The long wait for Nikolaj Ehlers’ free agent decision is over. Ehlers decided to sign with the Carolina Hurricanes, taking the top player available off the market more than 72 hours since the NHL’s signing period began.

NHL free agency has arrived, and that means teams around the league will be looking to make upgrades to their rosters for the 2025-26 season. Many teams have already taken care of business before July 1 by re-signing key players to extensions.

In the regular season, anyway. One of the problems with Ehlers is that he hasn’t been a consistent playoff performer, which makes some sense given his size and being a bit of a perimeter rush threat. To his credit, Ehlers was much stronger during the 2025 playoffs, but it’ll take a lot more than that to prove his doubters wrong.