The free agent season that begins every year on July 1 can be a high-risk, high-reward situation. For some teams, it marks the date when they acquired the final few key pieces that guided them to Stanley Cup contention; for others, it's the day they locked themselves into a long-term cap prison of their own making.
Hockey analytics can help provide an interesting perspective on which players might be value-priced additions, and which signings may ultimately prove regrettable. By incorporating age, past results, projected cap hit and a player's usage into a statistical model, we have built an All-Value Team and an All-Risk Team composed of the players most likely to find themselves in one category or the other.
Click here for a peak at the methodology used in coming up with the predicted contract and expected value for each player. Let's start off with the All-Value Team: