With Kirill Kaprizov off the board, Golden Knights center Jack Eichel is now arguably the top pending unrestricted free agent in the 2026 class. In a recent appearance on Daily Faceoff’s The Sheet (video link), David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported that the hang-up in those conversations appears to be term more than money. Financially speaking, he pointed to the $14MM AAV on Leon Draisaitl’s contract as one that stands as a reasonable comparable with Eichel’s price tag likely to come in somewhere near that mark on a max-term agreement. But at this point, talks appear to be relatively slow with the two sides evidently not on the same page for how long they’d like this contract to be.