6 NHL Unrestricted Free Agents Still Available Your Team Should Sign

Boy, that was one heck of an opening day of NHL free agency.

According to Cap Friendly (while we've still got it at least), teams around the league spent more than $1.2 billion to sign nearly 190 players. That's a lot of cash, and the salary cap going up just a bit helped teams find their wallets.

Among those players, almost every possible big target was available. Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, Matt Roy, Nikita Zadorov, Jeff Skinner and Elias Lindholm were among those who committed to new deals in new places.

You could argue all of the high-impact players who were available to start free agency are gone now.

If your favorite team isn't the Nashville Predators or New Jersey Devils, there's a good chance you had a tough day in some way. But fear not, there are a few more players worth keeping an eye on if your team needs help, and we're going to point them out to you.

Will these names make as much of an impact as say Stamkos or Brett Pesce? Probably not, but they could be helpful contributors for any team next season to help them get over their respective humps.

Erik Brännström wasn't qualified by the Ottawa Senators and became an unrestricted free agent.

It was kind of a weird move by the Senators because he's just 24 years old and came over in the Mark Stone trade in February 2019. You'd think they'd want to at least try to get the most out of him just because of that, but they decided it was time to move on.

Fortunately for teams in need of a young, puck-moving defenseman who's capable of handling himself well enough at both ends of the ice, Brännström is there for the taking.

His point scoring hasn't been gaudy. He set a career high with 20 points this season and had a career-high three goals. His advanced numbers aren't bad by any means, but the team struggled and Brännström didn't have a ton of trust from the coaching staff.

The Swede is a very obvious candidate for a fresh start, and now he has the chance to get one in free agency.

Decent choices on the blue line are relatively thin now, which could lead Brännström to landing a new contract relatively quickly...just not on the first day of free agency.

If your team is in need of a more veteran presence and a guy who's seen and done it all and had solid results everywhere, look no further than Nate Schmidt.

The 32-year-old has been in the NHL for 11 seasons, and while he's not a 20-minutes-per-game guy anymore, he's good with the puck and a very quick skater. He's always been great at helping his teammates generate shots and scoring attempts even if his own raw stats haven't reflected that.

Schmidt was just bought out of the final year of his contract with Winnipeg after playing there for the past three seasons. He put up 32 points in his first year, but his scoring has cooled off with 33 points across the past two seasons.

For a team in need of a third pairing defenseman who can help them move its attack along, Schmidt has been really good at that throughout his career. And considering he was just bought out, perhaps the cost to bring him in wouldn't be quite as high.

Does your favorite team need a veteran winger who, at one point in his career, was a monster offensive power in the NHL and has been on two Stanley Cup-winning teams in the past five years? Then, Vladimir Tarasenko is your guy.

The Russian has been a trade deadline-day jewel in each of the past two seasons, which helps obscure the fact that he's put up 75 goals and 187 points in 220 games the past three years with St. Louis, the Rangers, Ottawa and Florida.

He's just two years removed from putting up 34 goals with the Blues, and he had 23 this season split between Ottawa and Florida. He can still play.

Tarasenko is 32 and can provide a lot of offense deeper into a team's lineup and contribute to the power play as well. He's still got a great shot, and he plays with more of an edge now in his older years.

Teams that are Stanley Cup contenders (and have enough salary-cap space to mess around with) could get a huge benefit from signing Tarasenko. He's a respected offensive player and one who can get opposing defenders crossed up on coverage since his presence has to be minded on the ice.

A team in need of a pure goal scorer who's figured things out over the past couple of seasons would be smart to look at Daniel Sprong.

The 27-year-old has always had a great shot, and his offensive instincts are very good. His breakout season with the Seattle Kraken two years ago made him a 20-goal scorer for the first time with 21, and he had a career-high 46 points. He followed that up with 43 points this season with the Detroit Red Wings.

Sprong's usage is highly specialized, which makes him almost a purely offensive player. In Seattle and Detroit, he averaged between 11 and 12 minutes of ice time per game making him a third- or fourth-line player. Using him on the power play to take advantage of his shot and scoring instincts helped him score points in bunches.

Sprong could help any team that has a lot of depth to be able to shelter him in the lineup and deploy him strategically. He could be a player who helps pick up a dormant power play or one that needs a spark down in the lineup.

Jack Roslovic is someone a team in need of a speedy depth player who can defend decently and add a bit of offense to the lineup could benefit from bringing in.

Speed is his biggest selling point, and it's noticeable anytime you watch him play. It was apparent during the Rangers' run to the Eastern Conference Final against Florida and was a reason why they acquired him from Columbus at the trade deadline.

The 27-year-old is a steady player when it comes to point production. The past few seasons, he's been around 0.5 points per game, and he's been a regular 35-to-45-point scorer the last few seasons. Those kinds of numbers, along with his speed and forechecking, make him a bit of an in-between guy.

A team could use him on the third line without issue, or a deep team could have him on its fourth line and use that to create disadvantages against opposing fourth lines. Using him higher than that in the lineup in a pinch is OK, but that may not work out well as a long-term solution.

Roslovic is a solid player and it's clear what you'll get out of him. If your team needs that kind of player, you're in luck.

Sometimes a team needs someone to be a shift disturber. Someone to embrace the slimier parts of the game and be unafraid to be a rat occasionally to give their team a lift. Someone to play physically and deeply upset opposing teams with their mere presence.

That kind of player is Nick Cousins.

The 30-year-old was part of the Florida Panthers' Stanley Cup-winning team. And while he wasn't asked to be an offensive force, he was asked to throw the body, forecheck relentlessly and not be afraid to mix it up when the time called for it.

Players with that kind of edge to their game aren't always celebrated, but a lot of coaches love to have them as long as they're not taking reckless penalties.

The forward can get you 15-20 points a season from the fourth line. He's not always going to escape the long arm of the NHL law, so anyone acquiring him would need to know there's a possibility he'll miss games for misdeeds.

However, chances are that any team looking into signing him is more than well aware of that and understands what it's getting into.