CHICAGO, IL - JUNE 08: Brandon Saad #20 of the Chicago Blackhawks celebrates a third period goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning during Game Three of the 2015 NHL Stanley Cup Final at the United Center on June 8, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

By Satchel Price

The Chicago Blackhawks were convinced they would keep Brandon Saad this summer. A restricted free agent with limited bargaining power, Saad was expected to return to the defending Stanley Cup champions after some friendly negotiation. “We’ll get him signed,” general manager Stan Bowman told the Chicago Tribune in May.

Then the team discovered his contract demands, and now Saad is a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets — his move one of several indicating a new trend for the NHL. Top restricted free agents are commanding more money than ever, the bridge deal is dying and teams are still figuring out how to approach this bold new world where a couple good years means it’s time to open up the checkbook.

Saad is one of a few players who entered restricted free agency this summer and left it by opening doors for others going forward. Like Vladimir Tarasenko and Dougie Hamilton, the 22-year-old pushed for an expensive extension from his team coming out of an entry-level contract, and ended up getting it – even if it took leaving town. Each player’s circumstances weren’t the exact same, from on-ice history to contract demands, but it’s clear going forward that teams will have to contend with top restricted free agents pushing their bargaining power to the limit.

That could be significant to teams like the Colorado Avalanche, Calgary Flames, Tampa Bay Lightning and Nashville Predators, who all have top players set to become RFAs in 2016. With the market pushing the money away from aging veterans and toward younger players, even ones with relatively little NHL experience, those teams will have to prepare to pay their young stars like top talent once their bargain entry-level deals expire.

It wasn’t always like this to retain a player like Saad, who is a quality top-line forward but wouldn’t qualify as one of the game’s elite. Huge contracts coming out of entry-level deals used to be reserved for franchise players like Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Toews, while even second-tier stars like Saad usually took less or settled for bridge contracts with the assumption more money was coming in the near future when the player had spent more time in the league and further proven himself.

Now it’s likely that many of next season’s top restricted free agents will continue the trend of pushing for more money earlier on. In a market where Hamilton lands $34.5 million, Saad gets $36 million and Tarasenko bags a massive $60 million, it’s clear players like Nathan MacKinnon, Johnny Gaudreau and Filip Forsberg will have the opportunity to get paid in their early 20s.

The question is which teams will be willing to fork up that kind of money for relatively inexperienced players. The Bruins seemed to play hardball with Hamilton before his trade, reportedly offering $5.5 million annually but refusing to go above that. He eventually signed for $5.75 million per year with Calgary Flames, which begs the question of why Boston let him go over such a minor disagreement.

There are rumors that Hamilton didn’t fit in the Bruins’ locker room, but general manager Don Sweeney denied that’s why he was traded to the Flames. Instead, it was about value. “We were in a position where we felt we would be better-served to move in a different direction,” Sweeney said.

Coach Claude Julien was a bit more candid about Hamilton leaving. “The players and the organization, I guess everybody’s in their right with the way CBA is,” Julien said at the 2015 draft. “As a coach, to be honest with you, I find it very unfortunate that players that have played maybe three years in the league, all of a sudden they’re looking to be up there with the top-paid players.” Julien doesn’t make personnel decisions, but the Bruins seem to have decided that even paying a player of Hamliton’s caliber that much money at age 22 wasn’t aligned with their thinking. It’s looking increasingly like this attitude puts them in the minority.

The Blues had no problem giving Tarasenko a monster raise after just three years in the league. He’s a class above Saad and Hamilton, but the eight-year deal shows a new degree of commitment for that kind of player. In the past, Crosby, Toews and Patrick Kane signed five-year deals out of their entry-level contracts. Tarasenko just inked a deal to be in St. Louis through 2023.

A lot of teams will be faced with hard questions going forward, and as we saw this summer with Saad and Hamilton, there will be times when teams can’t, or won’t, acquiesce to demands that can be met elsewhere. While players technically can only exercise their leverage through offer sheets, it’s clear most teams would rather not deal with the headache.

That means there will be more moments like Saad’s surprising departure from Chicago. This isn’t urgent for most teams, since they’re not paying massive salaries to superstars, but they’ll have to plan with these developments in mind.

For the Lightning, who lost to Chicago in the Stanley Cup Final, next summer looks like a challenge. Steven Stamkos needs to be re-signed, which will cost a fortune, and Alex Killorn, Nikita Kucherov, Cedric Paquette and J.T. Brown will all become RFAs. Tampa Bay already has nearly $48 million committed to 13 players, which isn’t terrible, but the salary cap may need to rise significantly from $71.4 million for the team to be able to re-sign all of those players and fill out the rest of the roster. Kucherov in particular would seem to benefit from the market being set by Saad and Tarasenko.

The Anaheim Ducks, meanwhile, will have seven restricted free agents: defensemen Hampus Lindholm, Simon Despres and Sami Vatanen, goaltenders John Gibson and Frederik Andersen, and forwards Jiri Sekac and Richard Rakell. Expect the team to commit a good deal of money to make sure most of these players are around, and it’ll probably cost a lot more than similar circumstances would’ve produced a few years ago, regardless of salary cap increases.

Colorado is going to pay up to keep MacKinnon, and the same can be said for Gaudreau and Sean Monahan in Calgary. Forsberg and Seth Jones will start eating up a lot more of Nashville’s cap space soon. There are also the Florida Panthers (Aleksander Barkov and Brandon Pirri), Philadelphia Flyers (Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn), Toronto Maple Leafs (Nazem Kadri and Morgan Rielly), New York Rangers (Chris Kreider) and others who could be seeing the effects of an increasingly expensive RFA market. Most players haven’t even needed to pursue offer sheets because they’re getting their money by re-signing.

This is the new paradigm for NHL free agency, where the young RFAs are commanding the big contracts and the aging veterans on the open market are left to fight for the salary cap scraps. No longer do teams want to line up to fork over good money on a five-year contract for an aging veteran like Brooks Orpik when they can use it to guarantee a young player sticks around through his prime. Maybe not every front office is catching onto these trends as quickly as the others, but the direction is clear and doesn’t seem likely to change soon. Other teams will be happy to pay your restricted free agents if you don’t want to, even if the offer sheet threat still has rarely followed through on.

Committing money to young players is becoming popular because it’s good business in a league constrained by the salary cap. Surely some teams will get bit in the process, whether because of injury or unexpected decline, but they’re realizing it’s smarter to bet on the 23-year-old whose best years are ahead of him instead of the 33-year-old who has already lost a step. Maybe some teams won’t accept the demands, either because of salary cap limitations or lack of desire, but it’s clear the leverage for these players is there now. That’s new for the NHL, and we’re already seeing the ripples of this development. For teams like the Lightning, Predators and Ducks, retaining players next year won’t be cheap.

(All salary cap info via General Fanager)

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Satchel Price is a fan of the Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs, and Bears. He’s a freelance writer based in Chicago, Ill., with a background covering sports, culture and technology. Satchel is also managing editor for Second City Hockey and his work has appeared on SB Nation, ESPN.com and Baseball Prospectus. You can follow him on Twitter at @satchelprice.