33 goals, 31 assists, and 64 points, surpassing his previous career highs in both goals (25) and points (48) by significant margins.
Mantha had the most goals among all 2026 pending UFAs, and his cap hit translated to roughly $39k per point which was one of the most efficient rates in the league among forwards not on entry-level contracts.
His production was a central factor in Pittsburgh’s emergence as a playoff team, and he is projected to roughly double his cap hit this summer.
Looking Ahead to 2026
The 2026 free agent market is being written off before it even opens. Connor McDavid, Kirill Kaprizov, and Jack Eichel are gone, all locked up the season. What was once projected to be a historic UFA class has thinned into a market headlined by Alex Tuch, who many beleive will resign with Buffalo, and a handful of aging wingers. The consensus is that there’s nothing left worth chasing.
The consensus said the same thing about Brazeau, Vladař, and Mantha twelve months ago.
Weak top ends are exactly where bargains get found. Last summer’s most valuable contracts came from players nobody was bidding against: reclamation projects, depth signings, and bounce-backs that quietly became some of the best deals in the league. This summer’s market may look bare on July 1, but the lesson from 2025 is clear, the bargains don’t disappear when the stars do. They just get harder to spot.
Mantha had a good year, but boy did he go out like a punk in the playoffs