While it was always more theoretical than realistic in years past in terms of team building, the world of offer sheets and coveting another team’s restricted free agents has become a lot more realistic in the NHL these days.
And that means it’s more of a possible avenue this summer for rapid retooling for a team like the Boston Bruins than it might have been at any other point in the past. That’s because the St. Louis Blues really opened that door last summer when they raided the salary cap-strapped Edmonton Oilers and signed both Phillip Broberg (two years, $4.58M per year) and Dylan Holloway (two years, $2.29M per year) last August.
In exchange for those two signings, the Blues sent their own second- and third-round picks to the Oilers as offer sheet compensation. Holloway became the Blues second leading goal-scorer behind Jordan Kyrou and Broberg was a top-4 defenseman all season for St. Louis, so it worked out well for the players and for the aggressive Blues.
That could open the door for some interesting Bruins possibilities with the way things are set up with the Black and Gold. They obviously have a ton of salary cap space headed into the offseason and they also own all their own 2026 draft picks required for offer sheet compensation, along with a raft of other picks acquired at the NHL trade deadline when they shipped out Brandon Carlo, Brad Marchand, Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic and Justin Brazeau.
The name most bandied about, at this point, is Maple Leafs left winger Matthew Knies, who at 22 years old has really burst on the scene with 29 goals and 58 points in his second full NHL season. The big-bodied, fast-moving Knies has picked it in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the Leafs as well with five goals and seven points in 10 postseason games.
He’s got speed, ideal size (6-foot-3, 227 pounds) and a little bit of sandpaper to his 200-foot game as well and would be a perfect top-6 winger fit for a Bruins team that’s seen Brad Marchand and Jake DeBrusk depart over the last two years.
MATTHEW KNIES TAKE A BOW pic.twitter.com/nDmnAwvGB3
— Minnesota Men’s Hockey (@GopherHockey) May 6, 2025
Now comes the hard part, the Maple Leafs unfortunately aren’t going to be as pressed up against the cap ceiling as the Oilers were a year ago. They have a big-ticket item in Mitch Marner ($10.903 million), who might be headed to unrestricted free agency, and John Tavares’ $11 million AAV contract is coming off the books after this postseason.
So Toronto will actually have well over $20 million in cap space with the cap ceiling going up to $95 million for the 2025-26 NHL season. One would expect the Leafs will go to great lengths to keep a player like Knies in their plans, and away from a divisional rival that is desperate to claw back into relevance after last season’s mess of a hockey season.
But then again if Marner ends up re-signing in Toronto for a big, big number, that might not leave enough left for a player like Knies expecting a sizeable raise.
If the Bruins really wanted to push the issue, they would probably have to be willing to surrender their first, second and third round picks in compensation for an offer in the $7-9.3 million range, as updated offer sheet compensation was just updated by the NHL.
Offer sheet comp levels for 2025:
— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) May 13, 2025
<$1.54M no comp
$1.54M - 2.34M: 3rd
$2.34M - 4.68M: 2nd
4.68M - 7.02M: 1st, 3rd
7.02M - 9.36M: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
9.36M - 11.7M: 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd
11.7M+: 1st x 4@FriedgeHNIC had these 1st
Check out requirements:https://t.co/Cac7a5LRpE
The end result would be A) getting the player after a heavy investment in terms of assets and money, or B) forcing the Maple Leafs to perhaps overspend a bit for a talented player that looks like he’s just scratching the surface at 22 years old.
One other theory that’s taking hold around the league when it comes to offer sheets and restricted free agents, however, is that teams like the Maple Leafs won’t be the ones getting picked on. Instead, it might be small-market NHL teams that are going to be hard-pressed to spend to the new $95 million salary cap, and simply not having the big budget as the main reason they might not match an offer sheet for one of their RFA players.
That kind of big market/small market dynamic in free agency hasn’t been a thing in the NHL since the salary cap was instituted in the 2005-06 season, but it could start happening again as the cap goes up dramatically all the way to $113.5 million over the next three seasons, with the B’s decidedly in the big market side of things.
What kind of players could be in play if that sort of dynamic plays out in restricted free agency?
6-foot-5 winger Dmitry Voronkov killed the Bruins as a Blue Jackets power forward this past season, and the 24-year-old is RFA after posting 23 goals and 47 points this past season, Gabe Vilardi is an RFA with the Winnipeg Jets after scoring 27 goals as a center this season and Buffalo Sabres forwards JJ Peterka and Ryan McLeod are both RFAs at the same time for a Sabres club that’s going to have to start shelling out real dollars for young players that haven’t won anything at all yet in Buffalo.
It's certainly not a star-studded group, to be sure, and Knies is probably the most intriguing name among them. The other part of that equation is the Bruins keeping their own RFAs while going hunting for others on the market.
On its face, Morgan Geekie would be among the most likely to receive offer sheet attention after breaking out for 33 goals and 57 points this past season.
The good news for the Bruins is that Geekie hasn’t been coy about his desire to return to the Black and Gold and help turn things around, and Don Sweeney has pointed to re-signing the 26-year-old Geekie as a priority.
“I'm going to prepare like I'm going to be at training camp day one and it's not something I'm going to give too much thought about. I'll leave it up to my agent and Don [Sweeney] and Cam [Neely] and just go about my business, and things will play out the way they're going to play out,” said Geekie, who very noticeably took a bigger leadership role with the Bruins toward the end of the season. “I love playing in Boston. My family loves it here. It's one of those things that I really hope works out and we'll just see where it goes.
“I'd love to be here as long as I can. That's definitely a goal. Especially with a family now, being able to be in one spot would be awesome. It's a business at the end of the day, and people are going to have their opinions, and they're going to decide what they want to decide. But if it was up to me, I'd love to stay as long as I can. I can't say enough good things about the organization and the guys and the culture here. Definitely, I would love to stay for as long as I could.”
One would put Geekie’s next contract in the $5-6 million AAV range coming off a deal that was paying him $2 million per season, but again that could be inflated if some other team wanted to come in and slide an offer sheet his way.
It could all make for an interesting offseason if last summer’s offer sheet fireworks with the Blues and Oilers opens the door for more teams to try that route for roster improvement this offseason.