NHL RFA buzz: Signings, arbitrations and those pesky offer sheets

We finally got one. After years of threats, teases, rumors and innuendo, the NHL saw an actual offer sheet handed to an actual young star player when the Montreal Canadiens got Carolina Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho to sign one on July 1.

What a thrilling few moments those were, when the hockey world scrambled to comprehend the mechanics of that deal ... until it became quickly apparent that the deal wasn't large enough, and maybe never would have been, to deter the Hurricanes from matching.

"You're never surprised when there's enough chatter that it's going to happen," one NHL general manager recently told ESPN. "But no one wants to be in a position of weakness."

What the Aho contract did,…