What a difference seven months can make.
Back in January, Winnipeg Jets defenceman Logan Stanley appeared to be playing his way toward the biggest payday of his NHL career.
Now, with September fast approaching, the 28-year-old remains unsigned.
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And at this point of the NHL offseason, the conversation surrounding unrestricted free agents begins to change. Multi-year contracts are largely replaced by one-year deals, league-minimum offers and, eventually, professional tryouts.
It’s quite the fall from where Stanley’s stock stood midway through last season.
Photo by Matt Krohn/USA Today
In January, NHL insider Chris Johnston reported that Stanley was in position to cash in as an unrestricted free agent with a contract that could be worth $25 million or more. Other reporting at the time suggested a deal could stretch as long as five years and reach $5 million annually.
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It wasn’t necessarily as outlandish then as it may sound right now.
Stanley was in the midst of easily the finest season of his NHL career. After scoring just four goals through his first five seasons, the towering six-foot-seven blueliner suddenly found the back of the net nine times in 2025-26 – bringing fans to their feet at Canada Life Centre by using more than just his fists.
His size had always made him something of a unicorn, but for the first time in his career, Stanley was adding legitimate offensive production to the package.
Through 59 games with Winnipeg, Stanley had nine goals and 21 points, both career highs. He was averaging more than 17 minutes per game and had become a regular on the Jets’ blueline.
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For a pending unrestricted free agent in a relatively thin defensive market, the timing couldn’t have been much better. But most who had followed the Jets for some time knew better. Kevin Cheveldayoff sure did. Winnipeg opted to sell high at the deadline.
With the Jets out of the playoff picture, Chevy sent Stanley and veteran Luke Schenn to the Buffalo Sabres at the trade deadline in exchange for forward Isak Rosén, defenceman Jacob Bryson, a 2027 second-round pick and a conditional fourth-round selection in 2026 – what a haul!
The Jets also separately sent Tanner Pearson to Buffalo for a seventh-round pick.
Three pending Winnipeg unrestricted free agents headed to a Sabres team preparing for the postseason for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Five months later, the deadline dealings look awfully good from the Jets’ perspective.
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Stanley’s offensive surge didn’t follow him to Buffalo.
He went goalless in 17 regular-season games with the Sabres, recording five assists while primarily serving in a third-pairing role. His final totals: nine goals, 17 assists and 26 points in 76 games still represented career highs across the board, but the momentum he’d built in Winnipeg had slowed considerably.
Then came the playoffs. Stanley initially remained in Buffalo’s lineup, but appeared in just eight of the Sabres’ 13 postseason games.
By Game 5 of Buffalo’s second-round series against the Montreal Canadiens, with the series tied at two games apiece, Stanley was a healthy scratch. So was Pearson.
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Schenn, meanwhile, had dressed for just four regular-season games after the trade before eventually working his way into Buffalo’s playoff lineup.
For three veterans acquired from Winnipeg to bolster a playoff push, none became an indispensable piece for the Sabres.
For Stanley specifically, it was a difficult way to enter what was supposed to be the most lucrative summer of his career.
July 1 came and went. Then the first week of free agency. Then the first month. Now, officially seven weeks into free agency, Stanley remains without a contract.
It’s a remarkable development for a player who was once projected to potentially command upwards of $25 million on the open market. There are still reasons to believe Stanley can help an NHL team.
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He’s only 28. He’s six-foot-seven and 231 pounds. He’s physical, can kill penalties and just demonstrated that there may be more offensive upside in his game than previously thought. Those players generally find work.
But Stanley’s continued availability also suggests NHL teams may have viewed his breakout season with considerably more caution than anticipated.
Nine goals certainly jumped off the page, but Stanley had never scored more than one in an NHL season prior to 2025-26. His foot speed and defensive limitations have long been points of criticism and his reduced role in Buffalo – culminating in healthy scratches during the postseason – didn’t exactly provide the strongest final audition before free agency.
Whatever market Stanley and his representatives envisioned earlier in the year clearly hasn’t materialized. And the longer he remains unsigned, the fewer options remain.
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By mid-August, most NHL teams have their rosters largely assembled and much of their available cap space committed. Players still searching for work increasingly have to decide whether to accept less money, less term or simply an opportunity to earn a contract in training camp.
That doesn’t mean Stanley is destined for a PTO. But we are entering the time of year when it becomes a legitimate possibility.
For Winnipeg, meanwhile, the sequence represents an impressive bit of asset management.
Chevy and the Jets resisted the temptation to commit long-term money to a player enjoying an unexpected offensive breakout. Instead, they moved Stanley at what may have been the absolute peak of his value and turned him and Schenn into Rosén, Bryson and two draft picks.
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Stanley could still sign tomorrow. He could land a perfectly respectable one-year contract, re-establish himself as an everyday NHL defenceman and take another run at unrestricted free agency next summer.
But whatever happens from here, it’s difficult to imagine his market returning to where it appeared to be in January. Let’s re-phrase that: his market will never return to the height it reached midway through the 2025-26 season.
At one point, Logan Stanley was staring down the possibility of a $25-million payday. Now seven months later, he’s simply looking for a place to play. Talk about fumbling the bag.
