The business and economics of the NHL are changing, and it’s completely disrupted player contracts and certain elements of team-building strategy.We have a booming salary cap and a new era of player empowerment. The weakness of this year’s unrestricted free-agency class was the catalyst for a wild trade market. Leo Carlsson’s shocking five-year, $90 million offer sheet from Philadelphia, which Anaheim ultimately matched, will have major ramifications for the restricted free-agent marketplace moving forward.With the dust beginning to settle on the offseason, let’s reflect on some trends in how the NHL is shifting. We’re not going to dive into the player empowerment angle or the effect of the Carlsson offer sheet, as those topics are too large (they would deserve their own stories) for the scope of this piece.NHL offer sheets are just businessSean Gentille and Sean McIndoeThe RFA market is explodingThe RFA market is changing completely, with young players getting the bag sooner than ever. It’s deserved because in the 2010s, it felt like many impact players were criminally underpaid during their RFA years and then, ironically, overpaid when they became UFA-eligible. Player salaries weren’t aligned with aging curves, but that’s definitely shifting.Carlsson’s $18 million AAV offer sheet has completely disrupted the marketplace for franchise forwards coming off their ELCs. Pavel Dorofeyev inked a giant, seven-year, $11 million AAV deal with the Rangers despite being a winger with a career-high of 64 points.Nearly all RFAs are benefiting from this new cap world, not just the cream of the crop. Jack Drury, for example, an above-average bottom-six center coming off a 27-point season, earned a lucrative five-year, $22.5 million contract with Nashville after being traded there.Young defensemen coming off their ELCs — even ones that aren’t fully established or proven — are being paid more handsomely on their second contracts than ever before. In the flat-cap era, only star No. 1 defenders such as Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes and Miro Heiskanen were earning massive long-term contracts. Everyone who fell short of that franchise defenseman bar usually settled for cheaper bridge deals and was forced to wait until their third contract to get their huge paydays. The contracts were quite cheap, even after you look at cap hit percentage and convert those AAVs to 2026-27 equivalent figures.