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2010 NHL Free Agency: The Defensemen

With the 2010 NHL Free Agency market set to open on Thursday, we’ll be listing the top unrestricted free agents in all three positions throughout the day. This isn’t the full list of free agents, but it’s a good chunk of them. The defensemen:

Player
Age
Team
09-10 cap hit
Pavel Kubina
33
Atlanta
$5 million
Sergei Gonchar
36
Pittsburgh
$5 million
Kim Johnsson
34
Chicago
$4.85 million
Paul Martin
29
New Jersey
$3.8 million
Derek Morris
31
Phoenix
$3.3 million
Ruslan Sulei
35
Colorado
$3.02 million
Randy Jones
28
Los Angeles
$2.75 million
Joe Corvo
33
Washington
$2.625 million
Anton Volchenkov
28
Ottawa
$2.5 million
Brian Pothier
33
Carolina
$2.5 million
Dan Hamhuis
27
Pittsburgh
$2 million
Shaone Morrison
27
Washington
$1.975 million
Jordan Leopold
29
Pittsburgh
$1.75 million
Carlo Colaiacovo
27
St. Louis
$1.28 million
Zybnek Michalek
27
Phoenix
$1.25 million
Marc-Andre Bergeron
29
Montreal
$750,000
Lukas Krajicek
27
Philadelphia
$700,000
Brett Lebda
28
Detroit
$650,000
Kurtis Foster
28
Tampa Bay
$600,00

Quick analysis:

Not exactly an elite group of defensemen this season, as teams have done a good job of locking up their elite soon-to-be free agents before they hit the open market on Thursday.

What’s left is an okay group of good but not great defensemen, highlighted by the impending free agency of Sergei Gonchar. He’s one of the older defensemen in this group, yet still puts up a high number of points. I doubt he’ll see another $5 million-a-year contract, but he’s going to make some team happy should Pittsburgh fail, or decide not to, keep him.

Paul Martin would certainly seem to be the next best player available, followed by Dan Hamhuis, Anton Volchenkov and perhaps Joe Corvo.

Two names to keep an eye on are Kurtis Foster and Marc-Andre Bergeron. I know that MAB got a bad rap in Montreal, but both he and Foster were the two of the most valuable defensemen in the NHL last season in point production.