As the 2024-25 NHL season comes to a close, teams start to look toward building their rosters for the 2025-26 campaign. While top superstar free agent options are potentially making their way to the open market, several depth players could also be intriguing additions for clubs looking for a boost. 

After ranking his Top 50 Free Agents, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli broke down some of the more budget-friendly checkdown options that could entice teams come July 1. 

He joins Tyler Yaremchuk on the Friday edition of Daily Faceoff Live to break it all down. 

Yaremchuk: A little bit of a close on what we talked about yesterday in the big segment, the Top 50 free agents board that you have, and sort of the checkdown options. Last year, you were really high on Matt Roy, who maybe wasn’t quite like a checkdown option, but you were saying he’s one of the more underappreciated players in this class. Have you put your name behind the guy this year?

Seravalli: I look at someone a way further down the lineup player, a bottom-six guy in Nic Dowd, who just continues to produce and thrive in that type of environment. You see him on No. 21 on our board. 

Let’s see what Trent Frederic gets up to in the playoffs for the Edmonton Oilers. He’s expected to make his season debut on Monday as they close out this California swing. Pius Suter is going to be a fascinating free-agent option as well after he hit 20 goals for the first time in his career in a monster season has been asked to play way above his weight class for the Vancouver Canucks with the injuries that they’ve had.

Ryan Donato is another guy who’s a bit further up on the board in the teens. He’s a guy who, again, has had a career year. He and Suter are the ultimate test cases: Do teams believe that they can go out and do it repeatedly, or do they view this as a one-off season for guys who have hundreds of games played in the NHL already?

You can catch the rest of the segment and the full episode right here…

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