We hear it every year at this time: A top restricted free agent is a prime candidate for an offer sheet.
Occasionally, a team will try to poach an RFA by sending an offer sheet it hopes the player’s club will not match.
Ultimately, the RFA’s team almost always matches. Ten players have been tendered offer sheets since 1997 – none since 2013 when Calgary signed Ryan O’Reilly to a two-year, $10 million offer that Colorado matched.
The only instance where a club declined to match was in 2007, when Anaheim let Dustin Penner go to Edmonton (five years, $21.