Regarding the top 20 scorers available in FA:
A few interesting candidates pop up on this list. We know Hall is going to cash in with someone and the same is likely for Hoffman, as both will get long-term deals. Since we’re not trying to break the bank wide open, we’ll look a little lower. This is where Craig Smith is interesting. He’s good for about 20 goals per season and when he’s on the ice his team gets a lot of shots off (career 53.6 even strength Corsi).
Yes, Craig Smith please (again, probably not gonna happen, he seems happy in Nashville and has a great role there).
Who Stays, Who Goes
Would you run me out of town for arguing to keep Larsson and Vesey? Don’t pack my bags yet, but finding players of equal or better value than them will be difficult. Larsson ranks out as one of the better players in the potential UFA forward group and Vesey is right there with him. Smith, Spezza, and Toffoli are all about on par with Vesey and you could argue you’d get more offense from Smith and Toffoli than Vesey.
You're casually lumping in Smith and Toffoli with Spezza and Vesey? Ugh... Now I'm watching the analytics community perform mental gymnastics while asking themselves "was Vesey actually good?"
No guys, he wasn't, he was playing very limited minutes in a sheltered role. He's got a positive on ice goal different because Dahlin also got to play in a sheltered role, and a bunch of their on ice minutes overlapped, and Dahlin is awesome. Someone should look at Vesey's analytics when he's not being carried by Dahlin in a sheltered role (hint - they're not good).
He's got a decently active stick and decent IQ (he's very good at anticipating passing lanes). He's not a dynamic skater, he's not physical at all, and he's actually only noticeable 1 out of every 5 games.
Do people just forget what they've watched for 6 months when they open up the spreadsheet?