Former general manager accuses NHL teams of illegal activity in free agency

During his interview, Smith explained that many general managers and executives told him that tampering is rampant across the league and that it's almost impossible for a player to have everything locked down in terms of a contract on July 1st without some form of tampering happening.

Several examples have popped up including Tyler Bertuzzi who signed a four-year deal with the Blackhawks after receiving a phone call from Blackhawks forward Nick Foligno who told him that general manager Kyle Davidson and his management team are interested in signing him.

This year's free agency market has been insane in terms of how many contracts and how much money has been doled out over the past five days. On day one, 190 contracts were signed which had a total contract amount of $1.214 billion. That is the highest total ever seen in the NHL during unrestricted free agency day.

It's safe to say this is the effect of the flat cap that has gone on for the past several years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the flat cap in the rearview, it's widely expected the NHL will see a steady rise in its cap space which will eventually surpass $100 million.

This has opened the floodgates and teams along with their NHL owners are looking for cost certainty and they're looking to reduce their cap hit over time as they add term to deals.

Source : Blades of Steel